About 30 minutes into a hearing in Archbald for a data center campus, expert witness Ben Mitten mentioned that data centers using open loop systems could need 21 millions of gallons of water a day.
The crowd of around 400 people packed into the Valley View High School auditorium, who were relatively calm until that point, shouted and booed.
They yelled for the representatives for the data center developers on stage to “go home.”
“Are we using an open loop system?” irked attorney Edward Campbell asked.
“No, we are not,” Mitten said.
The crowd was not convinced. Campbell, a lawyer representing Cornell Realty Management LLC, the data center developer, asked Mitten to describe the type of system planned for the 14-building campus on over 500 acres in the borough.
The conditional use hearing will continue on Monday, April 13, at the Valley View High School Auditorium.
“We don’t care,” audience members yelled.
Many wore yellow t-shirts that said “Stop data centers, protect NEPA” and held yellow signs that said “NO DATA CENTERS.”
Tuesday was the second of three hearings on Brooklyn-based Cornell Realty Management’s conditional use application to build a large-scale and unpopular campus in the borough. Cornell’s campus is one of six data center projects proposed in Archbald.
Campbell called two expert witnesses: Mitten, CEO of Nuceli Data and who is advising the developer on the project; and Tom Shepstone, a local professional planner.
Archbald Council member Marie Andreoli and Mayor Shirley Barrett were absent from the hearing. Council member Erin Owen left halfway through.
Water, backup generators and Shepstone’s Community Impact Analysis were among many topics discussed and dissected at the hearing.
Less water proposed
Mitten said an “adiabatic system” has been designed to cool servers in the proposed data centers.
"An adiabatic system is a closed loop system that uses air-cooled chillers and also utilizes water during peak summer months to manage the cooling of the data center to drive the operational expenses down for the system,” he said.
Project Hazlenut in Hazle Twp. is proposing using the same type of system.
Mitten said the system reduces electricity usage. Exterior water will only be used from May to September. Pennsylvania American Water told Cornell through a will-serve letter that the utility could supply the campus water from its Lake Scranton reservoir.
Later in the hearing attorney Justin Richards, who was hired by residents, asked Mitten how much water would be needed per day from May to September.
Mitten said over 1 million gallons per day in May; 1.16 million gallons in June; 3.3 million gallons in July; 1.2 million gallons in August; and 224,000 gallons in September.
Resident Tamara Healey, who was granted party status, asked what chemicals would be used in the cooling system.
Mitten said salt and glycol, an anti-freeze agent, may or may not be used.
'Here for one reason'
Mitten said the adiabatic cooling system could operate completely without water if there were a drought or another issue. But then it would use more power.
The crowd was not convinced.
“You’ll use just as much water in the summer as the whole year,” someone yelled out.
Council President Dave Moran stepped in.
“If this gets disrupted, interrupted, and we can't continue the meeting, it'll just be postponed to another time,” he said, and the crowd yelled.
“I think Archbald is better than this,” Moran said, which ignited the audience even more.
The council and the developer’s representatives then took a 10-minute recess.
“We’re here for one reason. We know you don't want it, we probably don't want it, but we have to listen to them,” council member Louis Rapoch said after the break. “This is something that we have to allow, one way or the other. Read your state mandate. Blame the state.”
Data center backup power
Tuesday’s hearing also focused on backup power generators. Data centers run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If power goes out because of weather or another reason, the centers run on the backup power fueled by diesel.
Preliminary plans for Wildcat Ridge show that each of the planned 14 buildings will have 41 generators each, or 574 generators total.
The generators will each have a 2,000 gallon tank of diesel, which contains enough fuel for 24 to 48 hours, depending on the end user.
Richards asked if the campus would need to have more than 1.1 million gallons of diesel fuel on standby at the campus.
Mitten said yes.
The generators will either be considered tier 2 with emission controls or tier 4, which has to do with emission standards required by the federal and state governments. The devices would be installed in a sound attenuation enclosure.
Moran asked why the developer would choose tier 2 over tier 4 generators, which meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's strictest emission standards.
"Tier 2 generators are more readily available than tier 4 generators. That's one item. Second item is tier 2 engines are less expensive to operate at the end of the day,” Mitten said.
Mitten anticipates that there could be one power outage event a year where the generators would have to run for 24 hours.
