VISIT TO PROMOTE PRISON EXPANSION

Officials To Hear Expansion Concerns

Confronted by a voluminous list of concerns about the proposed expansion of
the Lompoc Federal Penitentiary, authorities with the Bureau of Prisons are
making a special visit to the Central Coast this week with hopes of moving
the project forward.

More than a year ago, the bureau announced a proposal to expand the current
federal prison complex northwest of town, to add another 1,000-inmate
high-security facility with several hundred staff members.

Last September, the bureau released its draft environmental impact
statement, an inch-thick document concluding there would be no significant
impacts if the facility is built.

But virtually everyone involved in the plan locally says otherwise. The
city of Lompoc and the county want the federal government to consider a
number of measures to ease impacts to housing, roads, schools and public
safety.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, top officials with the bureau's site selection
office will meet with city and county representatives to hear the detailed
concerns.

Meetings will also likely take place with the Environmental Defense Center
and the staff of Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara.

"It's very important to balance the stated need for the new prison with the
protection of the Lompoc community's health, safety and welfare," said
Heather Baker, a Santa Barbara County planner. "We want them to understand
that the document is inadequate. Our goal is for all the impacts to be
fully mitigated if the prison comes to town.

"We would expect them to mitigate just as any other developer would, even
though they're working under NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) and
we have have no permitting authority."

Marlene Demery, Lompoc's community services director, said the city sent
the bureau a 40-page letter in September, detailing specific questions it
had about the environmental report. Demery said the city has yet to receive
a response, and she hopes that's what the meeting will involve.

David Dorworth, the bureau's chief of site selection, is confused about the
complaints he's heard about the draft environmental document.

"You would have thought we're trying to build a nuclear power plant,"
Dorworth said. "We were taken aback, especially in light of the
neutral-to-favorable responses we've received from the regulatory community."

The bureau proposed this week's meetings, he said, to determine the range
of priorities desired from local governments. Addressing each of the
comments, he said, would create a phone book-sized response, and that's not
going to happen.

"We're inclined to go forward with the final documents, unless we're
convinced of valid objections," he said. "We don't claim it's a perfect
document. It's adequate. It meets our standards. I'll admit, if we're
talking about relocating the spotted owl, this doesn't meet that level of
scientific adequacy. But we're talking about building a prison."

Ultimately, he believes, "No document would satisfy them."

Dorworth said that local governments have attributed "every ill" in society
to the proposal, such as overcrowded schools and lack of affordable
housing. Those situations currently exist, he said, and can't all be linked
to the penitentiary.

The county, which is working with Lompoc officials, prepared its own
response to the document, and expects its issues to be addressed by the bureau.

"Affordable housing, public services and safety are our primary issues,"
said Baker, who works on regional planning projects. The document, she
added, does not adequately describe the project, does not analyze the
required project alternatives, and does not consider the cumulative effect
of the project.

Those issues, she said, are "important when figuring out where the impacts
will occur and what mitigations they need to provide."

Dorworth estimated there are about 1,000 different comments from the city,
county and Environmental Defense Center. He and his superiors say the
document has been fine-tuned, and well reviewed by agencies such as the
Environmental Protection Agency.

"In this case, these concerns raised by the city and county have not been
echoed by the federal regulatory community," Dorworth said. "Therefore,
that leaves us perplexed as to how this document can receive such
widespread acceptance, but if you read those reactions, it's the worst
thing ever prepared."

The complaints voiced locally are echoed elsewhere around the nation, as
the bureau attempts to ease prison overcrowding while communities face an
influx of inmates and correctional officers.

In a project similar to the one proposed for Lompoc, the bureau is building
a $100 million federal penitentiary in Wayne County, Penn. The plan brought
about the creation of the Organization of Concerned Citizens of Wayne
County. The group believes that the project has excluded the impact on
local citizens and ignored their concerns about the proposed site. At least
one public hearing erupted into a near riot.

The new penitentiary would be about a half-mile from Gail Barna's South
Canaan Township home and dairy farm, and about the same distance from the
elementary school where she teaches.

"I don't want to get up every morning and look at gun towers," said Barna,
one of the organizers of the concerned citizens group.

She and others don't want school children exposed to the view of the
penitentiary, but she says her committee had no luck pleading with the
local school district to get involved.

"I can't for the life of me understand why they'd want it there," she said.
"They must figure it's the federal government; they'll do what they want to."

Barna and others don't believe the bureau's contention that it "will not go
where it's not wanted," a promise frequently voiced by federal officials in
Lompoc during public hearings.

"Canaan Township doesn't want them, although the elected officials of the
township and county do, and they are still pressing on," Barna said. "They
do appear to be getting opposition wherever they are trying to go."

But not in Coleman, Fla. Rural Coleman is already home to low- and
medium-security facilities, and a 1,500-inmate expansion is almost completed.

"They're super neighbors in the community, providing good employment and
good benefits," said Steve Smith, director of the Sumter County Economic
Development Council.

Public hearings on the expansion didn't elicit "any negative concerns," and
the community is experiencing benefits from the additional staff,
particularly at small businesses.

"There's always going to be someone who says, 'Put it someplace else,'E"
Smith said. "But the economic impact of the prison, with these employment
numbers -- they put big bucks in the economy .E.E. The economic impact is
astronomical."

In Santa Barbara County, this week's meetings are certain to be lengthy, if
not contentious, as each entity stakes out its interests.

"The U.S. Bureau of Prisons may not be used to dealing with a community
such as ours, that is astute, involved, concerned and prepared," Baker
said. "That is the type of community they're dealing with here. They need
to remember that when they come here."

The bureau is still moving forward with plans to issue a final
environmental statement, which will incorporate the responses sent by local
governments and residents. The bureau, Dorworth said, wants to "resolve
this sometime this calendar year."

He would have liked to have been further along by now. The need for beds
nationwide is urgent, he said.

"We're gaining 1,000 inmates a month (nationally)," Dorworth said.
"Unfortunately, no one sees any end to this. We need to increase our
capacity. We're looking at private prisons, expanding existing facilities,
building new ones. It's not like Lompoc is our only solution. It's part of
our solution.

"Will we do it at all costs? Absolutely not. If we decide to go forward,
it'll be for good reasons."