Battle against Hyperscale AI Data Centers in Franklin County

The invasion of hyperscale AI Data centers in Franklin County represent the billionaire tech bros’ lack of concern or any care whatsoever for the property and lives of the people living in this beautiful rural corner of the Commonwealth.  The evening of April 28 I and many residents of Franklin County attended a county commissioner meeting for public comment on a proposed ordinance placing county-level limits and requirements on the construction of hyperscale AI data centers in the county.  Residents of all political persuasions came together to make known their grave dismay on numerous issues including but not limited to:

• significant loss of value of nearby properties

• noise pollution

• EMF pollution

• ground heat pollution

• water usage rates that would certainly damage the water table of surrounding wells and reservoirs

• water pollution from coolant chemistry and heat even with closed circulation

• electrical rate hikes to support massive power requirements and infrastructure construction

• possible property tax losses to sweetheart tax agreements to attract data center operators

• provide only a small number of jobs to run the center but contribute nothing else

  
  

A big takeaway from the assisting legal team was that the county government was quite limited in what actions they could take on hyperscale data centers.  Instead, they advised that the best defense under current Pennsylvania law was to create municipal zoning ordinances to limit where they could be constructed.

I believe that in a decade or so from now the technology and engineering will reach the point where hyperscale AI data centers will be small closed, truly self-contained, environmentally safe units including their power source and coolant. Their warehouse-sized footprints will not require vast tracts of land as they do now.  Various forms of AI technology are clearly here to stay, but like nuclear weapons and reactors, nobody wants them anywhere near their backyard.  At the current level of engineering and technology, we may not be constitutionally able to prevent them from coming here if someone gives in to taking the tech bros “30 pieces of silver” for their land but outside of restrictive zoning ordinances, I hope that as your representative I can negotiate support in the legislature to make a law or amend the Commonwealth constitution to strictly limit the footprint of hyperscale data centers.  To limit construction to places, if such exists, where the pollution they emit, the infrastructure and operating costs they incur, and ecological damage they do at the current level of engineering is far away from our backyards.