ROXANA, Ky. — The U.S. Bureau of Prisons has given the go-ahead for a new federal prison to be constructed in Letcher County.

BOP Director Collette Peters published her agency’s decision to move forward with the purchase of 500 acres at Roxana for the purpose of building a $500 million medium-security prison and minimum-security prison camp, holding more than 1,400 prisoners, combined.

“I’m thrilled that the many years of hard work by local leaders in Letcher County have paid off,” U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers said, in announcing the decision. “They have improved broadband and strengthened local infrastructure, in effort to show the BOP that they were committed to supporting a new prison and the hundreds of jobs it will bring to the region. Director Peters said the BOP is going to build a new modern, state-of-the-art facility in Letcher County that focuses on safety and wellness.”

The Bureau initially considered four sites in Letcher County, but two were eliminated early on. That left the Roxana site and another at Payne Gap, but the Payne Gap site would have required more extensive site preparation.

“We have worked for nearly 20 years to bring these much-needed jobs to Letcher County,” said Elwood Cornett, cofounder of the Letcher County Planning Commission. “Regardless of the decision, our county has benefitted from all the improvements that have been made to prepare for this prison. I can’t thank Congressman Rogers enough for believing in us and being our champion along the way.”

The Bureau estimates it will take a year for design work and property acquisitions before construction can begin.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — A proposal to build a medium-security federal prison and prison camp in Letcher County is one step closer to becoming a reality, following an environmental review by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers announced that development on Friday. He said the BOP has indicated it plans to move forward with the project. The congressman applauded the news, which he said could mean a boost for the local economy.

“Building a medium-security prison and camp in Letcher County will add more than 300 jobs in our region, employing people from surrounding counties, and providing other economic development opportunities,” Rogers said.

The Draft Environmental Impact Statement now classifies construction of the prison in Letcher County as the BOP’s “preferred alternative.”

”Based upon potential environmental impacts applicable to each site, the FBOP has determined that the proposed development at the Roxanna Site to be the Preferred Alternative,” the report concludes. “The Preferred Alternative meets the project objectives, is technically feasible, would have fewer natural resource and other environmental impacts, and incorporates measures to avoid, minimize or mitigate environmental impacts to the extent practicable.”

Despite the congressman’s support, the issue has divided Letcher County, with some seeing it as a potential economic windfall, and others as an unnecessary expense that will mean little for locals.

But Rogers sees opposition to the prison as shortsighted, because failing to build it in Letcher County will mean its benefits go elsewhere.

“If this new prison facility isn’t built in Letcher County, it will be built in another state and Kentucky will lose out on the funding and opportunities that come with it,” Rogers said. “So, I am pleased to see that the DEIS confirmed that the site in Roxanna meets the environmental requirements.”

Friday’s development is not the final word on the matter. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement recommending the project move forward is now subject to public review until April 15.

To learn more about the project and how to comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, visit https://www.proposed-fci-letchercountyky.com/.

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WHITESBURG, Ky. (Kentucky News Connection) — After Republican Congressman Hal Rogers inserted language into the latest House appropriations bill which would bypass environmental regulatory processes related to the building of a $500 million federal prison in Letcher County, environmental experts say clearing the region’s old-growth forest to build the prison would permanently degrade the environment and increase the likelihood of severe flood damage.

Julia Finch, Kentucky chapter director for the Sierra Club, said construction of the more 1,400-bed facility and prison camp would remove natural flood buffers, leaving the landscape unstable and communities at heightened risk.

“The footprint of USP Letcher is approximately 570 acres,” Finch pointed out. “According to our research, it requires clear-cutting of over 120 acres of forest habitat, and that’s where those endangered species live. Excavating and grading an additional 59 acres, destroying wetlands, and building an entirely new wastewater utility in the region.”

Section 219 of the bill strips federal courts of jurisdiction to hear any legal challenges to the prison’s construction, including those brought under federal environmental protection laws. Supporters of the project argued the prison would help boost the local tax base and strengthen the workforce.

Research shows former coal mine sites leach arsenic and radon, which could pose public health risks for incarcerated people and correctional staff.

Tom Sexton, organizer for the Kentucky chapter of the Sierra Club, said it remains an open question whether former coal mine sites are safe in the long term for any kind of repurposing.

