For Immediate Release 11/27/18
Contacts:
Emily Posner, Attorney for Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons, (207) 930-5232
Prisoners File Lawsuit Against New Federal Facility on Toxic Strip Mine Site in Kentucky
PICTURES AVAILABLE
Washington, DC — Lawyers with the Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons and the Abolitionist Law Center (ALC) and have filed a federal environmental lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) representing prisoners from across the country who say they were not properly informed about $444 million dollar plans to construct a new federal prison on top of a former coal mine, next to an active mine and coal sludge pond, which could house them in the near future.
Twenty-one prisoners are listed as plaintiffs, along with the ALC. The complete court filing can be found here. Pictures from the lawsuit and the prison site here.
The lawsuit comes after more than three years of a controversial Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process conducted by the BOP and the consulting firm, Cardno. Public comments submitted by attorney Emily Posner in 2017 on behalf of the ALC can be found here.
The lawsuit states that federal prisoners should have been considered as parties with legally-required access to EIS documents, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The EIS process outlines a wide range of social and environmental impacts, including potential health risks and alternatives to construction, which prisoners are uniquely situated to provide insight on and particularly vulnerable to the results stemming from the final EIS approval which occurred earlier this year.
The prisoners are asking the courts to halt progress on the plan until they have received access to documents for review and comment.
One prisoner listed on the lawsuit, Manuel Gauna, stated: “I believe that construction of this particular prison is neglecting the people in Letcher and the people in the prison system. We as prisoners should have had the opportunity to participate in this public comment period for this project. Correctional officers are overworked at my facility [FCI Mendota]. I wish that the BOP would spend the money that it wants to use to build a new prison to properly staff this prison.”
Another prisoner named in the suit, Mark Jordan, currently at USP Tucson, explained, “Just last week President Trump publicly announced his support for the FIRST STEP Act, a reform bill aimed at reducing the federal prison population. The Letcher County project flies directly in the face of this reform narrative.”
Jordan continues, “Despite serious environmental and health hazards, the Justice Department solicited public comment from everyone except those most directly impacted by the project, the prisoners themselves. Health and safety issues aside, this is but a needless pork barrel project ushered through by Kentucky Representative Hal Rogers at a time when public opinion and policy-makers are trying to reduce the population of the federal prison system, not build more prisons merely for the sake of building more prisons.”
Prisoners aren’t the only ones concerned about the facility. Letcher County resident Elvenia Blair, who lives close the proposed prison, is also opposed to the plan.
Blair, who has been contesting the prison for several years, states that “Eastern Kentucky has the highest cancer rate in the nation. Forcing prisoners, correctional officers and their families to live, work and visit this environment is discrimination.”
Blair is also a board member of Friends of the Lilley Cornett Woods and North Fork Watershed, one of multiple local organizations which have expressed concerns about the impact of prison construction.
She continues, “With coal mining on its way out, the natural history of our mountains and wildlife is what we have left to attract people to the area. That will be disturbed with barbed wire, shooting ranges, heavy traffic flow of transporting prisoners. We won’t see economic growth from this.”
Emily Posner, Attorney for the Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons, also notes, “Federal legislation indicates a downward trend in prison population. My clients are in agreement with local residents who feel that there are much better ways to generate federal support in Appalachian communities than wasting hundreds of millions on an unnecessary prison.”
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Abolitionist Law Center is a public interest law firm organized for the purpose of abolishing class and race based mass incarceration in the United States. ALC has participated in every NEPA public comment period related to BOP’s proposed prison in Letcher County, KY.
Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons conducts grassroots organizing, advocacy and direct action to challenge the prison system which puts prisoners at risk of dangerous environmental conditions, as well as impacting surrounding communities and ecosystems by their construction and operation.
