Gov. Josh Shapiro stood in the left field of a baseball field at Ed Staback Memorial Park in Archbald Wednesday afternoon.
There, the governor said he thought about standing on the sidelines of his children’s baseball games.
“And imaging what it would be like if our kids were trying to play their baseball game in the shadow of a massive data center complex,” he said. “It is clear to me that there are real concerns in the communities, all across Pennsylvania, especially here in Archbald, and I want you to know that I have real concerns as well.”
At six, Archbald has the most proposed data center campuses of any municipality in Pennsylvania. After Shapiro visited the park he spent over an hour talking with residents who are fighting back against the campuses in their community.
"I wanted to see with my own eyes where at least one of those projects would be,” Shapiro said afterwards at state Rep. Kyle Mullins’ Blakely office.
The projects in the borough — including an 18-building campus next to the park — would take up 1,500 acres of land and make neighbors of massive nondescript buildings that need enormous amounts of power, and oftentimes water, to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to store data for artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
Archbald residents are not alone.
People across Pennsylvania and the country are opposed to the data center projects in their communities, especially next to homes, schools and parks. They are upset over the lack of transparency from mostly out-of-town developers on everything from end users to utility consumption to noise. They worry about how the industry will change their quality of life and impact the environment, especially pollution from diesel-powered backup generators.
Michael Pilch is a member of Stop Archbald Data Centers. The group has been vocal and informed since last year when developers began challenging the borough’s zoning ordinance, which at the time lacked clear regulations for the industry.
Pilch met with Shapiro and said they appreciate the governor’s visit.
“He listened to our concerns and he discussed some potential ideas that he may have … regarding legislation,” Pilch said after the governor left the borough.
Cumulative impacts
Residents across Northeast Pennsylvania have concerns about the cumulative impacts of multiple data center campuses in one community or closely neighboring communities.
Pilch said the residents raised that issue with Shapiro.
“He did understand where we were coming from,” he said.
Shapiro said when he and his staff return to Harrisburg, they will look at what the state legally can do to protect citizens.
“We're going to be constrained somewhat legally, but we're going to see how we can push the envelope here and look at the broader impacts on a community as opposed to one-off projects,” he said.
Municipalities in Pennsylvania must allow for all land uses. That's done through zoning laws, which regulate how property can be used.
Amazon vs. Archbald
In June, Shapiro announced that Amazon Web Services (AWS) would invest $20 billion into Pennsylvania to built data centers.
"AWS, they're hiring 10,000 Pennsylvania trades people to do this work. There'll be a couple 1,000 hired thereafter to work in these facilities, they're going to generate billions in economic impact in our commonwealth, and they're being built in areas where the local communities' representatives zone them to be built," he said.
AWS is building at least 16 data centers next to the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station nuclear power plant in Luzerne and Columbia counties.
"What's being proposed here, I think, is completely different," he said.
None of the data center developers in Archbald have yet to provide solid information about the economic impact. The developer for the Wildcat Ridge Data Center Campus attempted to using data from Virginia, which residents were quick to dismiss.
Weeding out 'speculators'
During the impromptu press conference in Blakely, Shapiro discussed how his newly refined Governor's Responsible Infrastructure Development (GRID) Standards empower communities.
"If you choose to ignore GRID, you won't get your tax break, and you won't get your permits processed in any kind of timely manner, and so that is going to make it a near impossibility for these developers to develop their projects here,” Shapiro said. “So if you ignore the administration, you ignore GRID, you do so at your own peril.”
He said the standards aim to separate speculators who are not willing to be transparent — and have no plans for power or end users — from the serious developers.
"And then to tilt the balance of power back in favor of the neighbors, back in favor of the community,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro first discussed GRID at his February budget address.
The refined version released today pushes data center developers to say who will eventually operate the facilities, create their own power, provide millions of dollars for the community and the state, and agree to environmental sustainability standards.
The governor also wants to change a tax exemption program for data center owners and operators.
Mullins is expected to introduce legislation in the state House to codify GRID.
"I can't blame any of our residents, including those community advocates we met with, from feeling totally overwhelmed," he said. "For a while, it felt like every other day we were understanding or learning a yet a new or another data center proposal.”
Act 25 of 2021 currently allows data center developers, who are certified through the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue, to qualify for a sales and use tax exemption when computer data center equipment is sold to, used, or consumed in a certified data center by an owner, operator, or qualified tenant.
Shapiro wants developers to be required to secure GRID certification in order to be eligible for the tax benefits.
The governor wrapped up his visit just after 4 p.m.
"Today's been really helpful for me to get out here, see it with my own eyes, listen to the people who are being impacted," Shapiro said before leaving Blakely. "I'm going to take their stories. I'm going to take the story of Archbald back with me as we do this work.”
