Immigration and Customs Enforcement is moving forward with a detention facility for migrant children and families at England Airpark in Louisiana, a sprawling former military installation where groundwater contamination has reached historic extremes. Federal testing has found Pfas levels at 41 million parts per trillion in the soil and water, dwarfing the EPA's drinking water safety limits of 4 to 10 parts per trillion by a factor of at least 575,000.
The contamination marks the highest Pfas concentration ever recorded at any site in the nation. England is also laden with TCE and volatile organic compounds, while asbestos has been detected in military barracks that would house detainees. The chemicals, known as "forever chemicals" because they persist indefinitely in the environment, have been linked to cancer, kidney disease, liver problems, immune disorders and birth defects.
Project officials told the Guardian in March that the facility could operate within 60 to 90 days. The proposed detention center would be housed in converted military barracks and is described as a short-term holding area for migrant families awaiting deportation flights, with officials claiming stays would last three to five days, though immigrant advocacy groups dispute this timeline and characterize participation as involuntary despite official descriptions of "self-deportation."
The Pfas contamination stems from decades of military operations. Firefighting foam used during training exercises seeped through soil into groundwater. Military burn pits where munitions, waste and toxic materials were incinerated, often using jet fuel as an accelerant, further contaminated the site. The chemicals are highly mobile and volatile, moving easily through air and soil.
While base officials claim drinking water is piped in from the nearby city of Alexandria, that city also draws from the same contaminated aquifer, and the precise boundaries of the Pfas plume remain unclear. Pineville, another nearby municipality, has documented elevated Pfas levels in its water supply. Testing for Pfas in soil and air at the airpark has not been completed, raising questions about exposure risk for children and families who would occupy the facility.
Jared Hayes, a senior policy analyst with the Environmental Working Group, warned that the contamination poses particular danger to children due to their smaller body size and developing biology. "The risk for people living on site is in the dust and in the air, and we don't know what levels are in the dust, or if the kids are playing outside, these can be areas of concern," Hayes said, noting that the military has not tested soil and air concentrations.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security stated it has "no new detention centers to announce at this time." The EPA and ICE did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for England Airpark claimed the Pfas contamination is not located near the barracks site but declined to clarify whether soil and air testing has been performed.
The military remains in preliminary phases of addressing the contamination. According to federal records, the Department of Defense has only begun a remedial investigation, which involves mapping the Pfas plume rather than active removal or cleanup. Hayes indicated this mapping phase means the contamination is likely spreading across the aquifer, diluting concentration at the source but expanding the geographic footprint of the toxic chemicals.
Pfas compounds number at least 16,000 variations, typically used to manufacture products resistant to water, stains and heat. The Department of Defense is phasing out firefighting foams containing Pfas after discovering widespread contamination around more than 770 military bases nationwide. The chemicals do not break down naturally and accumulate indefinitely in soil, water and living organisms.
The larger England Airpark complex already operates a private Geo Group detention center. Frances Kelly, with Louisiana Advocates for Immigrants in Detention, noted that deed records restrict the property to industrial use, raising questions about why residential housing for children would be permitted on the site, as residential uses typically require more stringent environmental cleanup standards than industrial operations.
Kelly and other advocates are exploring legal options to block the project. "There's always a way to undo it," she said, though the path forward remains unclear.
Author James Rodriguez: "Placing detained children on the most contaminated military site in America while cleanup is barely underway amounts to using vulnerable migrants as test subjects in a slow-motion public health experiment."
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