The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has issued administrative orders requiring the federal government comply with environmental requirements before opening immigration detention centers in Berks and Schuylkill counties, the agency announced.<\/p>\n
The move Thursday came a week after Gov. Josh Shapiro held a closed-door meeting<\/a> with county and local officials and vowed to do everything in his power to stop the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from moving forward with plans to open facilities in Upper Bern and Tremont townships.<\/p>\n The agency plans to use a warehouse in Upper Bern<\/a> to hold 1,500 people as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center and a Tremont warehouse<\/a> to hold 7,500 as a detention center.<\/p>\n Shapiro has been a vocal critic of the department\u2019s efforts to open the centers since the purchases of the properties became public in early February.<\/p>\n Part of his opposition surrounds the impact to nearby communities, including to sewage treatment and water systems. The orders issued Thursday focus on those two issues.<\/p>\n \u201cBased on what the department has learned about (the U.S. Department of Homeland Security\u2019s) plans to convert two commercial warehouses into detention centers for 9,000 people, there are serious concerns about the environmental impacts of these actions,\u201d DEP Secretary Jessica Shirley said in a statement announcing the orders. \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Shirley said the facilities will double the populations of the areas where they are being placed and could drain drinking water sources and lead to polluted waterways from overwhelmed sewage facilities leaking raw waste into streets and rivers.<\/p>\n \u201cJust like anyone else, DHS needs to demonstrate its facilities comply with environmental standards,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Two orders were issued directing DHS not to use the Upper Bern or Schuylkill County Municipal Authority sewer systems for any proposed detention facilities until it has been proven it is safe to do so. The orders further specify that holding tanks and septic systems are not allowed without required permits.<\/p>\n The orders to DHS also state that the authority\u2019s infrastructure for drinking water and the private well at the Upper Bern site may not be used without DEP approval.<\/p>\n \u201cDHS has been directed not to occupy the buildings until the applicable legal requirements are met,\u201d a statement about the orders reads.<\/p>\n Other orders were issued to Upper Bern and Tremont townships. They prohibit occupancy of the warehouses until further sewage planning and permitting is obtained from DEP and prohibits each township from accepting sewage from holding tanks or portable toilets without further authorization.<\/p>\n \u201cEach township operates a sewage treatment plant that could need to be redesigned and significantly modified to receive the amount of expected wastewater from a detention center,\u201d the statement says.<\/p>\n A fifth order was issued to the Schuylkill County Municipal Authority, prohibiting it from providing drinking water to a detention center. The order says it protects against excessive strain on a water infrastructure system that is already being supported through emergency measures.<\/p>\n The order also prohibits the authority from providing sewage service or accepting sewage from portable toilets at the detention center without further permitting and approval from Tremont Township and DEP.<\/p>\n \u201cPermits or approvals from DEP are needed for the construction and operation of all changes to drinking water and sewage treatment systems,\u201d the statement reads.<\/p>\n Officials from ICE and DHS could not immediately be reached from comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has issued administrative orders requiring the federal government comply with environmental requirements…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1200,104,3071,3072,899,1202,1201,8726,16517],"class_list":{"0":"post-27060","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bern","8":"tag-berks-county","9":"tag-bern","10":"tag-ice-detention","11":"tag-ice-warehouse","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-pennsylvania","15":"tag-pennsylvania-news","16":"tag-schuylkill-county"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116186107245056648","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}