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On Tuesday, June 30 at 9:00 AM, the Washington County Commissioners will hold a public hearing on a proposed six-month moratorium on new data centers.

The hearing only gained public attention because a Washington County Indivisible member discovered it buried on a county webpage and helped get the word out. Now that people know about it, residents are showing up.

We’ll be outside the commissioners meeting holding a protest while community members speak during the hearing itself, and we’d love for Frederick County residents who have been organizing around data centers to join us.

At the same time, Washington County residents are also fighting another massive project: the proposed conversion of an 825,000-square-foot industrial warehouse in Williamsport into an ICE detention center designed to hold up to 1,500 people.

These may seem like separate fights, but they are connected by many of the same concerns: transparency, infrastructure capacity, water and wastewater impacts, and local officials making decisions with enormous consequences for the future of our communities.

Data center opponents and ICE detention center opponents do not have to fight these battles separately. This is an opportunity for communities in Frederick and Washington counties to stand together and show that residents deserve a real voice in decisions that will shape this region for decades.

Join us outside the meeting, sign up to speak inside, or simply come listen and meet others working on these issues.

📍 Washington County Administration Building

100 W Washington St, Hagerstown, MD

📅 Tuesday, June 30

🕘 9:00 AM

To sign up to speak at the hearing: https://www.washco-md.net/county-commissioners/bocc-agendas-and-minutes/public-hearing-sign-up-form/

Protecting waterways involves more than celebrating cleanup efforts after problems appear. It also means asking difficult questions before new environmental pressures are introduced into an already stressed watershed.

The issue extends beyond the ICE warehouse detention center itself. The Conococheague eventually empties into the Potomac River, meaning any environmental consequences associated with wastewater, nutrient loading, or infrastructure failures would not stop at the Washington County line. Communities throughout Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia share an interest in ensuring that major federal projects receive the level of environmental scrutiny required by law.

If DHS believes the project’s wastewater generation will not significantly affect local waterways, it should release the analysis supporting that conclusion. If the agency believes existing infrastructure has sufficient capacity and resilience to absorb those demands, it should release the studies supporting that conclusion as well.

The public comment period closes on July 1. Before DHS asks communities throughout the Potomac watershed to accept assurances about environmental impacts, the agency should make public the information it relied upon to reach those assurances in the first place. And Hagerstown Rapid Response and Washington County Indivisible encourage you to tell DHS exactly that.
Here’s one very specific thing you can ask for in your public comment:

Request that DHS publicly release the reports and assessments it claims to have relied upon when concluding that it is “not aware of any potential for significant environmental impacts” from this project.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is attempting to convert an 825,000-square-foot industrial warehouse in Washington County, Maryland into a massive ICE detention facility despite overwhelming environmental, infrastructure, and human rights concerns.
DHS is now accepting public comments as part of the environmental review process.

This public comment period exists because the State of Maryland took DHS to court. In February 2026, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown sued DHS after the agency attempted to move forward with the project without conducting the environmental review required by federal law. The lawsuit alleged that DHS unlawfully fast-tracked the project while failing to adequately evaluate impacts on local waterways, wastewater systems, traffic, emergency services, public health, air quality, and surrounding communities.

In Washington County, Maryland, where a separate ICE warehouse project near Hagerstown remains tied up in court, the debate has taken on new urgency. Residents opposing the facility say the same concerns driving a proposed moratorium on data centers, including water usage, energy demand and environmental impact, should also apply to federal detention projects.

Local activists have pointed to the county’s draft rules on data centers, which cite risks such as heavy energy consumption, noise and pressure on public infrastructure, as a model for regulating large-scale developments.

Washington County officials are considering a temporary moratorium on future data center development while studying potential impacts on water resources, wastewater systems, energy demand, land use and long-term infrastructure planning.

Hagerstown Rapid Response told Newsweek: "Those are many of the same concerns residents, environmental advocates and the State of Maryland have been raising for months about the proposed 1,500-bed ICE detention warehouse near Williamsport."

Dalton Lee, an organizer with Hagerstown Rapid Response, said “If county leaders suddenly believe major projects should be studied before they move forward, they're about six months too late. Data centers deserve scrutiny, but ICE detention centers deserve a free pass? That's not responsible government. That's politics."

Laura Spivak, an organizer with Washington County Indivisible, said "It's a slap in the face to County residents that Washington County Commissioners are willing to consider environmental and infrastructure impacts of a data center, but have ignored us for months when we raised the same concerns about the ICE detention warehouse. Constituents deserve answers about why DHS gets the red carpet treatment while other projects are being more heavily weighed."

