The Sword of Damocles. I think that’s a good and applicable metaphor for those of us in any community throughout Pennsylvania dealing with the issue of data centers. We live in a state of eventual peril, and our elected officials don’t really seem to get it and or really care. Or if they care at all, do they care enough?

East Whiteland in particular I’m beginning to find especially frustrating. With everything it’s no we couldn’t possibly, it’s never maybe we can investigate that as a solution.

Every time you turn around yet another community is being faced with a potential data center, or inadequate bad pablum smeared data center ordinance language developed by people who are really in it to get data centers in communities. And yes, I can have that opinion because it’s the truth in my opinion.

The developers are your typical developers and this could be a warehouse or an apartment building or condominium complex or bad stick frame townhouse development. They don’t really care, they’re just in it to make money. and like typical developers they will build their build and move on to the next community whose lives they are going to impact negatively.

There seems to be a couple of court cases pending, so there’s no actual data center building going on at the moment in East Whiteland, but it never should’ve gotten this far. This township had the ability when this first started to say no, but they lost their balls along the way.

This started in 2018. I know because I was following it and so was Ginny Kerslake. It was around the same time that the developer tried unsuccessfully to get a hydrogen hub in West Whiteland next to where he wanted the data center in East Whiteland.

When I asked about this then and asked them if they had ever heard of Loudon County Virginia or how bad this could be the response was along the lines of (and I’m paraphrasing), “It couldn’t be that bad.”

I warned officials in this township then that a human tsunami would arrive when they least expected it about this data center. And the human tsunami is here and the residents are not backing down, which is something this township is not used to because there isn’t a lot of staying power on certain issues. But with this the issue of data centers, residents are united.

And it’s not just the residents of East Whiteland. It’s the surrounding communities who would be affected by this data center or who are going to be affected by another data center. This issue is non-partisan. People just don’t want them, and if you study the fine print in our electric bills, we’re already paying for data centers. We’re paying for what we didn’t ask to have dumped on us. That’s just classic isn’t it?

A truthfully, we shouldn’t have to have it. There’s an opportunity right now in Harrisburg thanks to State Senator Katie Muth to pass a bill that would allow for a moratorium on data centers. It wouldn’t be forever, but it would give people breathing room, but of course the lobbyists and the politicians, who have swallowed the Emperor’s new clothes as being spun by Governor Josh Shapiro, just don’t get it, and their ignorance (or deliberate obdurance) could cost us our communities, our health, our environment, our home values, and more.

State Senator Katie Muth is the only elected official who seems to give a damn most days.

Who is going to take care of us when our wells run dry? Who is going to take care of us when we don’t have enough energy for our use because it’s being hogged by a data center? Who is going to keep us from literally losing our minds from the noise of a data center which will also affect our children, our pets, our wildlife?

I’m tired of being Sister Mary Sunshine on this issue. It’s wrong and when did our government become people who didn’t protect the people who elected them in the first place? Do any of them have courage? That remains to be seen.

Now there’s this narrative being spun in East Whiteland that Foote Mineral really isn’t a super fund/EPA site any longer. Don’t know what they’re smoking, but it really must be good, huh?

Yes. It. Is.

That Foote Mineral site is a bad site and this is a greed driven bad plan. Data centers are not good for any community. And yes I can have that opinion.

And a brief segue to Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, and Salem Township. Does anyone really believe that the data center land owners give a crap about the cats living on one particular parcel I mean, where are they going with them? Are they just making them disappear? Doesn’t the potential for animal cruelty matter either?

https://www.wnep.com/article/news/local/luzerne-county/friends-and-ferals-removed-from-salem-township-data-center-properties-while-rescuing-cats-berwick-qts-salem-township/523-d8709ca6-4fac-418a-8948-b21a5153e2e5

My greatest fear with these data centers is the reality that our local governments and our state government is creating a Logan‘s Run scenario for the future. And that’s not as crazy as it sounds if you look at what’s happening with the negative effects of data centers in other states already.

https://www.eastwhiteland.org/government/departments/planning_development/sentinel,_green_fig_data_center_on_swedesford_road.php

East Whiteland Township among other municipalities still has the opportunity to grow balls and do the right thing.

But will they?

Signing off utterly disgusted.

I don’t know what we’re celebrating on July 4 but it seems like this country is on a bad track and data centers are just part of it.

Logan’s Run here we come.

Make sure you read Ginny Kerslake’s editorial in the Inquirer.

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/data-centers-moratorium-shapiro-katie-muth-pennsylvania-20260701.html