You can’t make ice without water.

So Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall and the City Council have cleverly moved to step on the hose that would lead to what we are told is to be a much unwelcome detention center operated by the violent and often lawless federal agency known as ICE.

The mayor proposed and the council unanimously approved Tuesday new rules for water usage at large developments in the city. Accurately noting that water is in short supply in Utah and across the American West, the city placed a limit on the amount of water that can be used by a non-residential structure to no more than 200,000 gallons per day.

ICE has not been forthcoming with any details of its plan, not talking with local officials or anyone else, which is a big part of what’s wrong with it. But such a facility reportedly might house — warehouse — as many as 7,500 human beings at a time.

Such an operation would consume an estimated 1 million to 2 million gallons of water in a single day. That’s too much.

Even Utah Republicans such as Gov. Spencer Cox, Sen. John Curtis and former Gov. Gary Herbert have complained that, regardless of the perceived need for such a facility, the feds should have included local and state officials in the planning from the beginning.

Until the city knows what ICE plans for a building zoned and built as a warehouse for things, not for living human beings, local officials are wise to make it known that their responsibility to maintaining basic local services is not something that even the federal government should be allowed to plow over.

Editorials represent the opinions of The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board, which operates independently from the newsroom.