DHS Letter to Washington County Both Opens and Closes Section 106 Historic-Preservation Review for Williamsport ICE Warehouse, Finding 'No Historic Properties Affected'

Opening paragraph

On January 14, 2026, a letter from the Department of Homeland Security arrived at the Washington County Historic District Commission and Planning and Zoning Department, addressed to it as the required consulting party under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). The letter both initiated and concluded DHS’s Section 106 review of the proposed ICE detention facility at 10900 Hopewell Road (a/k/a 16220 Wright Road), Williamsport, MD, issuing a finding of “No Historic Properties Affected” in the same document that opened consultation. DHS completed its $102.4 million purchase of the 825,000-square-foot warehouse two days later, on January 16, 2026 (see 2026-01-27–dhs-purchases-fundrise-williamsport-md-warehouse).

What Happened / Key Facts

Washington County’s own January 28, 2026 press release — the earliest public disclosure of the letter, itself twelve days after the purchase closed — quotes the DHS letter directly: it “was sent under a federal law that requires DHS to inform the local government of its determination on whether the project impacts historic property,” and “DHS communicated that the undertaking results ‘in a finding of No Historic Properties Affected.’” The county’s release states plainly that “the federal law in question does not give the County any opportunity to overrule that determination.”

Project Salt Box’s March 11, 2026 investigation, reporting independently and citing the same January 14 letter, adds detail the county’s own release did not include: the letter offered a 30-day public comment window, and that window “expired after the property had already changed hands.” The purchase closed on January 16, two days after the letter’s date, so nearly all of the 30-day window was still to run when the property changed hands. Salt Box also reports that DHS’s own Section 106 review, in identifying the “area of potential effect,” had noted an adjacent 19th-century farmhouse (the Van Lear-era structure on the former Taylor Farm tract) as a historic resource, then found it ineligible for protection on the reasoning that it had already deteriorated too far to preserve — the review’s only documented engagement with an actual historic resource, resolved in the same same-day determination.

On the same-day characterization: Washington County’s own release does not itself use the words “same day,” but it independently confirms every fact that makes it true — one letter, one date (January 14, 2026), containing both the Section 106 notice and DHS’s own “No Historic Properties Affected” finding. Salt Box’s characterization (“simultaneously initiated and concluded”) is consistent with, not merely asserted over, the county’s primary account. This is not the only Section 106 letter in Williamsport’s record — DHS sent a second letter on March 19, 2026 “to continue consultation” after a formal objection to Maryland Historical Trust reopened the question (see 2026-03-19–dhs-reopens-williamsport-section-106-consultation-after-objection) — but the January 14 letter is the one that closed the review before the property changed hands, which is the finding this entry documents.

Why This Event Matters

This is a second review track disposed of on the same compressed timeline documented for Williamsport’s NEPA review (which invoked three stacked categorical exclusions rather than conducting an EA/EIS — see 2026-04-15–judge-halts-williamsport-ice-construction-nepa and wexmac-titus-categorical-exclusion-template-test). Two parallel federal review statutes — NEPA and NHPA — were each disposed of at Williamsport through a mechanism that let DHS complete a required consultation process without the process functioning as a check: NEPA via a stacked categorical exclusion, NHPA via a same-day initiate-and-close letter whose comment window ran out only after the deal had already closed. Neither instance by itself would be more than a fast regulatory disposition; the same site showing both is evidence of a review-bypass pattern operating across independent statutory tracks, not a single-track anomaly.

Broader Context

The January 14 letter’s “No Historic Properties Affected” finding did not go unchallenged. A Hagerstown resident filed a formal objection with the Maryland Historical Trust on February 3, 2026, arguing that DHS’s letter had used an incorrect address (10900 Hopewell Road, rather than the deed address of 16220 Wright Road) to process the review — an error the objection argued invalidated the determination and denied the community the notice and comment period Section 106 is supposed to provide. Per Project Salt Box, the Maryland Historical Trust subsequently reopened its review. DHS’s own March 19, 2026 letter to the Historic District Commission (reported by the county on March 27, 2026) explicitly frames itself as continuing Section 106 “consultation” — this sequence is documented in the companion timeline entry 2026-03-19–dhs-reopens-williamsport-section-106-consultation-after-objection.

Research Gaps

• The Section 106 determination document itself (the January 14 letter) has not been independently retrieved and read in full by this pass — findings here rest on the county’s own press release quoting it directly (tier 1) and Salt Box’s independent reporting (tier 2), not a primary-document read of the letter’s full text. A copy may exist via a Washington County public records request or a mht.maryland.gov Section 106 case file.
• The exact date the Maryland Historical Trust reopened its review is reported by Salt Box only as “February 2026,” not pinned to a specific date.
• The objecting resident’s identity is undisclosed in all sources reviewed; the objection document itself (obtained by Project Salt Box per its reporting) was not independently located or read by this pass.
• Whether DHS’s Section 106 review record is held in a mht.maryland.gov case file was searched for but not located as a directly retrievable document in this pass (see mechanism note for the access-attempt record).

Related Entries

• 2026-01-27–dhs-purchases-fundrise-williamsport-md-warehouse
• 2026-03-19–dhs-reopens-williamsport-section-106-consultation-after-objection
• 2026-04-15–judge-halts-williamsport-ice-construction-nepa
• wexmac-titus-categorical-exclusion-template-test
• wexmac-titus-warehouse-census
• williamsport-section-106-review-bypass