BRUSH VALLEY- The Trout Run portion of Brush Valley is being discussed to be used for the construction of the new Northumberland County Prison. Committee member of the Brush Valley Preservation Association Nicole Faraguna says they are strongly against this idea because it would require a great deal of infrastructure.
She says, “This land has been for sale for 20 years plus, and it has not budged. The reason might be because we are talking about a development project on this sight that would require a certain amount of infrastructure. So, the county would eventually be subsidizing the infrastructure of the sight, which is completely wrong when we have all of these other industrialized sights that are already prepped and ready to go.”
Faraguna says it would also not benefit the county because the prison would not be creating new jobs, “If the county was to consider a reasonably sized prison, then the existing prison sight might work and there could still be some balance in preserving some of the historic integrity. We are talking about transferring jobs from Sunbury to Coal Township so there really isn’t any job creation. So, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
The Trout Run portion of Brush Valley is just one of the locations being discussed for the new prison. For more information about the Susquehanna Valley Progressives interests on saving the area, visit svprogress.org (Emily Engle)