Community Impacts
Five categories of impact, in the order that matters most to people who live here. Each section opens with the bottom line; scroll if you want the details and sources.
The Schuylkill is not an industrial cooling pond.
A “closed-loop” data center still needs millions of gallons to fill and millions more to top up. We are downstream of the largest drinking-water source for the Philadelphia region and on top of a 190-year industrial brownfield.
1-5M gal/day
Typical hyperscale AI data center daily water consumption, even with closed-loop cooling. Equivalent to a town of 10,000-50,000 residents.
Source: EESI, LBNL 2024.
1.5M+ residents
People in the Philadelphia region whose drinking water comes from the Schuylkill.
Source: Philadelphia Water Department.
1832-2025
Years the 900 Conshohocken Road site has been an active heavy industrial facility, with documented industrial wastewater discharge to the Schuylkill.
Source: DRBC outfall dockets through 2012.
Your electric bill is already going up because of data centers.
Even if this facility brings its own gas turbines, it lives inside the regional grid. PJM’s capacity prices, the wholesale prices PECO buys at, are already 9× higher this year, and economists say data centers caused most of it.
9×
The increase in PJM’s 2025-2026 capacity auction clearing price compared to the prior year.
Source: PJM auction results.
63%
Of that increase attributed to data centers by PJM’s Independent Market Monitor.
Source: Monitoring Analytics.
$70/mo
Projected average household bill increase across PJM by 2028 if data center growth continues unmitigated.
Source: NRDC analysis.
What about “bring your own gas”?
O’Neill says the data center will run on on-site natural-gas turbines and not draw primary load from the grid. That softens, but does not eliminate, the grid impact:
- Backup generators are still grid-connected and the application contemplates exporting to the grid during peak demand.
- Any new gas pipeline infrastructure built to serve the site is itself a community impact.
- Any other large electrical loads on site (cooling, lighting, security, ancillary buildings) interact with the regional capacity market.
- The state-level GRID standards under Governor Shapiro’s “Lightning Plan” do not exempt self-generators from transparency or community-engagement requirements.
Combustion turbines, inside the buildings, between the buildings, ~200 feet from homes.
The application places “ancillary” gas turbines within and between the steel-mill buildings. The closest residential homes in Connaughtown are within ~200 feet of the property line. That is not a routine industrial setback.
What gets emitted
- Nitrogen oxides (NOx): respiratory irritant, ozone precursor
- Particulate matter (PM 2.5): cardiovascular & respiratory health
- Carbon monoxide
- Formaldehyde: from incomplete gas combustion
- Volatile organic compounds
- Greenhouse gases: at industrial scale
What we’ve learned from comparable projects
- VCU/Pittsburgh research found Northern Virginia data-center generator emissions rose 196% (CO), 111% (NOx), 139% (PM) from 2015-2023.
- JLARC’s worst-case modeling: NoVA generators could emit 9,000 tons of NOx per year roughly half of all current sources combined.
- The xAI Memphis case: 35 unpermitted gas turbines led to NAACP / SELC / Earthjustice federal Clean Air Act litigation.
This isn’t a warehouse. It runs 24/7, and you can hear it.
Industrial chillers, transformers, generators, and gas turbines all generate continuous low-frequency noise. Other communities have learned that what looks like “just a few decibels above background” can rumble through walls and disrupt sleep.
What the literature says
- Manor Township, PA (Lancaster County) noise ordinance for data centers caps total facility noise at 65 dB(A) at the property line.
- Manassas, VA updated its noise ordinance in 2024 to require 1/3-octave low-frequency measurements after residents reported audible humming inside their homes.
- WHO and traffic-noise epidemiology associate chronic nighttime noise with sleep disturbance, hypertension, and cardiovascular outcomes, though data-center-specific epidemiology is still emerging.
Light pollution
- Data centers light their entire perimeter for security, plus rooftop, plus exterior cooling equipment.
- Connaughtown homes face the property directly across Conshohocken Road. Direct-line illumination at night is a real impact.
- Mitigation requires dark-sky-compliant fixtures, downward shielding, and timed reductions, written into the special exception conditions, not assumed.
We are calling for a baseline acoustic study at all four property lines, day and night, including 1/3-octave low-frequency measurements, before any approval. And a binding 24/7 noise cap as a condition of any special exception.
The $21M tax claim deserves an independent look.
O’Neill told the Plymouth Township Planning Agency the project would yield more than $21 million per year in real estate tax revenue. At least one Planning Agency member disputed that figure on the record. Big claims need independent math.
$21M / year
The applicant’s claim, broken into $15.67M to Colonial School District, $3.38M to Montgomery County, $1.76M to Plymouth Township.
~$5M / year
The order-of-magnitude figure cited by Plymouth Township Planning Agency members in October 2025 questioning during testimony.
Source: Data Center Dynamics coverage.
Pittsylvania, VA
An independent SELC-commissioned fiscal-impact analysis there concluded the projected data-center revenue did not justify the public infrastructure cost. The project did not move forward.
Beyond the headline number
- Permanent jobs: Data centers typically employ 30-100 permanent staff once built. The Cleveland-Cliffs plant employed ~110 union steel workers.
- Construction jobs: Real, but temporary; opponents in similar projects have reported developer-organized union turnout at hearings while local trades remain unrepresented.
- Property values: Mixed evidence. The strongest peer-reviewed study (GMU Schar Center, 2025) found no negative effect in Northern Virginia, but that is an undersupplied housing market unlike Conshohocken’s walkable rowhomes-and-trail character.
- Community Benefit Agreement: If anything is approved, it must come with enforceable clawbacks tied to actual jobs and tax delivery within 5 years.