State Farm Bureau seeks moratorium on data centers
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By the time Andy Bater held up a big map of the Gregg Township region during testimony to a state board on Wednesday, Pennsylvania's farmers had already raised a red flag over the frenzy to build data centers.
The previous day, the board of the 24,000-member Pennsylvania Farm Bureau had voted to endorse a statewide moratorium on building them.
But Bater's map highlighted a place where farmers' frustration is boiling over. It appears to some working the land just west of the west branch of the Susquehanna River that data centers could make a mockery of Pennsylvania's taxpayer-funded and much-ballyhooed farmland preservation program.
PPL Electric Utilities has unveiled five different possible routes for a new high-voltage transmission line that appears to be dedicated to feeding a single proposed data center location. One proposed route, farmers said, crosses six or more farms that have been "preserved," meaning government has spent taxpayer money to buy conservation easements.
And, they said, eminent domain has been mentioned by PPL as an option for obtaining access to the land.
"The farmers on this map, most of them said to me, 'I have no interest in any amount of money [for] allowing transmission lines to run across my land,'" Bater told the board of the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, which includes state lawmakers. He added, "Farmers have an incredibly emotional connection to their land."
A PPL spokesperson, responding to written questions on Friday from The Center Square, said the company's Allenwood Transmission Project -- which would involve putting about nine miles of new 230-kilovolt transmission on poles averaging about 140 feet in height -- remains in the evaluation phase.
"No preferred or final route has been selected," the PPL statement said. "Feedback from landowners, farmers, local officials and community members is an important part of the process and is being carefully considered as we evaluate potential route options."
The proposed project is in the Union County part of Republican Sen. Gene Yaw's district. He chairs the center's board.
At the hearing, he told farmers who testified about eminent domain worries that he had with PPL.
"I can't remember any project where eminent domain was ever exercised by PPL in my district," Yaw said. He also said, "The only reason eminent domain was mentioned is because PPL was required to mention it."
Another farmer who testified, York County orchard owner Barron Shaw, responded to Yaw, "I would liken that to somebody pointing a gun at you saying they have no intention of shooting you."
'National leader' in preservation
Pennsylvania politicians brag often about the state's Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, developed in 1988. It lets governments purchase from farm owners easements also known as development rights.
The goal is to protect prime farmland for future generations. The state Bureau of Farmland Preservation's latest annual report calls Pennsylvania a "national leader" with "6,648 farms and 661,035 acres protected." During the past three fiscal years, the state has put $43 million a year into purchasing conservation easements.
A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau said membership is troubled by the concept of a major utility proposing to run transmission lines across preserved farms.
"For us, preserved farmland is preserved farmland," said bureau Communications Director Will Whisler. The situation in Union County, he said, makes it appear "there is no real protection for preserved farmland from transmission lines that would be put in through eminent domain."
The vote by the bureau's current 18-member board to support a data center moratorium was unanimous. Whisler said the measure did not specify a moratorium length.
In its statement, PPL Electric Utilities said it recognizes the importance of the farmland preservation program and the commitments to preserving land for future generations.
"Agricultural impacts are carefully considered as part of our evaluation process along with environmental impacts, engineering requirements, existing land uses, public safety, constructability, and overall project feasibility," the company said.
'See you in court'
A PPL map showing possible routes for the proposed transmission line has them ending at a "customer facility" at Allenwood, along the river. The company did not mention the customer in its statement, but PNK Group has said it is the entity that plans to create a data center campus beginning with "an existing industrial building and expanding over time as infrastructure and approvals progress."
Many of the preserved farms that may be affected are in Gregg Township.
Terry Snoddy owns or operates two farms in the region. He referred to the proposed transmission line as the data center's "own personal extension cord."
Snoddy's sons will be the fourth generation of farmers there. His grandfather bought some of the land 100 years ago. During that century, Snoddy said, the federal government took the land of the community of Alvira to create a huge munitions facility and never returned it to private owners.
The region's population has what Snoddy calls a "generational" traumatic memory of it. He said, "PPL doesn't know what kind of bees nest they stepped in."
Janet Sellard's parents bought the farm she operates – and which has been preserved – in 1958. What, she asked, was the point of "preserving" a farm if a utility can claim a passage through it via eminent domain?
"We are just regular people. We do not have the finances to go out and hire big lawyers," she said. Nonetheless, she said, when a PPL representative told her recently that eminent domain was a possibility, she had a ready answer.
"I will see you in court."