COMPANY BREAKS OUT PLANS FOR PRISON; TENNESSEE FIRM STILL MUST DEAL WITH DESERT TORTOISE.Byline: Jim Skeen Daily News Staff Writer A Tennessee Tennessee, state, United States Tennessee (tĕn`əsē', tĕn'əsē`), state in the south-central United States. company plans to begin construction of a prison this spring and have the facility ready to be occupied by June 1999, although it has no contract yet for its use. Corrections Corp. of America is planning to build a 2,000-bed prison - estimated to cost $80 million to $100 million - in the desert near 20 Mule Team Parkway, about five miles northeast of downtown California City. The prison will employ more than 400 people, officials said. ``We're shooting for opening June 1999, which may sound very aggressive - and it is,'' said David Myers, the company's West Coast president. The company is in the process of completing the environmental impact report required for the project. It is in discussions with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department about mitigating mit·i·gate v. mit·i·gat·ed, mit·i·gat·ing, mit·i·gates v.tr. To moderate (a quality or condition) in force or intensity; alleviate. See Synonyms at relieve. v.intr. To become milder. the loss of habitat for the desert tortoise desert tortoise see gopherus agassizii. , which is considered a threatened species by the federal government. The company might be required to provide up to 105 acres to the nearby Desert Tortoise Natural Area The Desert Tortoise Natural Area (DTNA) is a 39.5 square mile area northeast of California City, California set aside for the California State Reptile, the Desert Tortoise. preserve as compensation. The company is using a ``build it and they will come'' philosophy for the prison. The company does not have a contract yet to provide prison beds with either the federal or state governments. However, the company expects they will have a contract in hand when the prison is ready to open. California City officials have been lobbying for a prison since 1989, after watching Lancaster leaders fight a losing battle to keep a prison from being built there. Resolutions supporting a prison in California City were approved by the City Council and by the Kern Kern, river, 155 mi (249 km) long, rising in the S Sierra Nevada Mts., E Calif., and flowing south, then southwest to a reservoir in the extreme southern part of the San Joaquin valley. The river has Isabella Dam as its chief facility. County Board of Supervisors The examples and perspective in this article or section may represent an unduly geographically limited view of the subject. Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. The Board of Supervisors is the body governing counties in the U.S. . Since then, a series of bills has been introduced in the state Legislature A state legislature may refer to a legislative branch or body of a political subdivision in a federal system. The following legislatures exist in the following political subdivisions: |
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