Pennsylvania politicians debate data center noise issues while lawmakers on summer break

(The Center Square) – Doing nature study or creative writing can prompt Anna Clement to hold class for her four kids in the backyard – the outdoors “brings them joy,” she says – but now she worries about a potential threat to the peace and quiet.The same worry is being felt just beyond the trees at the edge of the backyard, where there is a public school attended by thousands of children. It’s Parkland, the fifth-largest high school in the state.
Superintendent Mark Madson wrote about the same concern that Clement feels as she home-schools her 10-year-old quadruplets: Will noise from a 1.5-million-square-foot data center proposed on 410 acres across the street disrupt children’s education?
“There is a low humming that you can’t measure by decibels,” said Clement, whose home is in South Whitehall Township, Lehigh County.
“Noise & vibration” was listed first in a slew of concerns about the data center – dubbed “Project Atlas” – that Madson put in a letter to the township in May.
“Low-frequency data center noise easily penetrates building walls and travels hundreds of feet,” said the letter, which was obtained by a resident via a Right-to-Know request and shared with The Center Square.
As the data center boom continues unabated in Pennsylvania and the nation, noise levels have become a major point of friction. Lawsuits have been filed. And in South Whitehall, a township-funded “sound propagation study” recently was finished.
The study found that at night, predicted sound from the proposed data center exceeded the measured existing ambient sound levels by 30 decibels – which “is generally perceived to be eight times louder.”
Parkland’s 3,200-plus student body is present when school is in session. But residents like Clement and her family will be near the data center 24/7.
Besides the noise, she is worried about traffic, as well as a seemingly abrupt proposal to install public water service in the area, now served by wells.
‘Quiet as a conversation’
In an email responding to written questions, a spokeswoman for Project Atlas developer Edged U.S. referred to the project website.
There, under the headline “Quiet operations” it states, “Noise levels less than 54 dB at property lines, as quiet as a conversation.”
It addresses other concerns. It claims “zero water used for daily cooling operations” because of a “closed-loop” cooling system; that it will become the largest taxpayer in Lehigh County; and will have “significantly less traffic than warehouses, logistics, or freight-heavy developments.”
Many locals in the community just northwest of Allentown are not buying it.
At least 600 people jammed a meeting about the proposal several weeks ago. A well-organized opposition group has formed. Republican state Sen. Jarrett Coleman, who represents the area, said, “It’s not the right fit.”
The tussle is one of many playing out across the state in data center-targeted communities. They continue even as state lawmakers are in a multi-month recess.
Data center opposition, however, appears to be flourishing.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, last week directed that audits be conducted before any more data center projects advance. About three weeks earlier, Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul put in place a temporary moratorium.
In Pennsylvania on Thursday, Democratic Sen. James Malone of Lancaster County – saying “We don’t have time to waste” – publicly demanded the Republican-controlled state Senate be called back to Harrisburg to vote on data center moratorium legislation.
Even the administration of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, whose zeal for artificial intelligence and data center construction helped stoke the data center boom, appears to be changing. A blog edited by former Department of Environmental Protection Secretary David Hess reported this week that the Shapiro administration is expected to announce executive actions on data centers.
It can’t some soon enough for Ginny Marcille-Kerslake, senior organizer for the advocacy nonprofit Food & Water Watch. While lawmakers are away from Harrisburg, Marcille-Kerslake said, everyday people are busy fighting “for their communities and public safety and the environment.”
She added, “It is time those people elected to lead should do their job. That goes straight up to the governor.”
‘No data center’
As dusk approached on a warm evening recently, Greg Sussman sat behind his South Whitehall home and enjoyed a backyard medley. There was the soft gurgle of a water fountain, the twitter of birds, the rise-and-fall drone of a distant lawnmower.
The idea of adding a mechanical hum visibly disturbed Sussman. He is president of the South Whitehall Civic Alliance, a nonprofit that is fighting Project Atlas. A father of two school-aged children, he figures his backyard is about 1,000 feet from where the data center will be.
“Our goal is no data center,” Sussman said of the alliance. “You are doing irreparable harm to the community for a short-term tax break.”
Les Blomberg, executive director of the Vermont-based nonprofit Noise Pollution Clearinghouse, said people living near proposed data center sites “absolutely” should be aware of the potential for noise, including “low frequency.” It is, he said, a “type of noise that penetrates walls, travels further, and is very difficult to block with barriers.”
Data center noise-related lawsuits have been filed in recent months by a Michigan law firm specializing in class actions, on behalf of residents in Vineland, N.J., Lowell, Mass., and Dowagiac, Mich. A partner at the firm, Laura Sheets, said local noise ordinances often are geared toward “sporadic and fleeting” noise sources like parties or construction rather than continuous ones.
The data center low-frequency noise issue, she said, is little known by the general public.
“You can hear it inside your home and outside,” Sheets said.
History of industrial use
A video on the Project Atlas website features two union tradesmen talking about the proposed site in South Whitehall Township.
One notes that a chemical plant has operated nearby for generations. “To say that a data center is more dangerous than a chemical plant would not be correct,” he says.
The other, who went to high school locally, told of a powder company that operated on the site years ago and experienced a tremendous explosion.
“No one seemed to care about that when I was in high school,” he says. “But we are worried about a data center and what the effects on the kids are going to be from a data storage facility. It blows my mind, actually.”
Neighbor Liam Reynolds doesn’t think noise will be much of an issue.
The 32-year-old ironworker lives on the same side of Cedar Crest Boulevard as the high school. Cedar Crest is a busy major road that produces so much noise, Reynolds thinks it will remain more noticeable than the data center.
“I don’t see how it would distract students from a regular day of school,” he said.
Nonetheless, he is against the proposal.
Data centers, he said, might be obsolete in the not-too-distant future, but using the field for crops will not.
“Feed corn will never be obsolete,” Reynolds said.
The next big public step for the proposal is likely to be a Sept. 23 meeting of the township Planning Commission, to be held at 6 p.m. in the high school and focused solely on Project Atlas. The commission can make a recommendation on the submitted plan to the township commissioners, who have until Oct. 31 to make a final decision.
Tom Petrucci, the township manager, said the township engineer has a lot of “issues” with the proposal. At the same time, he said, the proposal is getting full scrutiny.
“We are reviewing the project the way we would any other,” he said. “Comprehensive and neutrally.”

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