Legal battle erupts in Pennsylvania over data center projects

(The Center Square) - A legal battle over public access and transparency has erupted in a community with major data center projects that once were on Gov. Josh Shapiro's "fast track" list, and a group of citizens acting without a lawyer scored a victory.

A Luzerne County judge on Tuesday ruled verbally that the Salem Township Planning Commission violated the Sunshine Act last month by holding a data center ordinance meeting from which - according to the eight plaintiffs - some people who wanted to attend were locked out.

On Friday, some of those same plaintiffs - who live near or in the township - said township officials again violated the Sunshine Act multiple times later in the week. But the judge, they said, denied their request for a restraining order to stop a second Planning Commission meeting that had been brought about when the validity of the original one was voided.

"What happened on Tuesday was an actual win for citizens everywhere across Pennsylvania," said plaintiff Annie Vinatieri. "It was a township that wanted to rush through processes that will affect the township in a major way, forever."

Salem Township is located at a bend in the Susquehanna River just northwest of Hazleton and is already home to the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station nuclear power plant. An Amazon Web Services data center is already under construction and a second sponsored by QTS Data Centers has received approvals.

Both were on Shapiro's state permit-expediting "fast track" list that he introduced in 2024, but were abruptly booted off the list by the administration earlier this month after public sentiment turned against data centers.

The township government has signed non-disclosure agreements related to both developments.

The most high-profile local deliberations recently, however, involved a concept for a third data center almost next door to the other two. In that one, former state Rep. Mike Cabell is part of a group that has amassed land-purchase options in transactions that ultimately could surpass $1 billion and make many local residents wealthy.

Property owners have been offered $250,000 an acre and an additional $1 million per house.

In an interview earlier this year, Cabell said Salem is "perfect" for data center development because it already hosts industry on a mass scale, including the nuclear plant, power lines, a natural gas-fired power plant, and pipelines.

The verbal ruling Tuesday by Judge Lesa Gelb involved a Planning Commission hearing about a zoning "overlay" that would help move the third project along.

Reached on Friday, Township Manager Amy Evans said she could not comment on the litigation, and efforts to reach attorneys working for the township and the township's insurance company were not successful.

Multiple attempts to contact the two state lawmakers for Salem, Sen. Lynda Schlegel Culver and Rep. Jamie Walsh, both Republicans, were not successful.

"The sheer scale of what is happening in Salem Township is overwhelming," said Ginny Marcille-Kerslake, senior organizer for the Food & Water Watch, an advocacy nonprofit. If all three data centers are built, the space devoted to them would be about 7,000 acres - more than one-third of the township's land area.

Marcille-Kerslake has traveled around the state working with communities that are fighting data center proposals. The fact that a group of residents went to court without a lawyer, she said, illustrates the challenge of being "burdened with finding a lawyer who will take on this industry. And then pay for one."

Vinatieri agreed.

"The main driver is cost. We are simply working class folks," Vinatieri said. But the lockout of people from the meeting, she said, was "a pretty clear-cut violation."

Another one of the plaintiffs, Teri Barren, works as a manager of pickups and deliveries for a car dealership. Her home is close to one of the data center sites.

"It is very overwhelming, very upsetting," she said. "I am just trying to do what is right by our residents. We are not going to be millionaires and we are still living here."

The lead plaintiff, Nate Eachus, is a former high school state wrestling champion who later started 11 games for the National Football League's Kansas City Chiefs. Now, he works in the water industry, helping to clean up PFAS, also known by the phrase "forever chemicals."

Eachus was on his way to Luzerne County Court on Friday to follow up on the group's filings. Action, he said, has to be taken as data center developers continue to approach people with big money and promises that - based on northeastern Pennsylvania's experience with major industries - Eachus believes will be broken.

He said, "People feel hopeless."