In any contest of wills, momentum matters. The more consistently one side imposes its will upon the other and capitalizes on its opponent’s mistakes, the sooner a decisive tipping point is reached.
Ask any Buffalo Bills fan. (Too soon?)
The mushrooming momentum against invasive data center development dominated last week’s news. Up and down the valley, citizens turned out in droves to protest projects proposed in their home and neighboring communities.
The resistance is real, regional and increasingly impossible for elected officials to overlook. Politicians who were previously pumped about bringing the “AI Revolution” to a backyard near you are walking back the happy talk about abundant jobs, tax windfalls and other wonders with no guarantees. Officials who initially kept mostly quiet are now feeling the pressure to speak up.
Not known for their close fraternal bonds, Democratic Lackawanna County Commissioners Bill Gaughan and Chairman Thom Welby both expressed skepticism at Wednesday’s board meeting. Gaughan rightly floated the notion of state legislation that would allow host counties to recover costs associated with burdens on local infrastructure.
Welby said Gaughan was “spot-on.” (I’m not making that up.) The chairman acknowledged the public resistance to invasive data center development and echoed its rallying cry.
“The real power lies in the individuals, and certainly making your noise to all of your elected officials is critically important, but it’s also critically important that you … stand up, to make your voice clear,” Welby said.
“It is your local zoning and your local municipalities that are making these determinations and there should not be even a question, there shouldn’t be a conversation, about a data center being located in any area near residences. I mean they do not belong in neighborhoods, and I don’t think there’s anybody up here that disagrees with that.”
As usual, MAGA Republican Commissioner Co-chairman Chris Chermak boldly took the middle path. While noting the jobs and tax gains data centers could bring, Chermak told Sunday Times Staff Writer Jeff Horvath they shouldn’t be built in residential areas or draw from the drinking water supply. Chermak said he is neither for nor against data centers. Yet.
State Sen. Marty Flynn, state Rep. Jim Haddock, Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti and Lackawanna County Controller Gary DiBileo joined about 200 “civilians” in packing the garage of the Ransom Twp. Municipal Building for a Tuesday hearing on a proposed zoning “overlay” amendment that would allow a data center “campus” on West Mountain.
DiBileo was there as president of the Keyser Valley Neighborhood Association, representing one of the most flood-prone sections of Scranton. He and his neighbors know what runs downhill. Mayor Cognetti was also registered to speak as an objector, but didn’t get the opportunity after Laura McGarry, an attorney and resident of the Fawnwood development in Keyser Valley, took the garage floor.
As in the hearing’s first installment, McGarry raised worthy questions about the legitimacy of the hearing process, but her strongest case in round two on Tuesday was essentially that the lawyers for developer Scranton Materials LLC made no case at all. They presented no witnesses for cross-examination, no supporting materials and no details beyond the concept drawings sketching out the plan.
McGarry argued that supervisors had no business considering a zoning “overlay” that would reward the failure of the developer’s legal representation to make a presentation worthy of an amendment. Two supervisors agreed, and the amendment was denied to raucous applause from the crowd.
“I think they (Scranton Materials) just weren’t expecting the fight that the people were prepared to give,” resident Nikki Bencho told Sunday Times Staff Writer Christine Lee after the hearing.
That was abundantly clear, but Scranton Materials almost will certainly seek a “curative amendment” on the grounds that Ransom’s zoning ordinance is unconstitutional because it doesn’t allow data centers. In legal terms, this ain’t over.
While McGarry was outlawyering the Scranton Materials team, an overflow crowd jammed a Dickson City Borough Council hearing to consider restricting data centers in the borough’s light manufacturing zoning districts. Dickson City Development LLC argued that the borough’s highway commercial zoning already allows the construction of three data centers on Bell Mountain near Cold Spring Road.
The developer submitted a zoning ordinance asking for a 403-acre “overlay” that would OK a data center campus around Bell Mountain. Somehow, even the promise of a shiny new Wawa didn’t sway the swollen crowd.
David Mates, a father of two young children, delivered a cost/benefits analysis only a parent could make.
“Who is going to be comfortable looking their children in the eye on a 7-degree night like last night and say, ‘Sorry kids, we can’t stay warm tonight. The data centers needed our energy?,’ ” Mates asked council.
“I’m sorry kids, we cannot take a shower for the next week. The data center needed our water.’”
After two-and-a-half hours of similarly scalding testimony, council voted 6-1 to reconvene the hearing Feb. 12 at 5:30 p.m., followed by a special meeting at 7:30 to vote on the data center legislation, at the Borough Building, 901 Enterprise St. Decisions this momentous deserve a bigger venue.
Which brings us to Wildcat Ridge. The proposed Wildcat Ridge Data Center Campus sited above Business Route 6 in Archbald would use up to 3.3 million gallons of water daily and consume more electricity than the Jessup-hosted Lackawanna Energy Center can provide. The LEC is one of the state’s largest natural gas-fired power plants.
If Archbald Borough Council approves the project, Brooklyn-based Cornell Realty Management LLC plans to build 14 data centers across 574 acres along Business Route 6 and Route 247, or Wildcat Road. The campus would consume 1,600 megawatts of power. Developers are “exploring” the use of reclaimed mine water for cooling to mitigate freshwater consumption.
All these details and more were included in Sunday Times Staff Writer Frank Lesnefsky’s exhaustive report on the 777-page conditional use application submitted by the developer last month. Ironically, the Wildcat Ridge project was the first proposed in Lackawanna County in January 2025.
At the time, data centers were mostly unheard of here in Our Stiff Neck of the Woods. A year later, they seem to be all a growing multitude of locals are talking about. The more the public learns about the mammoth size, scale and resource needs of invasive data center development, the more momentum builds against it.
This Wednesday at 6 p.m., Archbald Borough Council will hold a public hearing on Wildcat Ridge developers’ conditional use application in the auditorium of Valley View High School, 1 Columbus Drive, Archbald.
The choice of venue recognizes the mushrooming momentum against invasive data center development. Will the public recognize an opportunity to help force a decisive tipping point?
We’ll know Wednesday.
CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, will see you there. Contact the writer: ckelly@scrantontimes.com; @cjkink on X; Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune on Facebook; and @chriskellyink on Blue Sky Social.