Multiple public speakers at a town hall said they don’t want a data center regardless of any promised benefits.
Developers hosted a town hall Thursday at Bangor Middle School regarding a proposed data center campus in Lower Mount Bethel Township.
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Representatives from developers J.G. Petrucci Company and Peron Development spoke, along with representatives from Talen Energy and CBRE, which is a commercial real estate firm.
The developers have proposed building a $5.5 billion, 1.2-gigawatt data center campus on Martins Creek Belvidere Highway near Talen Energy’s Martins Creek Power Plant.
Residents near the proposed site have expressed concerns about the amount of water and electricity that the data center would use.
J.G. Petrucci Executive Vice President Peter Polt said the data center’s proximity to the power plant makes it an ideal location.
Polt said the data center would pay for its own electricity and would not cause electric bills to go up for residents of the township and surrounding area.
“We understand how important it is to protect electricity customers,” Polt said.
Talen Energy Chief Asset Development Officer Dale Lebsack said the power plant has enough energy capacity to supply the data center.
Lebsack said the data center would use less water than the average golf course does per year.
Developers also said they would use the best technologies available to limit light and noise pollution.
The developers are also asking township supervisors to amend the zoning ordinance to increase the size of the township’s industrial zone, which would allow for future data centers to be built in other areas near the power plant.
Without specifying an exact amount, Peron’s Director for Development John Callahan said the data center would generate millions of dollars in tax revenue for the township and the Bangor Area School District.
The developers’ assurances about electricity, water, noise and light did not appear to sway many of the people from the audience at the town hall that spoke.
Speakers said they did not trust those assurances and tax revenue is not worth converting farmland into an industrial site.
“Don’t take agricultural land and put in a data center,” Charles Cole from neighboring Upper Mount Bethel Township said.
Multiple people asked questions and made comments at the nearly three-hour town hall. Some people said they objected to data centers in general and the township should not support anything that could be used to advance AI technology.