Pennsylvania DEP holds public hearing August 20 on water permits for Carbon Node East data center in Nesquehoning, Carbon County

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection will hold a public meeting and hearing on August 20 to discuss water quality permits for the Carbon Node East data center development in Nesquehoning Borough, Carbon County. The project involves grading and constructing a high performance computing data center campus for AI workloads, including two new substations and four buildings of about 300,000 square feet each. The site will impact Broad Run, Dennison Run, and Nesquehoning Creek, all designated as Exceptional Value waters, as well as Exceptional Value wetlands. DEP published separate notices for an NPDES Stormwater Permit and a Chapter 105 Encroachment Permit. The stormwater permit includes special conditions requiring five years of water table monitoring in the affected wetlands. If the water table drops below 12 inches for less than 14 consecutive days during the growing season in at least three of five years, the wetland will be considered adversely impacted. The meeting runs from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. at Panther Valley Jr./Sr. High School in Lansford. Public comments are due by August 17 for the stormwater permit, and can be submitted up to the hearing date for the encroachment permit. This hearing comes amid growing debate in Pennsylvania about data center development and its environmental costs. Recent polls show 74% of Pennsylvania voters would oppose building an AI data center in their community. The state also faces rising electricity prices and grid reliability concerns as data center demand grows. The outcome of this permitting process could set a precedent for how Pennsylvania balances data center growth with protection of high value water resources.