Crowd objects to proposed Taylor Township data center

About 200 residents turn out to oppose facility proposed for former Appvion mill

About 200 people filled the Friendship Volunteer Fire Company hall in Roaring Spring Thursday for a required public hearing concerning a potential data center.

Taylor Township supervisors discussed proposed amendments to the township's subdivision and land development ordinance (SALDO) designed to protect the community from possible deleterious effects of a data center that Terawatt Data Centers of New York City wants to build at the site of the former Appvion paper mills.

All 23 speakers who came to a podium and many others who called out from the crowd expressed opposition -- towards the end of the meeting demanding that the supervisors simply scrap the idea of regulating against possible harms in favor of a blanket prohibition on data centers -- with some citing a recent executive order from Gov. Josh Shapiro as justification for the demand.

State law doesn't permit municipalities to "flatly prohibit uses" of private property in the way the residents were demanding, but can only "regulate within the bounds that the state allows," including by restrictions in SALDOs, under the state's Municipalities Planning Code, Fanelli said.

While the executive order states that the state Department of Environmental Protection must only review permit applications if developers have made legally binding commitments to meet the Governor's Responsible Infrastructure Development (GRID) Requirements and have received local approval, it doesn't say that those municipalities can withhold approval absolutely.

It does say that data center developers must meet strict standards on energy affordability, environmental protection, workforce and economic development, transparency and community engagement.

If the municipality cannot flatly prohibit data centers, then it should at least push hard to ensure that its regulations under the SALDO and by other means bring maximum benefits for the community, said attendee Matthew Lingafelt.

And if those regulations turn out to be too strict, then maybe companies would abandon the idea of building a data center in the area, which is all the better, Lingafelt said.

Hillary Stiffey brought a petition with the signatures of 2,300 residents opposing the proposed project, which would bring "unmitigated industrialization" to Roaring Spring on the site of the old mill, she said.

"It would not be some quiet warehouse," she said.

Penn State faculty member Victor Ward Sparrow, an acoustics expert who was recruited by a local man and who was speaking as a private citizen, not for Penn State, warned against the noise.

The low frequency noise (LFN) that data centers emit "travels long," is "pervasive" and penetrates walls and glass, so it would be audible at times in patient rooms at Conemaugh Nason hospital, in classrooms at the Spring Cove district in Roaring Spring and at a church across Route 164 from the complex, Sparrow said. The noise standards in the current amended ordinance are not crafted to be effective for such low frequency sound, he said. He recommended that area residents visit a data center in Loudon County, Va., to get a feel for the noise, and he urged the supervisors to hire an acoustic specialist -- a post he would not accept, he said.

The expectations for the Terawatt data center is that there would be a closed loop water system, which, while saving water, can lead to problems with antifreeze and other chemicals used in the closed loops getting into local waterways and polluting them, according to attendee Carol Taylor, the president of Indivisible Blair County.

Assurances that Terawatt has provided to reassure the supervisors on various issues should not be trusted, according to Taylor, citing suits against the company -- although litigation has gone both ways between the firms and local authorities, according to an online source.

Attendee Patti Defibaugh told the supervisors she is prepared to sue to stop the data center, if it proceeds.

Riley Devecchis expressed worries that the data center would devalue a recent investment she has made in a house in Roaring Spring.

Isaac Emeigh has a similar concern about a recently purchased property near the paper mill site where he wants to create a "farmstead."

Kara Stern asked the supervisors to consider replacing the data center project with an arts project that would involve painting of barns, houses and commercial buildings in a quilt pattern.

One attendee demanded that the supervisors pledge not to take any money in connection with the project.

The situation around data centers and artificial intelligence is reminiscent of the plot in the movie Jurassic Park, in which scientists were more concerned than they should have been with whether they could do something and not concerned enough about whether they should do it, said William Wigman. If the ordinance is passed as currently written, he said he will work to ensure the supervisors are unseated at the ballot box.

"We've been beat up over this," said Supervisors Chairman Jerome Dodson at the end of the meeting, as catcalls continued. "I've been called 'liar' and 'scumbag' and 'I hope you rot in hell.'"

Around this time, Stern told the crowd that Dodson was a good man.

"We're just trying to do our jobs for you, folks," Dodson said. "We're trying to follow the law."

The supervisors will continue to work on the matter, Dodson said. "And you will continue to hate us," he added.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.