Pennsylvanians use town hall meeting to rail against data center boom

The latest example of burgeoning opposition to rapid data-center development in Pennsylvania came at a town hall meeting overflowing with frustration about how the state is managing the surge.

As about 225 people watched, more than 20 speakers in the two-hour online forum late Wednesday spoke about resistance to an industry they blame for rising electricity prices, heavy water use, noise pollution and rural industrialization. Gov. Josh Shapiro, who has tried to thread the needle of welcoming data centers while proposing some guardrails, was a frequent target.

“This is a public trust and transparency issue,” said Jennifer Dusart, a small business owner and resident of Mechanicsburg, near the state capital. “Too many Americans are finding out about these projects after decisions have been made. We have been bulldozed over, and when citizens have raised concerns, they are often dismissed as uninformed, emotional or anti-progress.”

According to the Data Center Proposal Tracker, Pennsylvania has nearly 60 data centers that have been officially proposed, are in early planning stages, have received approval to build or are under construction.

Karen Feridun of the environmental nonprofit Better Path Coalition, which organized the town hall, said the Pennsylvania Data Center Resistance Facebook group she started in January with a few dozen members now has more than 12,000 followers. Kelly Donia of East Whiteland Township in southeastern Pennsylvania, who lives near a proposed data center, said she’s a registered Democrat who had been excited about speculation in 2024 that Shapiro would be the Democratic vice presidential candidate. But she said she no longer supports him because he has courted data centers. “He is losing his base,” she said. “I want him to hear this loud and freaking clear. I’m going to make it my job to make sure that man never gets elected again for any office.”

While an Emerson College survey in November found that Pennsylvanians were split on data-center development—38 percent supported it, while 35 percent opposed it—opposition to such development close to home was more pronounced. A February poll of registered voters in the state by Quinnipiac University found even more pushback: 68 percent said they would oppose a data center for AI in their community.