We won't let data centers ruin water & raise utility rates

Some politicians want data centers here. Not me.

In Potter, Tioga and Bradford counties, life revolves around our love for our beautiful land. You see it in the dairy farms outside Coudersport, the quiet streets of Wellsboro, the Pine Creek Gorge and the rolling hills around Towanda. You feel it standing knee-deep in Pine Creek, casting for trout, or walking a ridge at first light during hunting season.

Out here, clean water and open land are not luxuries. They make our region attractive for families to live and tourists to visit.

Recently, a new kind of development could threaten our regional beauty and quality of life: hyperscale data centers. These massive facilities, built to power artificial intelligence and cloud computing, are promoted by some politicians as engines of economic growth and new opportunity. But for rural communities like ours, the question is not just what they bring, but what might they take from us.

From Small Sites to Massive Footprints

Modern hyperscale data centers are growing larger. One proposed campus in western Pennsylvania would span roughly 3,500 acres — land that, in our part of the state, would otherwise support farms, forests, outdoor recreation or wildlife habitat. That amount of land can grow approximately 120 million stalks of corn or 350 million soybean plants.

For those of us accustomed to measuring land in terms of hayfields, timber stands or hunting ground, that kind of footprint is hard to accept.

If used properly the hyperscale data centers and the artificial intelligence contained inside could help us cure diseases and advance both medicine and scientific discoveries faster than ever imaginable, but that is not what AI is being used for currently. It is being used primarily to automate and eliminate jobs.

Energy and Water: The Real Trade-Off

These facilities require immense amounts of electricity and water. They can draw enough power to rival small cities and use millions of gallons of water each day.

That raises a simple but serious question: What does that mean for our local citizens?

In rural Pennsylvania, most families rely on private wells. Streams like Pine Creek, Kettle Creek, the Susquehanna’s tributaries, and our lakes add to our region's beauty and provide recreation and attract tourists. Massive water consumption by data centers can deplete regional groundwater and discharge contaminated cooling water into our streams and creeks and potentially contaminate our wells. The proposed Homer City data center has the potential to consume 42 million gallons of water in 24 hours.

And data centers' massive electrical consumption puts pressure on the local grid and, over time, raises energy prices for local residents.

Economic Promises and Local Realities

Data center developers and some politicians promise that data centers will add local jobs, tax revenue and local investment. But nearly all of the labor to build data centers comes from out-of-town contractors, and after they are built, they run nearly autonomously, with only a few workers required on site.

Tax incentives and programs like Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance, or LERTA, offer long-term tax breaks and incentives to attract data centers. They starve the local tax base, all for the benefit of the tech company billionaires building the data center, and at the expense of local residents.

Technology moves quickly, and data centers built today will shortly become obsolete. Huge, modern data centers could become tomorrow's abandoned eyesores. And with tax breaks delaying local revenue for nearly a decade, and the lifespan of a data center lasting only 7 to 9 years, we might never benefit from meaningful tax revenue.

For rural counties, that raises a fair question: Are we building something that lasts, or something that comes and goes? Are we bringing something that injects benefits into our region, or extracts riches from us while giving nothing back?

Most of those yelling the loudest to build data centers in our region have connections to the gas industry that also pulled a fast one on us as theycontaminated our water tables and wells to make a fast buck. Those same gas well owners are looking to make a lot more money when they supply the data centers with gas to run generation turbines for their on-site electricity.

Balancing Progress and Preservation

We all benefit from better technology, but in the context of the data center development debate, we must define "progress" according to what's best for our region.

As part of the Pennsylvania Wilds, our region's land, woods, wildlife and outdoor recreation support hunting, fishing, tourism and family farms that have been here for generations.

Those are not just traditions to reminisce about. Instead, they are vital to our local economy and quality of life.

When land, water and energy are redirected toward large-scale technology use, it changes the balance. And once that balance shifts, it never seems to come back.

A Community Conversation

Decisions about projects of this size should be made in the open, with clear information and local input.

That means asking practical questions: How much water will be used, and from what sources? How will the power demand affect local electricity rates? When will tax benefits actually reach schools, townships and counties? What happens if the facility closes or scales back?

These are not partisan political questions. They are common-sense concerns from people who live and work on this land. Unfortunately, the almighty dollar is more important to the billionaires and those politicians who serve the billionaire class than our clean water, productive farmland, pristine forests, and the health of our children. Do we bow our heads and accept defeat or do we stand together, chin up, and fight back? As individuals we will lose every time against the billionaires, but as a community, with a show of unity and strength, we can rise up and win.

We can welcome new opportunities without giving up the things that matter most. But that only happens when communities stand together, stay informed and take the time to get it right.

Quentin Gee