The state’s Dept. of Environmental Protection has ordered the federal Dept. of Homeland Security to halt plans to open ICE detention and processing centers in Schuylkill and Berks counties until it “demonstrates compliance with federal and state environmental regulations” regarding water and sewer usage.
DEP says the warehouses DHS recently purchased – the former Big Lots Distribution Center in Tremont Township and an unoccupied warehouse in Upper Bern Township in Berks County – can not be supplied with water and sewage and can not be occupied until Homeland Security is compliant.
Further, DEP has ordered Tremont and Upper Bern townships to prohibit occupancy at these warehouses “until further sewage planning and permitting is obtained from DEP.” The orders also bar the townships from accepting sewage from holding tanks or portable toilets without further authorization.
DEP says the townships have sewage treatment plants that may need to be redesigned or modified to accept the amount of wastewater the agency expects to produce at these planned ICE facilities.
Schuylkill County Municipal Authority is also being ordered by DEP to not provide drinking water to the ICE detention center in Tremont Township. SCMA is also prohibited from providing sewage service or accepting sewage from portable toilets at the detention center until it gets permitted and approved by Tremont Township and DEP.
“Based on what the Department has learned about DHS’s plans to convert two commercial warehouses into detention centers for 9,000 people, there are serious concerns about the environmental impacts of these actions. The conversion of warehouses to detention facilities risks harming the communities in and around Tremont and Upper Bern townships, overwhelming their sewage facilities and exceeding the available drinking water supply,” DEP Secretary Jessica Shirley says in a statement released Friday. “Doubling the populations of these areas could drain drinking water sources and lead to polluted waterways from overwhelmed sewage facilities leaking raw waste into our streets and rivers. Just like anyone else, DHS needs to demonstrate its facilities comply with environmental standards.”
DEP says that it must issue permits and approvals for all changes to drinking water and sewage treatment systems.
In addition to the local orders, DEP is also ordering DHS to not use the SCMA and Upper Bern sewer systems for ICE detention centers or to occupy the former warehouses until it’s proven it can do so safely.
DEP says holding tanks and septic systems are not allowed without required permits.
Shapiro Administration Begins Fight Against ICE Facilities
Last week, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said at a press conference that he planned to use every legal and regulatory tool he believed he had to block ICE’s plans for using warehouses in Schuylkill and Berks counties.
This is clearly the first round of that fight.
“I want to be very clear: I don’t want either of these sites here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said. “I am against these facilities. You know my track record of taking on this administration. And I’m going to do everything in my legal power and my regulatory power to see two of these facilities are not sited here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
Locally, though individual Schuylkill County Commissioners have made their thoughts known on the ICE plans in Tremont Township, the County, as a whole, has not taken a stand for or against them.
However, the basis of the DEP orders – the lack of water and sewer capabilities – is an issue raised by the County in the last month, since ICE’s plans have become more known.
Order to Tremont Township
The $119 million sale of the former Big Lots Distribution Center in Tremont Township was made effective on Jan. 29. The deed for the transaction was recorded at Schuylkill County Courthouse on Feb. 2.
In public meetings since that date, it’s been learned that ICE intends to transform the warehouse into a 7,500-bed detention center, with plans to process detainees in 45-90 days after their arrival.
DEP says the 1999 sewage approval for the Tremont Business Park, where the warehouse is located, allowed for a total flow of 15,000 gallons per day (GPD), with the warehouse itself limited to 6,000 GPD of sewage. However, DEP says, DHS plans would produce an estimated 450,000 to 1 million GPD of sewage.
The agency says this would overwhelm the SCMA collection system and pump station and hydraulically overload the Tremont Wastewater Treatment Plan, which is only authorized to treat 500,000 GPD. What DHS is proposing for the detention center would ultimately cause uncontrolled discharge of untreated or inadequately treated sewage into Swatara Creek and violate SCMA’s permit, the Clean Streams Law, and Clean Water Act.
DEP adds that Tremont Township’s sewage facilities plan requires all sewage at the former Big Lots property to the Tremont Wastewater Treatment Plan and the township can’t issue permits for any usage change until an official plan is reviewed and approved by DEP.
And since Tremont Township’s plan currently does not allow for portable workarounds like holding tanks, privies, and chemical toilets, they would also require DEP approval.
Order to SCMA
DEP says SCMA’s Tremont Water System is incapable of supplying the proposed ICE detention center with enough drinking water that’s expected to be needed with as many detainees planned there and simultaneously serve the existing customers.
The Tremont Water System has a treatment limit of 330,000 gallons per day (GPD) and a maximum storage capacity of 1 million gallons. DEP estimates the proposed detention center could require up to 900,000 GPD of water, which is 90% of all available stored water and would cause SCMA to violate federal and state safe drinking water laws. Water usage in the last year of the warehouse’s commercial distribution use averaged only 7,675 GPD, DEP says. Since this massive increase in demand constitutes a “substantial modification” to the public water system, it cannot be completed without obtaining permits from the DEP.
DEP also says that allowing as much wastewater flow to the Tremont Wastewater Treatment Plant would overload it and cause SCMA to violate its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit.
FULL COVERAGE
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