Pennsylvania Family Opposes Data Center Plan on Adjacent Farmland

A family farm in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, has been in the same family for nearly two centuries. The property currently supports farming operations, and one family member has stated plans to retire there and plant fruit trees. 2-gigawatt data center campus on 450 acres directly adjacent to the farm.

The project would require the township to rezone working agricultural land for industrial use.

The township has not been required to hold a supermajority vote or a binding public hearing on the rezoning. The developers conducted an optional town hall, but the formal rezoning process does not require one. The family states that the land is zoned for farming and that some parcels fall under formal state preservation programs.

They note that the site was selected in part because it is cheaper than industrial parks and because the power grid already runs through the area.

The family reports that the land has been farmed continuously since before the Civil War. One ancestor served in a Revolutionary War militia unit from Northampton County. The proposed data center would draw electricity comparable to the residential load of a city the size of Pittsburgh.

The developers have stated they will obtain cooling water from the Delaware River through an adjacent power plant rather than from local groundwater. org petition started by a family member has collected more than 42,000 signatures. The petition calls on Congress and state legislatures to restrict data center construction to industrially zoned land.

The family states that similar projects have been proposed in farming communities in Virginia, Iowa, and Texas.