DHS is accepting public comments through July 1 on the proposed ICE detention center. Here are ten reasons to participate in the process and make your voice heard.

For months, we at Hagerstown Rapid Response and Washington County Indivisible, alongside concerned residents from across the region, have been demanding transparency, accountability, and answers about the proposed ICE detention center in Washington County, Maryland.

Week after week, hundreds of residents have protested, attended meetings, submitted records requests, spoken to reporters, conducted research, and organized their neighbors because we believe a project of this magnitude deserves far more public scrutiny than it has received. As more information has emerged about closed-door discussions, non-disclosure agreements, infrastructure concerns, environmental impacts, and controversial decisions connected to the proposed facility, public trust in the process has continued to erode.

Many people in our community are frustrated. Many are angry. But above all, people are determined not to let a massive detention facility quietly move forward without a full public accounting of its impacts on our county.
Now, residents have an opportunity to put their concerns directly into the federal record.

This is not just a Maryland issue. The proposed ICE detention center sits near the headwaters of waterways that ultimately flow beyond Washington County and Maryland’s borders. Any environmental impacts associated with wastewater overflows, stormwater runoff, or other infrastructure failures could affect communities downstream throughout the broader region, including Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

DHS is accepting public comments through July 1, but the deadline is approaching quickly.

If you agree that this proposed ICE detention center deserves greater scrutiny, we encourage you to submit a public comment today:
👉** **https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-dhs-stop-the-ice-warehouse-in-washington-county

As residents prepare for Tuesday’s protest, federal documents continue raising concerns about the scale, infrastructure demands, and environmental impacts of the proposed ICE warehouse in Williamsport

In a recently released federal notice, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it is beginning a formal Environmental Assessment process for the proposed ICE detention facility at the massive 825,000-square-foot warehouse in Williamsport, Maryland.

After months of legal fights, public pressure, and growing scrutiny, DHS is now acknowledging many of the environmental and infrastructure concerns residents have been raising since this project was first announced. DHS is describing a large-scale detention operation that will require major infrastructure upgrades, expanded utilities, new security installations, and long-term impacts on Washington County.

We are fighting now because we refuse to allow Washington County to become the next national example of what happens when federal agencies attempt to force through massive detention projects without public trust or public consent.

That is why we are calling on residents from across Maryland and the surrounding region to join us on Tuesday, June 9, 2026 at 9:00 AM outside the Washington County Commissioners building in Hagerstown.

This protest will mark one full year without public comment at County Commissioners meetings while residents continue demanding transparency and accountability surrounding the proposed ICE warehouse.

TV news and radio stations from across the state will be there covering the protest.

When: Tuesday, June 9, 2026 at 9:00 AM
Where: 100 W. Washington St., Hagerstown, MD
Hosted By: Hagerstown Rapid Response and Washington County Indivisible

No community should be forced to accept a massive ICE detention complex without transparency, accountability, or public input.

Washington County deserves better. And together, we can stop the ICE warehouse.

Federal immigration officials are planning for major water and sewer upgrades at a proposed Western Maryland detention facility, even as Maryland officials continue efforts to block the project through the courts.

New documents released Monday by the Department of Homeland Security reveal that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is launching its first in-depth environmental review of the site, located in the Washington County town of Williamsport. The warehouse, purchased by ICE in January, has since become the center of a growing legal and political battle between the federal government and Maryland.

In an attempt to stop ICE from renovating the warehouse into a detention facility, the Maryland Department of the Environment officially barred Washington County in April from expanding its sewer system to accommodate the potential facility until it thoroughly reviewed the needs of its entire system. Two days later, the U.S. District Court of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction halting work on the warehouse “until further notice.”

Still, ICE is pushing forward with an environmental assessment of the property and in Monday’s announcement invited the public to comment on the facility’s potential effect from now until July 1. Before this, federal officials had only done a brief environmental review of the site, which was completed in one day right before the purchase of the property.

Monday’s announcement also carefully avoids using language such as “detention center” or “processing facility.” In a March legal dispute over reports of inhumane conditions at ICE’s Baltimore facility, an ICE spokesperson claimed that the building was “a processing facility not a detention facility.” As recently as May 27, ICE referred to the Williamsport site as a “processing and detention facility” in a court document.

Dalton Lee, a lead organizer with the local activist group Hagerstown Rapid Response, said in a Tuesday statement to The Baltimore Sun that the announcement of an environmental assessment seemed to be an “admission that ICE can no longer avoid scrutiny.”

