Residents wage 11th-hour fight over proposed data center in rural Washington County community

Opposition to a proposed data center at the back of an industrial park is growing among residents of Hanover Township, Washington County. 

The industrial park is home to 126 acres of a former strip mine, but soon it may be home to a massive data center campus: eight buildings in all, including a natural gas power plant to provide the electricity. If it moves forward, the site would join the ranks of the state's largest. But residents fear noise, pollution and other impacts on the quality of their lives.

"This is a township made up mostly of elderly and young people who moved here for the peace and tranquility. All of that's going to be gone," resident Gary Munko said. 

Data center meets requirements 

Unlike other projects trying to clear regulatory hurdles, this one is just about ready to proceed. The campus meets the zoning requirements, complies with a recently passed data center ordinance and needs final approval of the council. But residents say they were caught off guard and are now waging an 11th-hour fight. 

"Hanover residents aren't anti-data center, per se, and we're not anti-business, but in terms of proximity to homes, we're talking about health concerns from infrasound, from noise, from all the emissions problems," resident Katie Weber said. 

The site is owned by Alex Paris, who has a sales agreement with the Texas hyper-scaler Prime Data Centers to build and operate the campus. Paris says he knows data centers are not popular here or across the country but says they need to be built somewhere. 

"They might not want data centers, but everything they do every day, when they're on their phone, has to run through a data center," Paris said. "I think the middle road is selective places where you can put these things where they don't disrupt stuff."

And Paris says his site — a remote, post-industrial site with its own source of power —  fits the bill and, despite the concerns, will not be seen or heard by most residents. 

"This is not going to create traffic issues, it's not going to create a pollution issue, it's not going to create noise issues," Paris said. "It's a good deal for everybody. It's going to create jobs."

Paris said the project will create thousands of construction jobs and hundreds of permanent jobs. He says it will also generate between $10 million and $15 million a year in local tax revenue. 

Residents demand transparency

Still, the residents say the project has moved forward mostly behind closed doors. They criticize the data center ordinance as being too accommodating and not requiring sufficient setbacks or low enough noise levels. They accuse Paris and his partners, the Miller family, of wielding their political clout to get it passed. 

"That's wrong, and that's kind of aggravating," Paris said. "This site has sat here. It hasn't generated tax dollars for over 20 years."

There is one last council meeting scheduled for Aug. 5, which is expected to draw a big crowd in hopes of stopping, or at least delaying, the development. 

But the Parises own the land, and they have the right to develop it. And if they comply with the ordinance, short of a statewide moratorium, there may not be a lot the citizens can do to stop it.   

"When it comes down to it, our municipality is responsible for protecting the health, safety and welfare of their residents," Weber said. "I think that should be paramount."