Across the United States, thousands of data centers are seeking to break ground, sometimes forming clusters when several are planned near one another. Typically, local zoning boards consider each data-center proposal individually, not as a group. But in one corner of Pennsylvania — where more than a dozen data centers and power plants are being proposed — officials are trying to change that by studying the total air-quality and health effects of all the proposed projects together, before approving them.
Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan asked, "What happens if you put them all in the same valley, around the same neighborhoods?" As opposition grows nationwide to the pollution caused by data centers and the immense power plants they require, officials in Lackawanna County said they hoped their approach might set a new precedent for how proposals are reviewed in other communities. The county, home to the city of Scranton, recently approved an independent study of the air pollution and health effects likely to result from the cluster of data centers and fossil-fuel-burning power plants proposed there. The study, to be completed by Em Power Analytics Group by the end of the year, will assess how much pollution the facilities would add, where it would go, who would be exposed to it and what that could mean for public health countywide.
Michael Cork, a Harvard-trained environmental health scientist who founded Em Power, called the project "a major proposed infrastructure build-out, concentrated in one county." The study will also identify choices that developers could make to reduce public health harms, like the types of generator engines, limits on how long they run and considerations for where they would be placed. A representative for Wildcat Ridge said the project would "comply with regulatory requirements, which are protective of human health."
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing