From Inquest:
Mitch Whitaker wants to be able to hunt with his birds. A certified “master falconer,” he hunts throughout the year with raptors on his land in Roxana, an unincorporated community in Letcher County, Kentucky. Whitaker is a fourth-generation resident of the county, hunting with and rehabilitating injured birds of prey on the same land that his grandfather defended from coal companies when they attempted to take it from him — as they did around the Central Appalachian coalfields, using the nefarious broad form deed in order to claim the valuable mineral rights under the ground of residents’ homes.
These days, however, coal companies no longer threaten to take his family’s land and livelihood. Instead, it’s the United States Bureau of Prisons.
In 2015, after nearly 10 years of discussion and planning, the Bureau of Prisons launched its official scoping and siting period to build United States Penitentiary Letcher and an adjoining Federal Prison Camp — a maximum security prison and minimum security facility on 700 acres in Roxana, a small portion of which would include Whitaker’s land. In the ensuing years, the BOP would conduct the environmental review required by federal law and would collaborate with local officials in a campaign to site the prisons. In response, a coalition of local organizers, landowners like Mitch, national environmental attorneys, and people in prison formed in opposition. Continue reading >>>
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