“But I think before we get too far down the road on those kinds of conversations, I think it behooves us to accurately assess how safely these sites can be accessed and be occupied by people,” Sexton contended.

According to the Equal Justice Initiative, hundreds of prisons nationwide are built on or near toxic sites, and in many, incarcerated people and staff have been exposed to contaminated water and pesticides.

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WHITESBURG, Ky. — A more than $500 million proposed federal prison project, which would sit on a former coal mine site in Letcher County, is receiving a renewed push by Rep. Hal Rogers.

Rogers inserted language into the latest House appropriations bill to fast-track construction of a 1,400-bed federal prison.

Dr. Artie Ann Bates, a member of the group Concerned Letcher Countians, said the majority of residents do not want another correctional facility, especially one requiring building a new water and sewer treatment plant. She argued residents and small businesses could instead use the funding to jump-start local economies.

“There’s absolutely no reason to build another new prison and put it in a super remote area with no infrastructure that currently doesn’t have the population to staff it,” Bates contended. “And then also, we had this major flood last year, and our county has not recovered from that.”

The proposed federal correctional facility and prison camp would be the fourth federal prison to be built in Eastern Kentucky’s 5th congressional district, and one of the most expensive. The Federal Bureau of Prisons said the prison would help meet the ongoing need for modern federal correctional facilities and infrastructure in the nation’s mid-Atlantic region.

Emily Posner, general counsel for the group Voice of the Experienced, said the language change would allow the prison to move forward without fully going through the National Environmental Policy Act process. She pointed out residents would no longer be able to participate in the regulatory process by commenting and providing suggestions, and reviewing the project’s environmental impact statement.

“To remove our right to seek judicial review of the environmental impact statement is just such an undemocratic move in the Appropriations Subcommittee,” Posner emphasized. “It’s just really shocking.”

Posner added similar to the language in the debt ceiling bill passed this year to greenlight construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, the change would effectively squash any legal attempt to challenge the building of the prison.

“The other thing that section 219 does is, it strips citizens the right to sue an agency or, in this case, to sue the Bureau of Prisons, by seeking judicial review in the courts to make sure that the environmental impact statement actually complies with NEPA,” Posner stressed.

According to research by the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, three federal prisons built in nearby Clay, Martin and McCreary counties had no impact on economic development, and long-standing problems have continued or even worsened two to three decades after the federal prisons opened.

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A former Pikeville business owner has been sentenced in federal court for bankruptcy fraud. 64-year-old Barry E. Sanders, the former owner and CEO of Trailblazers, Inc., an auto and truck parts supply business formerly located in Pikeville and Lexington, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison. Sanders had previously admitted in U.S. District Court that, while Trailblazers, Inc. was in the process of contemplating bankruptcy in the summer of 2013, he transferred $315,000.00 from the business to his personal banking accounts, using four cashier’s checks. Sanders then knowingly concealed the receipt of those funds, by failing to report the cash transfers on Trailblazer’s corporate bankruptcy filings as required by federal bankruptcy law. Under federal law, Sanders must serve 85 percent of his prison sentence. Sanders will be under the supervision of the U.S. Probation Office for three years following his release.

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Lexington, KY — A Johnson County man has been sentenced in federal court for embezzling from a Lexington business. 55-year-old Franklin Fletcher of Oil Springs was sentenced to 65 months in federal prison by Chief United States District Judge Danny C. Reeves, for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Fletcher was ordered to pay $374,192.89 in restitution. Fletcher pleaded guilty in May of this year and admitted to embezzling from his former employer, NYTIS Exploration from September 2012 until March 2018. According to court records, Fletcher abused his authority as an Accounting Manager to generate checks that he would deposit into his own accounts. He also concealed his crime by writing the checks in another individual’s name and forging her signature on the endorsement line. This was not Fletcher’s first act of embezzlement. Records indicate that from some point until 2009, Fletcher embezzled nearly $1,000,000 from this then-employer abusing his position in accounting at that Kentucky energy company. Under federal law, Fletcher must serve 85 percent of his prison sentence, and upon his release, he will be under the supervision of the United States Probation Office for three years.

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