The closure of Nevada State Prison

You can read the latest about the closure of Nevada State Prison here. Certainly this means a change of address for all the inmates there, including Lorne.  Many people think that prisons are located near towns and other services.  However, in the state of Nevada, that is not the case.  With the closure of NSP, about 500 inmates will be shipped south to High Desert, another 200 or so will be shipped to other prisons within the state of NV.  In case you don't know where High Desert is, it is about an hour outside Las Vegas.  In the middle of nowhere...literally.  There are a host of problems with this facility, lack of water being the biggest issue with this place.  Water is already rationed there so I can't imagine the situation will be improved with the addition of 500 additional inmates.  NV is a very mineral rich state...for that reason even drinking water has to be brought in due to high amounts of naturally occurring arsenic in the local water supply.  You can find an article form the CDC regarding the cancer cluster in Fallon, NV here. Same state, just in the northern section.  Did I mention that southern Nevada is known for above ground atomic bomb testing back in the 1950's? See a map here.  Yes, let's put a prison in the midst of a known fallout area for radiation.  Genius!! Let's give the inmates leukemia and allow them to die slow painful deaths due to poor medial treatment. 
     For whatever reason, the state feels that closing NSP will close some of their budget shortfalls...I, and many others, are not convinced of that.  But let me tell you what this closure means the for inmate's families.  At NSP, for visiting, we were spoiled.  I had the chance to spend 3 days with Lorne, 8:00am to 2:30pm.  I didn't need an appointment, I wasn't restricted to how long I could be there or how many days I could show up.  At High Desert, you are assigned a specific day depending upon which unit your inmate is assigned to.  Let's hope that if you work during the week, that your loved on gets assigned to a unit that gets a weekend date.  Transportation out there can be difficult as well.  There is a bus service that runs out there from Vegas but what if you live out of state or can't afford the bus company's price? There are many families of inmates who struggle with finances and for those who have family in the Carson City/Reno/Sparks area, I can see this going two different ways...visiting becomes such a financial burden that they can no longer afford to go...OR the distance for people to travel is so unwieldy that people don't see the point in driving for 7-8 hours for a 3 hour visit, especially since they will do the driving the day before, stay in a hotel in Vegas, visit the following day and then drive home. 
There are many, many problems at High Desert...I can't tell you how many times it has been on lockdown in the past year for fights of some kind. Phone service is spotty as well with few local numbers being assigned to that area since the only place in town is the prison.  (Indian Springs has a population of 1,302 people per the 2000 census count)
I also feel sorry for the correctional officers who worked at NSP.  Many of them are lifelong residents of the Carson City area.  Certainly the legislators didn't think about the staff when they made this decision either.  While the current director states that there are jobs for those who want one in any of the other facilities, I am thinking that very few will take him up on that offer since all the facilities that they will be placed at are located in VERY rural areas where drives of an hour or more to get groceries are common place.
There is a whole lot of nothing where these facilities are located and it will be fun to see just how many officers make the move.  I suspect, very few.