By Mary Catherine Brooks
Wyoming County Bureau Chief
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Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of articles concerning the impact of the new federal prison to the regional area.
Federal Corrections Institution McDowell — the new federal prison recently completed in the Indian Ridge Industrial Park in McDowell County, just across the Wyoming County border — began nearly 15 years ago as a grassroots effort that involved officials from both McDowell and Wyoming counties, according to Sen. Richard Browning, D-Wyoming.
The objective was to create jobs — good paying jobs with good benefits, according to officials.
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Though federal inmates will not begin arriving until late autumn, nearly two-thirds of the 330 jobs projected to be created by the facility have been filled. Half of those have been “local hires,” or people who live in the region — McDowell, Wyoming, and Mercer counties, according to officials. The other half, veterans of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, have transferred from other federal prisons across the country.
All employees — cooks, secretaries, guards, among other positions — are considered correctional officers and undergo the same training. With the exceptions of clergy and doctors, all have to qualify with a weapon.
“These are good paying jobs,” explained Christy Laxton, director of the Wyoming County Economic Development Authority.
“One of the hopes is that our young people can work there, be able to stay home and have a job with good pay, good insurance and benefits,” Laxton said. “They won’t have to move to another state to find work.”
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The federal facility is projected to pump about $38 million annually into the local economy and create hundreds of jobs in support industries.
“The bigger economic impact the prison is going to have is hard to anticipate,” she said.
For example, the prison has needs that will have to be provided by the community, including dry cleaning services, uniforms, pharmaceuticals, pest control, among others, she said.
Some of the services, such as the dry cleaning services, are fewer locally now than in years past. However, the prison will create a new need that will have to be filled, creating support jobs for the federal compound.
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Nearly half of the 1,152 inmates to be housed in the medium-security mountain top complex will be made up of drug offenders.
The miles of razor-topped fencing encloses 44 acres. The total compound — including the warehouse, the kitchen facilities, the minimum-security camp where another 128 male offenders will serve out their sentences — covers nearly 450 acres. The buildings cover just over 14 acres on the compound.
Other prisoners will include those convicted on weapons, explosives, or arson violations, robbery, immigration offenses, among others.
The median inmate age will be about 35 years old, with a median sentence length of about eight years.
Most inmates will come from a 500-mile radius to encourage visits with family, according to prison officials.
That will translate into hundreds of new visitors into the area, Laxton noted.
These visitors will need restaurants, convenience stores, overnight lodging, among other services.
“We’ll have people from a lot of different cultures, folks who eat different kinds of food, use different (products) than we do,” Laxton explained.
“Local stores will have more traffic in and out. Restaurants will have more traffic in and out,” Laxton said.
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The area is already hard-pressed for overnight accommodations for visitors due to the increasingly popular Hatfield-McCoy Recreational Trails.
“This adds to the complication of not having enough housing,” Laxton said.
New housing may come on the mountain top, near the prison compound, Browning noted. That new housing has been discussed for several years, part of an effort to remove residents from repeated flood damages.
“We’ve had expressions of interest from banking institutions, from power-generating companies, from Walmart and others,” Browning said, “but there is nothing concrete yet.”
Officials, however, do expect giant retailers, restaurants, and other job-creating entities to follow the prison opening.
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The Coalfields Expressway and the King Coal Highway, the first four-lane roads for both Wyoming and McDowell counties, will intersect near the federal prison. The Coalfields Expressway has been leveled to grade on the 500-acre site.
Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., included nearly $1 million toward the cost of constructing the interchange in the most recent federal appropriations bill.
