Last week, community members from across Fayette County joined the Mountain Watershed Association (MWA) and Center for Coalfield Justice (CCJ) for a public meeting on data center impacts. A June town hall hosted by the Fay-Penn Economic Development Council and other county organizations approached the data center question largely from industry and real-estate perspectives, and left many audience members frustrated. With the June event in mind, MWA and CCJ wanted to host a community-facing event with ample time to share the platform with those who call Fayette County home.
Four panelists from groups across the region gave insights into strategies for organizing, public policy, and how data centers can impact the environment and the economy. CCJ’s Nina Victoria discussed CCJ’s data center work in neighboring Greene County, Penn Future’s Kat Marquez touched on data center policy, Youghiogheny Riverkeeper Eric Harder covered water impacts associated with the AI buildout, and Ohio River Valley Institute’s Sean O’Leary provided insight on data center economics.
Meeting Highlights:
- Some data centers use more than 663,000 gallons of water per day – the same amount as an Olympic swimming pool! For reference, the average American household uses about 300 gallons per day.
- The Financial Times reported that Virginia’s data centers consumed at least 1.85 billion gallons of water in 2023, compared to 1.13 billion gallons in 2019
- Data Centers are expected to consume approximately 6.7-12% of total US electricity by 2028
- Backup diesel generators on site can generate air pollution and heat islands
- To construct a 1 GW data center, it costs more than $40-60 billion and generate more than $15 billion in revenue, yet pay very little in taxes due to write-offs
- Data centers only generate around 60-120 permanent direct jobs
Though there are still no proposed data centers in Fayette County, projects like the Mid-Atlantic Resiliency Link, the Kammer-Juniata Transmission Line, and the East Riverside Energy Center are all associated with rising energy demand attributed largely to data centers, and will all have an effect on Fayette County.
To learn more about the East Riverside Energy Center, please attend the open house hosted by NextEra Energy tomorrow, September 15th from 5-8 PM at Brownsville Area High School (1 Falcon Drive, Brownsville, PA 15417).
Fayette County Data Survey: online until September 25: Please also complete and share our survey covering public concerns over data center development to help inform the county’s process in pursuing a new zoning amendment.
MWA and CCJ thank Connellsville Area Community Ministries for sharing the beautiful Edwin S. Porter Theatre to host the event. A full Zoom recording can be found here.
To get involved with MWA and join our mailing list on this issue, please reach out to Nate at nate@mtwatershed.com or 724-455-4200 x 9.
More resources:
- Quick facts & talking points for community members
- Slides from the presentation