The engines would also operate during maintenance periods for four hours at a time quarterly, Mitten said. Each generator runs 16 hours a year for maintenance. The data center campus operator would manage a testing schedule.
Council member Tom Aniska asked Mitten and Campbell if they’ve researched diesel particulate matter, which are air pollutants that diesel generators emit.
"We understand the concern, we will accept as a condition that will comply with all appropriate regulations regarding the generators,” Campbell said.
Healey asked if the data center operator will monitor air quality.
"We live in a valley, and there are valley-specific impacts with the mountain ranges, where air pollution could get trapped in the valley and it could sit there for days, for longer, weeks, months," she said.
Mitten said the operator would have to manage their air permit “per the DEP regulations.”
The data center would need to report yearly to the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), he said.
Economic impact study
Tom Shepstone was Campbell’s second expert witness. He is a professional planner who operates his own planning firm. Cornell hired him in November to conduct a fiscal impact study.
Shepstone’s study found that:
- The project could create 1,280 data center, retail, office and mixed-used jobs.
- Total new income to the region would be $90.9 million.
- The center could add 128 new students to the Valley View School District.
- It could bring in an additional $5.2 million in taxes to Archbald, $22 million in taxes to Valley View School District and $15.2 million in taxes to Lackawanna County annually.
Shepstone showed a slide of 15 sources he used to conduct the study, however did not reveal his methodology.
Many people, including Aniska, questioned the number of jobs that would be created by the data center and the planned commercial development at the base of the property. Shepstone did not include construction jobs in his analysis.
“We looked at the jobs per square foot for the different items,” Shepstone said. “Data centers are not huge employers. I mean, that's true. They're not, but they do provide some very good jobs and the economic impact of the income of the overall project is huge.”
Campbell asked Shepstone for his opinion on “whether or not the proposed use will create a significant hazard to public health safety?”
"I believe it will not cause a negative impact in that respect, and indeed includes many positives,” he said.
Later, Healey asked Shepstone if he believes he has the professional background to give that opinion.
"What I was hired to do was to look at the … the community fiscal impacts … other people are doing that much better than I could do to address the health and safety impacts,” he answered.
Campbell asked for his opinion “as to whether or not, from terms of natural features, that the proposed use should be suitable for the site, considering disturbance of slopes, mature woodlands, wetlands, floodplains, springs and other important natural features.”
"I believe it's a good location for this,” he said.
Campbell then asked for Shepstone’s opinion on whether the data center would substantially or negatively change the character of the surrounding residential neighborhood.
"I think it does not have a negative impact,” he said.
People in the crowd yelled that it has already impacted the neighborhood.
Council member Joseph Altier asked Shepstone if there are any negatives to the project.
"Well, I identified in my presentation and in my report that there would be an impact, I believe, on the county road and on borough streets and that sort of thing... I also said that there would be some increased demands on solid waste and recycling and things of that sort,” he said.
Richards, in cross examination, pointed out that Shepstone did not sign a 22-page Community Impact Analysis for the project.
“I'd be happy to sign it,” Shepstone said.
Richard asked about two sources in Shepstone’s presentation — a five-page PowerPoint presentation titled "The Economic and Fiscal Contribution of a Data Center Development to Stafford County, Va.," and Perplexity.
Shepstone said Perplexity is an A.I. search program he used to find the Stafford County study, which he said is an “excellent source.”
“You have confirmed here tonight that some of this data is based on this high school-style PowerPoint presentation that this borough council is supposed to rely upon to believe that this is reliable data for income that should be coming to the borough of Archbald, the county of Lackawanna and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Richards said.
Healey questioned the average salary of $90,000 in Shepstone’s report.
He said he looked at Bureau of Labor Statistics data to come up with that number.
"You're going to have some people that are $45,000, you're gonna have some people at $150,000 and it's, I think it is going to average out,” he said.
Shepstone said that his firm was "extremely conservative in our numbers."
"We were conservative in the tax rates we used. We were conservative in the value we used," he said.
Shepstone recently worked on the municipal side of data centers and guided Dickson City through its data center ordinance.
Dickson City Development LLC is proposing building a large-scale data center on Bell Mountain off Business Route 6 in the borough. The location is about 3 miles away from Wildcat Ridge on the same mountain. However, the ordinance, guided by Shepstone, only permits data centers in Dickson City’s manufacturing district.
The meeting is continued until Monday, April 13, in the Valley View High School auditorium.
