{"id":289579,"date":"2026-09-19T10:34:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T10:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/289579\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T10:34:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T10:34:16","slug":"lackawanna-county-approves-study-on-data-centers-impact-on-air-quality-and-public-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/289579\/","title":{"rendered":"Lackawanna County approves study on data centers’ impact on air quality and public health"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Lackawanna County government agreed to commission a study on the impact that all the potential data center projects could have on public health.<\/p>\n

SCRANTON, Pa. \u2014 The Lackawanna County Commissioners on Wednesday voted unanimously to conduct a countywide study on the air quality and public health effects stemming from the vast data center development happening across the area.<\/p>\n

“We have to protect the environment. I appreciate what you’ve all done here today, each and every one of you,” said Jim Timmons.<\/p>\n


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Several residents of Lackawanna County thanked Commissioners Bill Gaughan, Thom Welby and Chris Chermak for unanimously voting to conduct the assessment.<\/p>\n

“This is Lackawanna County’s opportunity to be proactive rather than reactive, to demonstrate leadership responsibility and the commitment to protecting its residents,” said Meg Nudelman, Archbald.<\/p>\n

There are currently more than a dozen data center campuses proposed throughout the county’s Mid-Valley.<\/p>\n

The study, which will be carried out by Harvard Environmental Scientist Dr. Michael Cork’s EmPower Analytics Group, is not novel; EmPower already examined the health impact of the proposed Wildcat Ridge campus in Archbald.<\/p>\n

However, no one has examined the cumulative impact<\/a> the crush of proposed facilities might have, should they move forward. Unlike traditional permitting reviews that examine projects individually, EmPower is tasked with estimating emissions of all the proposed facilities and model how pollution would travel across the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are excited to get this done and get it done right,” Commissioner Thom Welby, a Democrat, said.<\/p>\n

“I’m hopeful that this is gonna be helpful in setting up guardrails for this industry in Lackawanna County,” said Commissioner Chris Chermak (R), Lackawanna County.<\/p>\n

“I believe what is happening across parts of this county represents one of the most aggressive attempts at exploitation we have seen in generations,” said Commissioner Bill Gaughan (D), Lackawanna County.<\/p>\n

EmPower will conduct the study at a cost of $165,000. Commissioner Bill Gaughan, who first put forward EmPower last month, previously said that the money to pay them will come from a budgeted capital asset profiling not needed until next year and unobligated funds.<\/p>\n

Gaughan believes this is the first cumulative study of its kind in the state and possibly the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s really important to note that we are not paying these people to tell us what we want to hear; we are paying them to tell us what the science says,” Gaughan, a Democrat, said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lackawanna County government agreed to commission a study on the impact that all the potential data center…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-289579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289579","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=289579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}