“You do not suddenly launch a federal environmental review process unless there are serious unanswered questions about the impact this facility could have on local infrastructure, waterways, floodplains, traffic, and surrounding communities,” Lee said in the statement.

Barr asked God to forgive the commissioners’ “obvious enemies” and the people “shouting about, cursing about” county officials. It was an unusually personal and politically charged way to open a government meeting, especially considering the county is already facing mounting scrutiny over secrecy, ethics concerns, and infrastructure issues connected to the proposed ICE facility.

At a time when residents are demanding more transparency and accountability, hearing the President of the Board of Washington County Commissioners publicly describe critics and constituents as “obvious enemies” during a prayer is difficult to ignore.

About fifteen minutes later, the tension became visible. Someone in the audience interrupted Barr while he was speaking, and instead of engaging with the disruption, Barr immediately grabbed the gavel, declared recess, and abruptly paused the meeting. The whole sequence was awkward and revealing at the same time. Barr had opened the meeting talking about “obvious enemies,” and moments later appeared eager to avoid any direct interaction once tensions surfaced in the room.

The largest issue on the agenda was the GDMS consulting contract involving former county official Greg Murray. On paper, the agreement was presented as a broad consulting arrangement related to water, sewer, and long-term infrastructure planning. But anyone who has been paying attention to the fight to stop the ICE warehouse from opening in Williamsport understood why the discussion carried larger political implications.

Water and sewer infrastructure have become central to the legal and political fight over the proposed ICE warehouse outside Hagerstown. State agencies, environmental officials, and residents have spent months raising concerns about floodplain impacts, sewer capacity, infrastructure strain, and whether the surrounding area can realistically support a large detention facility.

A reader’s guide to the agenda, the county’s closed-session problem, and what tomorrow’s special meeting could reveal about the ICE warehouse fight.

Why this meeting matters
A “special meeting” of the Board of County Commissioners is a focused session called outside the regular schedule. Tomorrow’s meeting has three open items, a closed session, and a packet that was revised on short notice. Two of the three items raise serious questions about how Washington County contracts for infrastructure work, and the closed session, as published, appears to mis-cite the Open Meetings Act in ways the statute itself addresses directly.

This guide walks through each item in plain language, then explains what’s wrong with the way the closed session is framed and what can be done if a violation occurs.

Item 1: A consulting contract that raises ethics concerns
The Commissioners are being asked to approve a consulting contract with GDMS, LLC, a small company whose principal is Gregory B. Murray.

Murray’s history matters here:
-He was Washington County’s Administrator until October 2017, when he was forced out under contested circumstances.

-His wife, Debra Murray, was fired at the same time over an unauthorized $250,000 loan tied to a county landfill project.

-He later became City Manager in Punta Gorda, Florida, and resigned in November 2024 after a publicly reported incident at a bar and a contested severance vote.

-Debra Murray has been CFO of Ellsworth Electric since 2018.

-Ellsworth Electric was founded by Commissioner John F. Barr, who remains chairman of the board.

So the company being awarded the contract is run by a former County Administrator whose spouse works for a business controlled by the Commissioner presiding over tomorrow’s meeting.

The contract itself includes:
-A one-sided attorneys’ fees clause requiring the County to pay GDMS legal costs in disputes.

-A broad scope allowing the County Administrator to assign additional work without formally amending the contract.

The scope overlaps with issues central to the federal lawsuit Maryland v. Noem, including sewer capacity, infrastructure readiness, and growth impacts connected to the proposed ICE detention warehouse in Williamsport.

For months, people across Washington County have been asking why so many major decisions connected to the proposed ICE detention warehouse seem to happen behind closed doors. Between reports of non-disclosure agreements, private discussions, canceled meetings, sealed negotiations, and ongoing litigation, public trust around this project has steadily eroded. Now another confidentiality agreement has surfaced, this time tied directly to sewer infrastructure, utility planning, and future county development.

Buried inside the Washington County Board of County Commissioners agenda packet for a May 21 special meeting is a consulting contract between Washington County government and GDMS, LLC, a private consulting company managed by former longtime Washington County Administrator Gregory B. Murray. Murray is not some random outside consultant being brought in from another state. Before becoming County Administrator, he also served as director of the County’s Water Quality Department, which makes his reappearance especially notable given that sewer and wastewater capacity have become some of the biggest unresolved issues surrounding the proposed ICE detention facility near Williamsport.

