Tremont Township officials admitted Tuesday if there’s going to be a fight over the planned ICE detention center within its limits, they’ll just be a witness.
Last week, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro promised to use everything in his executive and regulatory power to stop the ICE detention center planned for the former Big Lots Distribution Center in Tremont Township.
ICE says it wants to convert that warehouse into a detention facility that can hold up to 7,500 detainees. The plan is to hold detainees there for between 45-90 days.
ICE has said, via third-party sources at the County level, that it wants to open the facility this Spring. So, a fight does seem like a possibility. But what can Tremont Township officials do? Pretty much … nothing.
“It’s up to the Governor and there’s nothing we can do about it,” Township Supervisor Larry Bender said at Tuesday’s regular monthly meeting.
Solicitor Christopher Riedlinger – who attended two recent meetings on this issue, one with County and ICE officials and a second involving Shapiro – backed that up on Tuesday by saying, “There’s nothing the Tremont Township Board of Supervisors can do that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania can’t do.
“As far as this battle that may be brewing between the state and the federal government, the county and local government is probably going to be more of a spectator in that battle than a participant,” he added. “Nobody is asking this board for permission.”
ICE Water Fight Looms
Shapiro certainly laid out his objections to the ICE detention and processing centers here in Schuylkill County and neighboring Berks County, respectively, at a press conference last week.
While he expressed opposition to the ICE detention policy of the Trump administration on what he sees as a human rights issue last week, he might be in the minority locally on that, he may have more common ground here when he raises concerns about the strain on resources these facilities – Tremont in particular – might pose.
In particular, there is growing concern about the lack of water that serves Tremont Township and surrounding areas. Schuylkill County government officials in contact with federal officials have sent communications and reports to ICE about the lack of water in that area. A Schuylkill County Municipal Authority report on the lack of water indicated that it’s currently trucking in water from outside sources just to keep the population as it stands sustained with water.
Riedlinger predicted that if there is going to be any sort of fight over the detention center in Tremont Township, it’s likely going to be over water.
“If I had to make a prediction, and it’s just a prediction,” he said Tuesday, “I know the water issues are particularly problematic.”
In a letter authored in part by Dept. of Environmental Protection Sect. Jessica Shirley, Dept. of Homeland Security officials are warned that any major modifications to the community water supply would require permit approvals from her agency.
Shirley states that previously, the Big Lots Distribution Center required 7,675 gallons of water per day. However, a detention center the size DHS/ICE is proposing for their would likely require 800,000 gallons per day. And the SCMA storage capacity for the Tremont Township area, as a whole, is just 1 million gallons but the water treatment facility permitted capacity is just 400,000 gallons per day but even that is limited to 330,000 gallons per day by the Susquehanna River Basin Commission.
“Even if a sufficient water supply for DHS’s proposed facility could be identified – which it cannot in the near term – SCMA’s water treatment facility cannot process the volume of water that would be needed for both its existing customers and the 7,500 people DHS reportedly plans to detain at the Tremont facility,” Shirley writes. “Adding thousands more people to Tremont’s public water system would mean that none of the people who depend on the system could reliably expect safe water. That would not only threaten daily health and well-being but could also lead to calamity in the event of an emergency.”
Even if DHS plans to use sources other than the public water supply for its detention center and bulk haul it there, Shirley says that would still require DHS/ICE to develop a new source for water and obtain permits for construction and operations.
If ICE Wins …
During the first meeting Riedlinger took with Schuylkill County officials and agents of the federal government – during which all three Tremont Township supervisors were also present – the solicitor said it was definitely made known that there is an expectation that DHS/ICE compensates the taxing bodies involved in this plan.
Riedlinger described Schuylkill County Commissioners as speaking “very vociferously” on the lost tax revenue aspect.
It’s now estimated that Tremont Township will lose about $195,000 due to the federal government taking this property into exempt status through its purchase.
Riedlinger said ICE made it known that it was aware of that concern but only made “very vague and general statements” with regard to paying taxing bodies like the township, Pine Grove Area School District, and County government to compensate for that loss.
“They’re going to do things to make up for that but they’re very short on specifics,” he said. “They were very non-specific about how they were going to assist.”
FULL COVERAGE
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