WASHINGTON (WV News) — U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said she will “do everything in my power” to avert the closure of the U.S. Postal Service’s Charleston Processing & Distribution Center.

Capito said she planned to working alongside other West Virginia officials as they attempt to prevent the facility and its 800 jobs from being relocated to Pennsylvania.

“We need to preserve the jobs — that’s No. 1 with me,” she said. “No. 2, I talked with the mayor, the mayor of Charleston, to see what kind of information or pre-information maybe the city might have gotten or maybe the region may have gotten.”

City and regional officials were apparently told “nothing,” Capito said.

“Which is exceedingly disappointing to me,” she said. “The post office needs to be transparent, and that’s why I’ve been trying to get the postmaster, Mr. DeJoy, on the phone. I haven’t quite reached him yet.”

Capito said she hopes the Biden administration will realize what a blow losing the facility would be to the region.

“If this administration is really interested in helping areas that want to retain jobs, then the case can be made that the retention of the jobs in the facility are exceedingly important to the southern part of our state,” she said.

Gov. Jim Justice, who sent a letter to U.S. Postmaster Louis Dejoy on Tuesday regarding the facility, also discussed the issue during his briefing Wednesday.

“That processing center may very well be on the block to be moved to Pennsylvania, and I surely hope and pray that that won’t be the case,” Justice said. “We’re going to fight as hard and as diligently as we can, and we’re going to try every way in the world to see that it doesn’t become a reality.”

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has also weighed in on the issue, saying there is “absolutely no reason to move our West Virginia mail processing facility to another state.”

“The U.S. Postal Service should reverse its deeply flawed and misguided plan to conduct a Mail Processing Facility Review of its Charleston Processing and Distribution Center facility, which would disproportionately harm a vital lifeline for the people of West Virginia,” Manchin said in a statement. “This review blatantly ignores West Virginians’ concerns about a significant decrease in local services as well as a dramatic adverse economic impact on the postal workers who kept our country running during the pandemic.”

Countless West Virginians would be adversely affected by the facility’s relocation, Manchin said.

“Many of my constituents are older Americans or veterans who live in rural communities and desperately rely on timely postal services for life-saving medications or hard-earned federal benefits,” Manchin said.

West Virginia ranks third in the country for percentage of population age 65 or older, according to the 2020 U.S. Census. The state has more than 130,000 residents who are veterans, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

West Virginia residents who would like to submit comments to the U.S. Postal Service about the plans for the Charleston Processing & Distribution Center can do so by visiting: surveymonkey.com/r/mpfr-charleston-wv.