The contract gives GDMS broad authority to provide consulting and support services related to public utility adequacy, including sewer infrastructure, future growth projections, infrastructure readiness, regional service capacity, and identifying “critical areas of immediate need.” The agreement is written broadly enough that the work could potentially touch almost any major infrastructure issue the County wants reviewed. The consultant is also authorized to evaluate water and sewer deficiencies, analyze future growth impacts, coordinate with regional service providers, and even perform “other tasks not identified” if directed by the County.

What immediately caught our attention, however, was the confidentiality language embedded in the agreement. Under a section titled “Confidentiality,” the contract states that the consultant and its representatives may not “divulge, disclose, or communicate in any manner” any proprietary County information. The agreement further states that all such information must be treated as “strictly confidential,” and those confidentiality obligations continue even after the contract ends.

Under ordinary circumstances, that language might not stand out much. Governments use confidentiality clauses in consulting contracts all the time. But these are not ordinary circumstances. The proposed ICE warehouse has already triggered lawsuits from Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, protests, environmental disputes, public records fights, and growing concerns about secrecy surrounding the project. One of the central questions in the legal battle has been whether existing infrastructure can safely support a large-scale detention facility and the significant wastewater demands it could generate. Sewer and wastewater capacity have become some of the most politically sensitive aspects of the entire controversy.

That is why this contract raises so many questions. Washington County is now quietly approving a confidential consulting arrangement focused specifically on water, sewer, and infrastructure issues while those exact same issues remain at the center of the ICE warehouse fight. The agreement also allows the consultant access to County employees and County data, permits the use of subcontractors with “specific subject matter expertise,” and states that all work produced under the contract becomes the “exclusive property” of Washington County government.

Miles Taylor, a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security turned fierce anti-Trump critic, announced the rollout of a new app designed to alert people about plans to open immigration detention facilities in an appearance on “The Rachel Maddow Show” in late April.

Users who signed up for the app then received email messages and phone texts stating that their emails, phone numbers, locations and other information had been “forwarded to the authorities,” including the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations and ICE, according to Hagerstown Rapid Response, a Maryland-based group organizing against a proposed ICE detention facility 75 miles outside of Washington, DC.

The apparent breach was highlighted in a press release and blog post issued by Hagerstown Rapid Response and Washington County Indivisible claiming that “nearly 18,000” users were affected. The anti-ICE groups cited a post by the pro-Trump Data Republican X account indicating that 17,662 people signed up for the app.

A fiery resistance has sprung up in a conservative Maryland county after the Trump administration quietly bought a warehouse to hold detainees. They have a lot of determination — and some drones.

People volunteered to research city and county codes, pull water and sewer documents and file public record requests. An Uber driver took routes near the warehouse to keep tabs on activity there. The group even attracted two drone operators to do surveillance from afar. In a city where the only regular protests used to take place outside the downtown abortion clinic, warehouse opponents were now descending on county board meetings while Rage Against the Machine blared outside.

The Western Maryland warehouse is part of a broader Trump administration plan to convert several industrial spaces around the country into detention centers. The purchases have drawn bipartisan pushback in many communities, with residents worried about effects on the local environment, infrastructure and tax base. But nowhere has the resistance been so fierce and organized as in Hagerstown and surrounding Washington County.

The most energized warehouse opponents have no background in activism or politics — just a shared sense of dread about where the country seems to be headed and how their community figures into the administration’s plans. Dattilio grew up in Hagerstown, earned a degree in computer science from the University of Maryland, and returned to marry his high school girlfriend. He has four children between the ages of 4 and 10. His family has been in the area for 120 years.

He can’t shake the idea of Hagerstown becoming shorthand for “concentration camp.”

A newly obtained DHS email is shedding new light on the proposed ICE facility in Washington County, Maryland, and the language inside it directly contradicts months of softer public messaging surrounding the project.

While the subject line of the email refers to the site as the “ICE Baltimore Processing Facility,” DHS officials internally describe it as the “proposed ICE detention center at 10900 Hopewell Road in Hagerstown, Maryland.”

That distinction matters because officials have repeatedly relied on terms like “processing facility” when discussing the project publicly, even as residents and advocates warned the warehouse was being developed into a large-scale detention operation.

The email also reveals that the project is still facing unresolved tribal consultation issues under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. According to DHS, one tribe requested additional information related to ground disturbance impacts, and ICE is now awaiting final design details from its contractor before continuing consultation.

At the same time, DHS says ICE has now determined the project requires a formal Environmental Assessment under the National Environmental Policy Act due to the “scope of potential impacts associated with the proposed undertaking.”

That means the federal government is acknowledging the project may carry significant environmental and community impacts requiring deeper review and future public engagement.