Surprise’s own fire department confirms nobody is talking about it.
June 2, 2026
On the south side of West Sweetwater Avenue in Surprise sits one of the largest hazardous chemical warehouses in the Phoenix metropolitan area. On the north side, the federal government is preparing to hold hundreds to thousands of immigration detainees in a converted warehouse — people who, in chemical emergency, cannot let themselves out.
Northwest Valley Indivisible has been asking a straightforward public safety question since early April: who has a plan to protect those detainees, and the surrounding community, if something goes wrong across the street?
Based on everything we have found in the public record, the answer is: no one.
What Is Stored Across the Street
The Rinchem Company has operated its CSC-45 facility at 13255 W. Sweetwater Avenue since February 2024, approximately 160 feet from the planned ICE detention facility at its closest point. Federal and state filings reviewed by NWVI researcher Lynne Gehling confirm hundreds of thousands of pounds of hazardous chemicals on site, including chlorine, fluorine, ammonia, and hydrogen chloride — a liquefied pressurized gas that, when released, forms a dense, ground-hugging toxic cloud capable of causing severe injury or death at significant distances.
Under federal law, facilities storing chemicals above threshold quantities must file a Risk Management Plan with the EPA modeling how far a dangerous release could spread. Gehling reviewed Rinchem’s RMP in a secure federal reading room in Phoenix in April of this year.
What she found is not reassuring.
The Numbers
For hydrogen chloride, among the most acutely dangerous substances at the facility, the numbers are stark. Under a realistic accident scenario — a broken seam or manifold failure releasing 20,000 pounds — the toxic endpoint reaches 2.7 miles, affecting an estimated 73,642 people. Under the worst-case scenario, the endpoint extends 6.2 miles, placing an estimated 272,654 people — over a quarter of a million — within the hazard zone. Dysart High School, with approximately 1,400 students, sits just over half a mile away, inside every worst-case scenario modeled in the RMP.
A standard warehouse offers no meaningful protection, nor to our knowledge does any other facility within the hazard zone. Hydrogen chloride is heavier than air, flows at ground level, and is actively drawn indoors by conventional HVAC systems, which distribute it throughout the building in high concentrations. At toxic levels it causes immediate chemical burns throughout the respiratory tract and can prove fatal with brief exposure. For those in ICE detention who cannot open a door and run, there is no recourse in such a structure.
What the Fire Department Said
The Surprise Fire-Medical Department has acknowledged responsibility for emergency planning in this corridor. In written correspondence earlier this year, Fire Inspector Steven D. Faraclas confirmed that SFMD does not automatically receive updated Risk Management Plans, that the Emergency Response Guidebook — a general reference document — would be its primary tool in a Rinchem spill, and that changes from Rinchem’s RMP reach SFMD only “by request.”
Most critically, when Project Salt Box asked this week whether DHS, ICE, or GardaWorld had contacted SFMD about emergency planning for the detention facility, Faraclas wrote: “Not at this time.” Asked what protecting non-evacuable detainees during an accident would require, he wrote: “No such conversation has taken place at this time.”
The detention facility’s emergency plan doesn’t exist yet. Faraclas confirmed the facility “would prepare its own general emergency or evacuation plan” — a document GardaWorld would produce on its own, at some future date.
The fire department responsible for this corridor has confirmed in writing that no planning conversation has taken place with DHS, ICE, or GardaWorld — and nothing in the public record suggests anyone is moving to change that, not even the City of Surprise.
The facility is scheduled to open in a few months.
Where We Stand
NWVI submitted a formal public safety briefing to Surprise officials on May 29, asking the city to press DHS, ICE, and GardaWorld for answers on evacuation protocols, shelter-in-place planning, emergency coordination, and chemical detection systems before opening. The Arizona Attorney General filed suit against DHS in April 2026, citing NWVI’s research.
When Project Salt Box asked DHS to respond, a spokesperson did not address the public safety questions — instead saying ICE had “carefully evaluated” the site to protect “protected species, sensitive natural resources, and valued cultural resources.” No mention of Rinchem, Surprise Fire-Medical, or the detainees who could not leave on their own. GardaWorld referred all questions to DHS. Rinchem did not respond.
Rinchem’s own filings model a toxic plume reaching 2.7 miles in a realistic accident — placing over 70,000 people in the “reasonable-case” hazard zone, including Dysart High School’s 1,400 students. The fire department responsible for this corridor has never been asked to plan for the people who will soon be locked in the building across the street, and nothing in the public record suggests anyone is moving to change that. No shelter-in-place protocol exists. No inter-facility notification procedure exists. No chemical detection or HVAC isolation system has been confirmed.
These gaps are documented, confirmed by the fire marshal himself, and still unaddressed as the clock runs toward a fall opening. Surprise residents — and the people who will be locked inside that building — deserve answers before those doors open. We will keep asking until they get them.
Northwest Valley Indivisible is a progressive, nonpartisan civic organization in Arizona’s Eighth Congressional District. northwestvalleyindivisible.org — info@northwestvalleyindivisible.org
[Photo Credit: Rinchem.com]