ICE planning facility for children and families on Pfas-contaminated site | US immigration

Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is planning a detention center for children and their families at one of the most Pfas-contaminated sites in the country, which also serves as a hub for the president’s deportation program.

England Air Force Base, now called England Airpark, is a sprawling former military installation in Louisiana where Pfas levels in groundwater have been found to be at least 41 million parts per trillion (ppt).

Federal drinking water limits for several Pfas compounds range from 4 to 10 ppm, meaning levels have been at least 575,000 times higher than the limit. Military bases are often contaminated with large amounts of Pfas, but England’s groundwater showed the highest levels ever recorded and is among the most Pfas-polluted sites in the United States.

England is also contaminated with other highly toxic chemicals, such as TCE and a range of volatile organic compounds, while authorities have raised concerns about asbestos in barracks. Although the base likely gets its drinking water elsewhere, the chemicals are also present in the soil and air, public health advocates say.

That raises a health risk for children and families staying at the site, added Jared Hayes, senior policy analyst at the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, which tracks military pollution nationally.

“There should be no housing on contaminated bases and we need to clean this up much faster if we want to put people at risk,” Hayes said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement: “We have no new detention centers to announce at this time.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and ICE did not respond to a request for comment. Project officials told the Guardian in March that the lease for the site was being finalized and could be operational within 60 to 90 days.

Pfas are a class of at least 16,000 compounds typically used to make common products that resist water, stains and heat. They’re called “forever chemicals” because they build up and don’t break down naturally, and they’re linked to cancer, kidney disease, liver problems, immune disorders, birth defects, and other serious health problems.

Pfas are a common ingredient in firefighting foam used at airports and military bases, and the Department of Defense is phasing them out because these highly toxic substances have widely contaminated the water and environment around more than 770 bases across the country.

ICE is proposing a child detention center, a “first-of-its-kind” short-term facility that officials say would house migrant families and unaccompanied children next to an airstrip from which they depart the United States. The larger England Airpark complex is home to a Geo Group private detention center, which the Guardian has previously investigated for a series of abuses.

The project’s developers said the facility would confine family groups and children for three to five days in a converted military barracks, and only house those who voluntarily choose to “self-deport.” Immigrant rights groups say the “self-deportation” claim is misleading and that most participate in the program involuntarily. It is also likely they will spend many more than five days in the centers, advocates say.

Firefighting foam was used in training exercises around the base. It has spread to groundwater via the soil, meaning the soil is contaminated with the chemicals. The base also housed burners that the military used to incinerate munitions, trash, human waste, toxic waste, plastic and a range of goods and chemicals. Jet fuel is commonly used as an accelerator, and the pits are known to pollute the immediate area with a range of substances, including Pfas.

Chemicals are highly mobile and volatile, meaning they move easily through the environment, including from soil to air. Children are particularly vulnerable to the adverse health effects of chemicals because their bodies are smaller. The health impacts of simultaneous exposure to all chemicals used in the base remain unclear.

“The risk to people living at the site is in the dust and in the air, and we don’t know what the dust levels are, or if children are playing outside — that may be a concern,” Hayes said before adding that the Army does not test the soil and air at the site.

Frances Kelly, of Louisiana Advocates for Immigrants in Detention, said the water came from the nearby town of Alexandria. However, the city also draws on groundwater and it is publicly unknown where the boundary of the Pfas plume is located. Records from nearby Pineville show elevated levels of three types of Pfas compounds, but not those that are the main compounds at England Airpark.

Kelly said property deeds show the property is limited to industrial use and questioned why the site is used for residential purposes. Residential lands require more thorough cleaning than industrial lands.

An airport spokesman said the Pfas pollution was not at the barracks site, but did not immediately respond to questions about whether the air and soil had been tested.

Hayes said federal records do not indicate the Pfas cleanup has begun and the Army remains in its remedial investigation phase. This involves mapping the Pfas plume.

“It doesn’t look like they’re doing any cleanup work, which means they’re doing testing and mapping, so the plume is going to grow at the site,” Hayes said.

Although Pfas levels in groundwater have declined in recent years, they still remain astronomically high. Since the military is not actively removing the plume, lower levels simply mean that the plume is spreading through the aquifer, so the Pfas is not as concentrated around the pollution source.

It is unclear whether legal action can be taken, but advocates continue to try to stop the project.

“There’s always a way to undo it,” Kelly said.