Expand<\/a><\/p>\nIf the project gets federal approval it could become an eminent domain situation, which would allow the applicant to take formal possession of the land within the project boundary without contest, Wadika said.<\/p>\n
There are currently 43 operational pump storage facilities in the United States, but no new closed-loop facilities have been built in country in the last 20 years, she added.<\/p>\n
Additionally, none of the plant\u2019s nearly 200-megawatt generation capacity is expected to go back to the wider power grid, but instead would go to \u201can onsite, undisclosed location,\u201d Wadika said.<\/p>\n
Wadika also expressed concerns about the unknown as she noted there is no current precedent for determining the potential impact of combining the high-pressure pumping and storage of acid mine drainage and the burning of fossil fuels in the same facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t oppose the construction of data centers or new energy infrastructure, we oppose sacrificing our natural resources when it\u2019s perfectly feasible to build in previously industrialized areas,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Cheryl Macheska of Ransom Twp. expressed concerns Sunday about potential catastrophic consequences from the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know (who) thinks it\u2019s a good idea to put a dam on the top of a mountain,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have to learn from history. Look what happened to Johnstown \u2014 the dam burst and wiped out the whole town. It\u2019s no longer a reclamation. We don\u2019t need hydro plants to burst. We need to fight. We have to project our greenspace, our land and our water for future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sandy Dickison, an Old Forge resident and communications director for the Lower Lackawanna Valley Citizens Alliance, said citizens must band together to try to stop the project from moving forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cFighting this pumped storage project really is our first step to keeping data centers out of our town,\u201d she said. \u201cIf there\u2019s no power plant, the appeal to the data centers starts to fade. This fight doesn\u2019t just affect us, it affects our kids, our grandkids and the future generations to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
James Cianci, chair of the Lower Lackawanna Valley Citizens Alliance \u2014 which aims to protect Northeast Pennsylvania\u2019s communities, natural resources and ecosystems from high-impact development by collaborating with elected officials and concerned citizens \u2014 said he felt it was important to educate residents about the current state of the proposal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the biggest thing is to clear up some confusion about whether or not there is a data center planned for our town,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the moment, there is not, but there is a pumped storage hydro power plant proposal that we believe is going to inevitably serve a data center. Two of the biggest concerning facts are the incorporation of a 200-megawatt natural gas generator to pump the water for the system and the use of acid mine drainage from the Old Forge borehole to fill the reservoirs, if needed, for the pumping. The entire valley is lined with abandoned mines, so there\u2019s a lot of potential for mine subsidences and seepage.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OLD FORGE \u2014 Representatives from the Lower Lackawanna Valley Citizens Alliance educated residents from Old Forge, Ransom Twp.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[201,182,139,16790,28,178,180,179,181],"class_list":["post-280524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-old-forge","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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