Tacoma’s Bill of Rights Defense Committee is worried that sludge buried deep beneath a private immigrant prison on the Tacoma tide flats may be rising to the surface. No, not the metaphorical sludge created by what has been reported as deplorable treatment of people imprisoned at the Northwest Detention Center, which is run by Florida-based GEO Group. The Tacoma advocacy organization is concerned about the kind of sludge produced by a coal gasification plant that helped transform the once lovely plot of land into what the Environmental Protection Agency now calls the “Tacoma Tar Pits.”



A letter sent last week to Superfund Project Manager Tamara Langton called for an emergency inspection of the site. The request was sent because BORDC members were concerned that construction activity associated with expansion of the prison has disturbed layers of soil that had been piled on top of decades of accumulated toxic gunk (one of many ways to keep toxins from being eaten by seagulls or leeching into nearby ground water).  “Observations of ongoing grading, excavating, auguring, and soil compression activity indicate that a serious breach of the surface cap has occurred and contaminated subsurface groundwater and highly contaminated soils are being exposed ...” the letter reads.



“There’s really not supposed to be any oil on the surface,” says Tim Smith, BORDC member and former military intelligence technician. “Our contention is that they’re bringing it up.”



From 1924 to 1956, a coal gasification plant operated on the site, contaminating the soil with tars, according to EPA documents. In 1967, an auto recycler operated on the site, adding acid, lead, heavy metals, and several other kinds of toxic goo to the mix. Cleanup of the site, carried out under government supervision, removed the top 15 feet of contaminated soils on the 12-square-mile site and replaced it with fill. It’s a solution that Smith refers to in the letter as a “negligible risk solution to contain the contaminants in subsurface soils and waters,” punctuated by “as long as they remain undisturbed.”



So here’s the concerning part: As construction crews prepare the Northwest Detention Center property for construction intended to make room for an extra 545 prisioners, they’re augering down as deep as 50 to 100 feet, disturbing and compressing the contaminated soil. The intent is to fill deep holes with gravel to stabilize the soil, which would likely liquefy in event of an earthquake. The side effect, Smith claims, is an earthen regurgitation of gunk that should have stayed buried.



So far, visits from the EPA, the Department of Ecology, City of Tacoma and a private contractor haven’t turned up any water contamination, but there are concerns about the soils on the site, says Tamara Langton, EPA Region 10 superfund project manager. There are concerns about the soil that the EPA and other agencies will be looking into, including claims that deep augering is bringing toxins to the surface. The site also is currently facing its five-year review by the EPA, and officials will be paying special mind to concerns raised by the BORDC.

 

“We don’t believe at this time that there is any harm posed to workers or people in the facility,” says Langton, adding, “We’re taking this very seriously.”



Smith, meanwhile, isn’t just appealing to environmental agencies, and he’s unabashed in pointing out that his concern about the private prison goes beyond the environment. Beyond addressing concerns about toxic sludge, Smith is in the process of challenging a family of legal and procedural components that allowed GEO Group to move forward with it expansion.



“I think this is the most horrible thing that the City of Tacoma could have allowed,” says Smith. “During my military service, I saw detention centers and what happened there. I’m stunned that this is happening here.”

 

Phone calls to officials at the GEO Group were not returned.