Mushrooms' cloud

By JOAN BARRON, Star-Tribune capital bureau

CHEYENNE -- The Wind River Mushrooms farm at Shoshoni, once a promising prison industries program, has shut down while state officials work on a plan to reactivate the operation.

Doug Tanner, a co-owner, blames a shortage of labor for the decision to stop active production of mushrooms about a month ago. Since then a small crew of four local employees work at the plant filling orders for Wind River Mushroom customers with mushrooms grown elsewhere.

Tanner said he and his nephew, the other co-owner, have not decided what to do with their $8 million investment in the plant.

He said he can't open again without labor.

"I wish I had never seen the state of Wyoming," Tanner said in a recent interview from his office in California.

"I'm sorely disappointed. I thought it was a great opportunity for everybody, for the inmates, for me and for DOC (Department of Corrections). But it didn't turn out that way."

The demise of the mushroom farm has raised questions about Wyoming's ambitions for other prison industries, though state officials say they hope to revive the Shoshoni operation -- and are moving forward with enterprises at other institutions.

Tanner said the Wyoming Department of Corrections "promised me I could have all the labor I could ever use before I agreed to build a farm here. It didn't happen," he said.

Tanner, who has raised mushrooms in California for 40 years, said the inmates from the minimum-security Wyoming Honor Farm at Riverton who worked at the mushroom farm "didn't want to work.They didn't want to pick mushrooms."

Billy Carter, head of the prison industries program for the Wyoming Department of Corrections, said the inmates volunteered to work at the mushroom farm.

"It's their job to manage the work force, establish guidelines, motivate the staff and the workers," Carter said of the plant owners and managers.

"We were not involved and should not have been involved in running their business," he added.

Carter said the department is working on a plan to reactivate the plant and will discuss it with the owners.

The agency, he said, also is working on language in a contract to spell out the responsibilities of all parties so there can be no misunderstanding.

"We're committed to try to make the partnership work," Carter said.

Tedious work

An initial problem with the plant was odor. But Fremont County Commissioner Jane Adamson said the owners installed equipment to curb the smell.

"Then all of a sudden they were having problems cutting the mushrooms," Adamson said. "For a while inmates from the Honor Farm did the work. But it is tedious job to cut the mushrooms out of the bins."

Then the plant hired some trained workers from Guatemala. Tanner said that arrangement ended when officials from the Department of Homeland Security, which now includes the immigration and naturalization service, started checking the workers' credentials and found some in question.

The Guatemalans packed up and were gone. Their departure left only the inmates, and production dropped off sharply.

"The plant itself is wonderful," Adamson said. "The mushrooms are exceptional."

Tanner said the Guatemalans had worked in Colorado for years and he did not know they were illegal immigrants.

Wind River Mushrooms began production of crimini and portabella mushrooms in late 2004 as part of the prison industries program for the Department of Corrections.

The farm is part of the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program, a designation that provides for joint ventures between private companies and prison industries. The certification allows goods developed by inmates to be sold throughout the United States.

Wyoming was one of the last states to get this designation.

Tanner said he agreed to pay the inmates the minimum wage of $5.15 per hour if they could not make enough through their production by the pound.

"At 12 cents a pound, if a guy picks 100 pounds of mushrooms an hour, he makes $12 an hour," Tanner said. "If he picks 50 pounds, he makes $6 an hour."

Work at the Honor Farm pays inmates considerably less than that, he said.

"It was a shame, too, because all we had to do was get the mushroom harvested. We were throwing away more than we were picking," he said.

"I had meetings with the inmates and said we had to get mushrooms picked to stay in business," Tanner added. "They didn't care. Instead of going faster, they slowed down even more."

The plant had 40 to 45 inmates working at one time, peaking at 60.

Other prison industries

Asked if this would put damper on any other prison industries, Carter said that while the setback isn't good, it may help because of the lessons the company and the department learned.

The Wyoming State Penitentiary at Rawlins currently has a print shop in operation and a small "portion pack" operation where inmates prepare separate packs of cleaners and disinfectants for distribution to individual institutions.

Under construction on the hill near the maximum-security south facility at Rawlins is an industries building that will house garment and carpentry shops and an expanded portion pack operation, Carter said. That building won't be completed until summer 2007 because of the need to rebuild the inner walls to meet the fire inspector requirements.

As part of a $17.3 million expansion at the Wyoming Women's Center at Lusk, a building to house a new tilapia fishery is nearly ready. Carter said that once the state fire marshal signs off on the monitoring system, the contractor can come in and install the tanks and filters.

At the Honor Farm in Riverton, an architectural firm, Tobin and Associates of Cheyenne, is designing plans for a new building to house a single-family-home building program. This is a joint venture with the Wyoming Community Development Authority and Central Wyoming College at Riverton, which will provide instruction and supervision of the inmates.