The Abolitionist Law Center, our clients, and our supporters have made important strides in overturning laws aimed at censoring and silencing prisoners’ voices, in challenging decades-long solitary confinement, and in pushing for life-saving treatment for hepatitis C+ prisoners. Over the last few years, the Abolitionist Law Center has:
The Abolitionist Law Center is a prison litigation firm committed to ending mass incarceration through movement work. Our staff is compromised not only of lawyers but of activists and those who are formerly incarcerated. As a movement lawyering organization, our primary method for winning the abolition of mass incarceration is to amplify the voices of activists inside and outside the prison walls. We understand that social change is a political process, and the most effective way to achieve deep and sustained improvements is through the organization and mobilization of communities. With this in mind, we have successfully fought to protect the rights of prisoners to engage in political speech and self-education. We have successfully helped to push back on the overuse of solitary confinement (which is often used as retaliation for advocacy from within the prisons). We have expanded our work to defend movement activists who are not incarcerated to ensure the work continues. We have volunteered as legal observers to support the right to protest, and we have helped educate our communities about paths to ending mass incarceration.
With your support, we increased our efforts to abolish Death By Incarceration (DBI), also known as life without parole, to end long-term solitary confinement, and to force prison administrators to provide curative treatment for prisoners with hepatitis C. We hired new staff members focused on these issues, co-founded the western Pennsylvania chapter of the Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration (
This summer, we published a landmark report: 
Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PADOC) on a number of unexpected fronts. The PADOC suddenly announced a new communications policy that would prevent individuals who are incarcerated from receiving any material from the outside world. Instead, they would be forced to buy expensive, digital books as well an electronic-tablet to read them on and receive photocopies of all legal and regular mail. If the individuals were too poor to purchase either item, they would no longer be able to receive any more papers, books, magazines, and other periodicals. The PADOC asserted the changes were necessary in order to prevent drug trafficking and increase safety. However, they did not present any evidence to prove drugs were coming into the facilities through the book program or via attorney communications. While this created an immediate backlash, it also had a chilling effect on the attorney client privilege. Many institutions around the state went on lockdown status preventing any communications in or outside of the prison, then mail was being opened outside and screened outside the presence of the recipients. The new mail policies have led to missing mail, incorrectly copied mail, and returned mail. Moreover, as DOC could not guarantee the confidentiality of the mail, many attorneys ceased contacting their clients who were incarcerated. As such, the ALC joined with many organizations to file a major class action lawsuit against the PADOC in late October challenging the legal mail policy. While that suit is ongoing, we were able to successfully lobby along with organizations such as Book’ Em and Books Thru Bars to get the PADOC to back down on their efforts to censor and limit reading in prisons and exploit the incarcerated: the books-to-prisoner programs are resuming operations and able to send books to people incarcerated in the PADOC once again.
This year we were able to help get Debbie and Mike Africa released from prison after they served over a combined 80 years of incarceration. Their release was the result of a long-fought battle with the parole board. This partnership represents our commitment to fight for political prisoners in Pennsylvania. We still have so much work to be done as there are still fiv more MOVE members that we have yet to help come home: Janet, Janine, Chuck, Eddie and Delbert. We have filed federal habeas corpus petitions for Janet and Janine Africa, whose parole was denied based on misrepresentations of the record by the Parole Board. The MOVE members who are still in prison are all entitled to release on parole given their exemplary prison record, examples of mentorship, and the complete lack of any risk they present to public safety.
The Abolitionist Law Center’s work to abolish solitary confinement resulted in some important victories over the last two year. Arthur Cetewayo Johnson walked out of his solitary confinement cell and into the general prison population following 37 years in solitary, after we won a preliminary injunction on his behalf 
Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Abolitionist Law Center utilizes education and advocacy in order to further the prison abolition movement. This year we were able to host the 
CADBI chapters have been started in Reading, York, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Delaware, and Chester County. Formerly incarcerated people and the family and loved ones of those serving DBI sentences in Pennsylvania have been driving this growing movement. In early October CADBI successfully mobilized more than 400 people to rally in Harrisburg against DBI sentences. ALC’s work against DBI, in the courts and in the streets, is done in close collaboration and comradeship with and service to CADBI and our shared goals.
Help the Fight to Free MOVE Members
In May of 2018, MOVE members Debbie, Janet and Janine Africa went before the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole. Attorneys from ALC and PLO prepared packets in support of each of the three women. Debbie Africa was granted parole and released from State Correctional Institution (SCI) Cambridge Springs on June 16, after 39 years and 10 months of incarceration. Janet and Janine Africa, however, were denied parole despite having virtually identical Department of Corrections records as Debbie.