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Standish Prison May Become Federal Facility

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons is once again looking at the former state prison in Standish for possible conversion to a federal facility.

An earlier plan to ship prisoners to Guantanamo was scuttled, but Russ Marlan, of the State Department of Corrections, said the Feds are still interested.

"They're taking their second preliminary step now and coming back and meeting with local officials and some property owners who adjoin the property at the correctional facility," Marlan said.

Marlan said it's early to determine, but he said they'd more than likely the Standish prison would be bought rather than rented.

"It's 19 years old and it's a maximum security prison and they're over capacity in their maximum security prisons across the country," Marlan said.

"It's something that would benefit them and certainly we have a vacant prison that's sitting there and it would bring hundreds of employees there and the economic impact that goes along with that to the Standish communities," he said.

Officials from Washington plan to tour the former Standish maximum security prison during the week of August 16.

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