The fight against a data center to be built at the site of a former power plant in Springdale isn’t over, says an organizer of a protest that drew participants from within and outside the borough Saturday.
While borough council in December approved Allegheny DC Property’s application to build a data center on the grounds of the former coal-fired Cheswick Generating Station, it still needs permits and approvals from Allegheny County agencies, which will give residents more opportunities to be heard, said Tom Bailey, of Penn Hills.
“We feel that these other government agencies will see this data center is not a good fit for the borough,” said Bailey, a retired high school government and economics teacher.
Should that also fail, Bailey said they can take it to court — where borough officials said they would end up if they didn’t OK it.
“I just believe in the process,” he said.
An Allegheny County spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment Saturday. Brian Regli, a consultant for Allegheny DC Property, did not immediately return a call for comment.
The protest was held along Pittsburgh Street at the opposite end of the borough from the data center site and outside of From Italy, a restaurant where Bailey and others have been meeting to discuss and plan their continuing resistance to the project.
About two dozen people participated in the protest, which was uneventful over three hours as they stood outside, hoisting signs and soliciting and receiving honks of support from passing motorists before sitting down to eat and talk at the restaurant.
Springdale resident Nancy Weaver was among those who believed the fight over the data center was over until Bailey knocked on her door. Her home is uphill from the data center site on Washington Street.
“Unfortunately everybody was led to believe once it went through council, it was a done deal,” she said. “It has to be approved by the county. It’s still possible it could be stopped. That’s what we’re trying to do.
“If you truly believe in something, you don’t give up until there’s nothing left to fight for.”
She doesn’t accept the explanation of council members who said voting against the development would have taken the borough into a costly legal battle that they would ultimately lose.
“You should be protecting your residents who elected you to those offices,” Weaver said. “Nobody who lives here wants it. People are already putting their houses up for sale.”
The Springdale protest attracted comrades from Upper Burrell, where residents have been opposing a data center there at the former Alcoa/Arconic technology center.
“The only way you are going to stop this is ‘We the people.’ Your government officials aren’t doing (anything),” said Al Baxter, who lives a quarter-mile away from the TECfusions project and previously lived in East Deer. “I moved to the country to be country. It’s no longer going to be country. If you put something like that in, it’s going downhill.”
In May, Upper Burrell passed a 180-day moratorium on data center developments, which prohibits TECfusions from doing work outside an existing building.
The data center there is the second fight for Al Uhler, a former Upper Burrell supervisor, who lost a battle against a Marcellus shale natural gas well near his home.
“We’re in it together,” he said. “We got to pull together.”
The protest also brought Margaret Fortuna, who has long lived in Parks Township in Armstrong County after growing up in Springdale, where her son and daughter-in-law live.
“I can’t believe they would put this in where so many people live,” she said. “I don’t welcome huge electric bills, personally. They are going to make billions of dollars off of this. Why should we have to pay?”
Like Bailey, Fortuna said most of the people she talks to say the data center in Springdale is a “done deal.”
“I disagree with that 1,000%,” she said, comparing the ongoing fight to the story of David and Goliath.
“David won, and so can we,” she said.
While Devon McCullough says data centers are needed, he’d prefer they not be in his neighborhood. It would be a block away from his Springdale home of 10 years, which he and his wife, Kaitlin Mueller, moved into while the power plant was still operating.
“It wasn’t the greatest thing. We knew it was there when we moved in,” he said, adding that its demolition was worse.
McCullough said he has worked in smaller data centers.
“If I had to live near the sound that makes all the time, it would have driven me insane,” he said. “It was a low-level hum constantly. You could feel it at the base of your neck.”
Even if county officials can’t do the best thing and stop the development, McCullough is hopeful something good will come from further discussion and review.
“If it truly is an unstoppable thing, it would be beneficial for the town if we could get as many concessions as possible,” he said.
Tratha Fogliani, from Aspinwall, said the protest was her first.
“I want clean water and clean air for my kids and my grandkids and all the generations afterwards,” she said.
Unlike McCullough, Fogliani said she wants data centers out of the state and the nation.
“I want AI gone. We don’t need it. We’ve lived without it for so long,” she said, conceding that she does use it.
“How can I stop using it? I don’t want to use it,” she said. “I didn’t even realize I was using AI. It sneaks in.
“We don’t need it, not at the expense of our water and the expense of our health.”