Federal officials are looking into a report that dust at a computer salvaging plant at Atwater poses a danger for inmates and officers.

Federal occupational safety officials are investigating complaints that prison labor crews and staff are exposed to toxic contaminants in a recycling plant at a U.S. penitentiary near Modesto.

A safety manager at Atwater federal prison alleged in a January complaint that 120 convicts, along with some supervisory staff and correctional officers, are exposed to potentially dangerous dust containing lead, cadmium and barium from a recycling operation on the prison grounds. Atwater is a high-security men's facility south of Modesto in the San Joaquin Valley.

Convicts use hammers to smash open computers, retrieving internal components that are then reused or sold, said Leroy Smith, the prison safety official who filed the complaint with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration in San Francisco.

Dust with hazardous metals found in computers drifts throughout the factory and warehouse, posing a risk to anyone who comes into contact with it or breathes it, Smith said. The EPA and OSHA have found that long-term exposure to the hazardous metals may cause kidney damage and increase the risk of lung and prostate cancer.

Smith and another prison safety official were so concerned after tests on three inmates showed elevated levels of barium that they recommended the plant be shut down temporarily to fix the problems, he said.

So far, however, the prison has agreed only to superficial fixes, playing down the safety risks in its response to OSHA, Smith said. For that reason, he has decided to go public with his concerns.

Frank Strasheim, federal OSHA's regional administrator in San Francisco, confirmed the probe into Atwater's computer recycling program.