HORACE LANGFORD JR. / PVT Cameraman Derek Reich and reporter Kim Balin, film the strategy meeting held by opponents of the proposed federal detention center. RELATED STORIES FEDERAL DETENTION CENTER: Judge rules out injunction VEA can serve detention center Advertisement

Whether the controversy over the proposed federal detention center will bring national publicity to Pahrump remains to be seen.

A film crew from Dan Rather Reports, a program aired on HD Net, a subscriber network available on high-definition TV, was on hand to tape about 80 opponents of the Corrections Corporation of America project crammed into a strategy meeting in a back room at the Pahrump Community Library last Thursday night.

Cameraman Derek Reich is from Park City, Utah. Reporter Kim Balin is based in New York.

Balin said she didn't want to be quoted but said for publication they were researching how prisons affect towns on a national level.

There is no guarantee the excerpt will be aired on Dan Rather's show, she said.

Opponents of the proposed 1,500-bed facility for inmates awaiting trial in federal court or deportation, however, made their presence visible during a hearing in federal court Wednesday and plan to bring the fight to state district court and hearings before the Public Utilities Commission on water and sewer service.

"We're going to continue to fight this thing. We're going to fight it in state court. We're going to fight it in the Public Utilities Commission. It isn't a done deal. Don't get discouraged," Jeff Wiest told the crowd at the library.

Field organizer Frank Smith, from the Private Corrections Institute, which opposes the privatization of prisons, said Utilities Inc. of Central Nevada has yet to receive permission to annex the site into their service area.

Smith urged the crowd to "raise holy heck" at PUC meetings. He suggested they find out the addresses of PUC members and write letters to newspapers in their home towns.

The PUC "isn't four or five stiffs that live in Pahrump or Tonopah," he said. Smith said each inmate needs 150 gallons of water per day. He appealed to fears over the sinking water table adding, "CCA is going to be sucking that with the biggest straw you've ever seen ... They've come here and sold this proposal to a county commission that doesn't know any better, that should know better.

"They came to a little town like Pahrump and they said, 'We're going to bring development to you, we're going to bring jobs to you, money will rain from the sky.'"

Smith said the plans were originally for a facility with 350 beds, then 500 beds, then 1,072 beds, now 1,500 beds. He claimed CCA actually wants to house 3,000 prisoners here.

Smith also claimed there aren't enough federal prisoners from Nevada to fill the detention center. He added, the purpose of the facility will change from just housing federal inmates.

Smith exhorted the crowd with an impassioned speech. "They are going to fill this up with gangbangers from California because California has three people to a cell. They have them sleeping in gymnasiums. They don't know what to do with them all and CCA is looking at that market. This federal detention center is just BS. It's a pretense. It's a charade, and if the county commissioners didn't know that, they deserve to be recalled for stupidity if nothing else."

Smith repeated accusations CCA will buy their products nationally, not from local vendors.

When CCA Marketing Manager Louise Grant told Storey County Commissioners in Virginia City last week there were only a few residents in Pahrump opposed to their project, Smith jokingly remarked she was using "new math." Smith said 1,500 people signed a petition against the project in Pahrump.

Smith charged Pahrump residents were kept in the dark about the project until CCA "had all their ducks in a row" with county commissioners, the planning department and others in approval.

In fact, discussions with CCA were outlined in some detail in the PVT.

Hector Velarde, one of four residents who showed up to protest the rezoning of the East Mesquite Avenue property in front of the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission in July 2007, said he was one of only two people who received notice of the proposed zone change.

Attorney Nancy Lord said she needs donations to pay her legal aide and other expenses.