Barring unforeseen problems, construction of a new federal prison just across the Wyoming County line is expected to begin Oct. 2, according to officials.

The U. S. Bureau of Prisons awarded a design contract to Clark Design Build LLC of Bethesda, Md., for $7.3 million for the new facility last spring.

U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., has been working to protect the previously approved prison project since the current White House administration proposed to cancel the $142 million in U. S. Bureau of Prisons construction funds earlier this year.

Byrd worked to win prior congressional approval of those funds for the prison to be located in McDowell County’s industrial park, near the Wyoming County border.

"The country’s current correctional facilities are overcrowded, and inmate populations are expected to continue to climb," Byrd said previously. "McDowell County wants this facility and the jobs and investments that will accompany it."

Both U. S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller and U. S. Rep. Nick J. Rahall have been key allies in securing the project.

Officials believe the new facility, along with construction of both the Coalfields Expressway and King Coal Highway which will intersect at the proposed prison site, will be an enormous economic boom to the two-county area.

The 1,280-bed prison is expected to employ approximately 330 men and women and infuse as much as $35 million each year into the local economy. While 40 percent of those employed at the prison will be veterans of the federal prison system, the remaining 60 percent are expected to be hired locally, according to officials