Overflow crowd cancels data center meeting
FORWARD TWP – Most township planning commission meetings in Butler County pass by without incident. The one in Forward Township Thursday night, Sept. 24, featured shouting matches, protest signs, and television cameras – and it didn’t even go off as scheduled.
Dozens of township residents packed the municipal building to express their concerns about a data center development proposed for the Misty Hollow Farm property on Prospect Road. Those residents were disappointed and frustrated after the meeting was postponed due to the crowd exceeding the maximum capacity of the township building.
“We knew that there were going to be a lot of people,” said township Supervisor Susan Oliver-Stough. “But we did not expect to reach our capacity, which is 100 people.”
The decision to postpone was made by 6:20 p.m. – 40 minutes before the scheduled start of the meeting. By then, the parking lot of the municipal building was full to overflowing, with cars parking on the front lawn and protesters waving signs with slogans such as “Data Centers Suck.”
The proposed data center would be located adjacent to Connoquenessing Creek. Plans call for the data center complex to be built on a one-million square-foot parcel, with an on-site 300-MW power-generation facility, a 23,800-square-foot office building, a 2,400-square-foot security building and a wastewater treatment facility.
One resident who would be most affected is Billie Jo Rice, whose property is located entirely within the area of the proposed project.
“The building’s going to be about 30 yards from my door,” she said, pointing to a map of the proposed development. “That’s a million-square-foot building, and that’s my 2 acres.”
Rice said the developer – listed on planning documents at 614 Prospect RD LLC – has pressured her to leave her property.
“They haven’t offered us a penny,” Rice said. “They’ve told us, ‘Get out, or we're going to build a giant fence around you, and we're gonna put up a billboard, saying there's a data center coming.’”
“The company that’s trying to do this is bullying her ... telling her, ‘if you won't let us do this, we're gonna put a fence around your property,’” said Rice’s friend, Amber Schrey.
The township has rescheduled the meeting for 7 p.m. Thursday – this time, in the larger maintenance garage not far from the township building, which is estimated to accommodate around 200.
“We can have about 200 people in that building,” Oliver-Stough said. “We can also lift the garage doors, and then people can fan out and be part of the meeting that way.”
The only reason the meeting was not moved Thursday, according to Oliver-Stough, was because the garage was filled with equipment which needed to be moved.
“We have to move all the equipment out. Then, we'll have to rent a sound system, and then we have to rent a screen so that the developer can project his plans and do his discussion and presentation that he would have done here,” Oliver-Stough said.
As township officials were surrounded by police, it fell to solicitor Rebecca Black to explain to the tense crowd why the meeting was being postponed. Some residents found it difficult to accept the reasoning, asking why the meeting couldn’t be moved that night, or why the township didn’t anticipate such a large crowd in the first place.
Other residents expressed skepticism as to whether the garage would be able to fit enough people for the rescheduled meeting.
“I kept asking what happens when the next building gets overfilled to capacity, and they couldn't give me an answer,” said Dean Catalano, who lives 10 minutes from the proposed site.
Catalano criticized Forward Township for what he called a lack of transparency in the lead-up to the meeting. He said he had heard of the proposed data center only the day before the meeting.
“There was not a very wide public outreach of it, which is clearly why everyone's mad about it,” Catalano said. “There was one article on it, and then all of a sudden you started seeing more articles pop up. But I didn't see anything from the township on it.”
Catalano’s main concern regarding the proposed data center is its potential effect on the nearby Connoquenessing Creek, where he says he regularly canoes and kayaks.
“Historically, (the creek) has had a rough time with pollution already,” Catalano said. “I'm part of the Allegheny Aquatic Alliance. We've pulled over 700,000 pounds of mixed trash and 7,000 tires out of that river in the past nine years. This river has already had enough issues with pollution. We don’t need a data center clogging that up.”
Although the developer previously told the Butler Eagle the project would include a “closed-loop” system which would limit water demand, Catalano remains skeptical it would make much of a difference.
“The problem is that closed-loop systems still use water,” Catalano said. “Anyone who’s ever worked in manufacturing knows there's always a leak somewhere.”
“I'm more worried about how it's going to affect people from the disadvantaged parts of our community.” said Catalano’s girlfriend, Sydni Smith, who similarly opposes the data center. “People who are having a hard time affording their utility bills are going to have an even harder time when the data centers make water and electricity bills go up.”
Lead project developer Allen Sherwood showed up for the meeting, but left quickly once the postponement was announced.
“I was disappointed that we won’t be having the planning commission meeting tonight. I wanted to talk about our proposed Misty Hollow Energy and Data Campus and why we believe it has the potential to be something very significant for Butler County,” Sherwood wrote in a statement to the Butler Eagle.
“There are people who support our project, and there are also people concerned about what it could mean for the community. We get that, and we want to have those conversations transparently. While I had hoped to have that discussion tonight, I understand the need to make sure there is enough space for all of us who care about this public process. I look forward next week to sharing what we’re trying to do, where we are in the process, and what this project could mean for Forward Township.”
