U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says it will not use the former Big Lots Distribution Center in Tremont Township as an immigration detention center.
In a July 13 letter to the state’s Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), the federal agency says it has “considered the final use it will make of this Property, and it hereby informs DEP that it will not be using this Property as a detention center.”
Instead, ICE says, it wants to operate the Rausch Creek Rd. property using the same water and sewage capacities that were approved for the warehouse when its previous owner ran it as a distribution center.
“ICE’s plan is that it will maintain the use of the property on existing sewage planning, sewage flows, and drinking water use levels,” writes James Keith Ingalsbe, assistant director of the Office of Asset and Facilities Management at the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security.
The letter went to Joseph J. Buczynski, DEP’s Northeast Region director in Wilkes-Barre, and it’s the response DEP demanded back in March when it issued administrative orders on ICE, Tremont Township, and Schuylkill County Municipal Authority (SCMA).
The federal government paid $119 million in January for the warehouse, with plans to turn it into a 7,500-bed detention center – one of the largest in the country – as part of the Trump administration’s Detention Reengineering Initiative.
What ICE Says It Will Do at the Warehouse
In the letter, ICE lays out six commitments it says mean no additional DEP permitting is needed at the property:
- Sewage will be conveyed from the business park by grinder pump to the existing 8-inch interceptor line built for SCMA’s water filtration plant, and treated at SCMA’s wastewater treatment plant.
- Water will be supplied by SCMA, as set out in the current sewage planning approval for the property.
- Sewage use will be capped at 6,000 gallons per day and potable water use at 7,675 gallons per day – the same figures DEP cited in its orders as the warehouse’s approved sewage capacity and its average water use in the last year of commercial operation.
- ICE will not use holding tanks, retaining tanks, privies, or chemical toilets on site without first getting a revision to Tremont Township’s official sewage facilities plan approved by DEP.
- ICE will not haul bulk water to the property or develop a new water source without first getting DEP permits under the Pennsylvania Safe Drinking Water Act.
- ICE will allow DEP to inspect the property to confirm it’s complying, with at least three working days’ notice.
“I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience whether this plan is sufficient,” Ingalsbe writes.
DEP Responds
DEP answered on July 22, and Buczynski’s letter says the plan works – as long as ICE sticks to it.
“Your letter confirms that ICE will not use this property as a detention center,” Buczynski writes. “Because of that, ICE is not seeking authorization for sewage planning, sewage flows, or drinking water use levels beyond what is already authorized for a commercial warehouse.”
DEP says that under the plan ICE describes, SCMA doesn’t need additional permits or approvals under the Safe Drinking Water Act, Tremont Township doesn’t need to do further sewage permitting or planning, and SCMA doesn’t need to provide further certification that the property’s sewage service complies with the Sewage Facilities Act and Clean Streams Law.
But DEP is not withdrawing anything.
“The Order remains in effect and any use of the property other than that described in ICE’s plan remains prohibited unless ICE first obtains the additional sewage planning, permitting and certification, and drinking water permitting to comply with the Order,” Buczynski writes.
DEP also says it plans to inspect the property to confirm ICE is doing what it says it’s doing, and that it will arrange that visit through ICE’s attorneys.
Copies of the letter went to SCMA engineer Patrick M. Caulfield, the Tremont Township Supervisors, and ICE counsel Jody M. Prescott.
Appeal Withdrawn
The same day DEP sent its response, ICE dropped its legal fight over the orders.
On July 22, ICE attorney Daniella Lees filed a notice of withdrawal with the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board (EHB), asking that the docket be marked closed and discontinued.
That appeal, filed in June, argued Pennsylvania was weaponizing environmental regulations to unlawfully block a federal operation, and pointed to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s public promise to use “everything in his power” to keep ICE detention centers out of the state. It also claimed DEP’s orders violated the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. (READ MORE: Shapiro Promises “Everything in His Power” to Stop ICE in Schuylkill, Berks Counties)
EHB Judge Bernard A. Labuskes Jr. signed an order the next day, July 23, closing the case and canceling a conference call that had been scheduled for Aug. 13.
The Delaware Riverkeeper Network and Green Amendments for the Generations had intervened in the appeal on the state’s side.
What ICE ultimately intends to do with the Tremont Township warehouse it spent $119 million on isn’t spelled out in the July 13 letter. The agency says only that it will keep the property at commercial warehouse levels of water and sewage use – the levels Big Lots operated under.
FULL COVERAGE
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