
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 10, 1991                   TAG: 9103100172
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: E-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: JONESVILLE                                LENGTH: Short

SITES FOR PRISON SOUGHT

Lee County officials who have pinpointed one potential location for a federal prison have been told to come up with four more sites.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons plans to build a 1,000-bed facility somewhere in the county. "It's just a question of where we want to put it," Lee County Administrator Neal Evans said Friday.

"The next step for the county is to be looking for potential sites for the prison that might be acceptable sites to the Bureau of Prisons," Evans said.

Bureau officials already have looked at a site just west of Jonesville near the proposed Lee County airport. The site has met all preliminary engineering studies.

Evans said the county will look at other sites for the minimum- to medium-security prison over the next year. Funding requests to Congress probably will not begin until mid-1992, and funding for the $50 million project probably will not be available until 1993, Evans said.

The final site will still have to pass the environmental impact study.

The 250-acre site already identified was offered for about $900,000, which some county officials privately have said is too much. The supervisors became deadlocked in an earlier vote to buy the property for that amount.

by CNB