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The federal government has approved a new federal prison in Letcher County, Kentucky, according to an announcement Monday. The House Appropriations Committee has allocated $500 million for the construction of the facilities.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons said it will acquire approximately 500 acres of land in Roxana, Kentucky, to build and operate the federal correctional facility and camp, designed to house 1,408 adults. It will take about a year for design work and property acquisitions before construction can begin, according to the announcement by Republican Rep. Hal Rogers.
The construction itself will take about three yearsaccording to the Lexington Herald Leader. No contractor has been publicly announced for the project.
The BOP’s decision cites the need for a modern facility as the existing facilities are aging and obsolete and “no longer cost-effective or sustainable to operate and maintain.”
The BOP initially approved construction of a new prison in 2018, but withdrew approval in 2019 following a lawsuit filed by the Abolitionist Law Center, which argued the facility would harm the environment and expose inmates to toxic pollutants in former coal mining. the Herald Leader reported.
The Kentucky chapter of the Sierra Club, an environmental group, says building on the site would seriously endangering the surrounding areaincluding the destruction of 120 acres of forest habitat and 2 acres of wetlands.
Rogers said the new facility will bring 325 permanent jobs with $43 million in annual wages and salaries to the region, according to the Herald Leader. But these figures have been refuted.
In a July op-ed by Attica Scott, a Louisville Democrat who served six years in the state House of Representatives; Artie Ann Bates, Letcher County psychiatrist and writer; and Judah Schept, author of “Coal, Cages Crisis: the Rise of the Prison Economy in Central Appalachia,” the authors say the claim that this would be the fourth federal prison in eastern Kentucky would create jobs. they were unfounded.
In addition, the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy published a study claiming that three previous federal prisons did not pay off in the region. Opponents also say another prison isn’t necessary, given that at least seven prisons have opened in eastern Kentucky since 1990.
