Secrecy and refusing input is standard with data center projects.
Refusing or circumventing local community input is a through line with all these data center plans.
A Small Town Is Fighting a $1.2 Billion AI Datacenter for America’s Nuclear Weapon Scientists Matthew Gault · Nov 10, 2025 at 9:00 AM Ypsilanti, Michigan has officially decided to fight against the construction of a ‘high-performance computing facility’ that would service a nuclear weapons laboratory 1,500 miles away. “What I think galls me the most is that this major institution in our community, which has done numerous wonderful things, is making decisions with—as I can tell—no consideration for its host community and no consideration for its neighboring jurisdictions,” Ypsilanti councilman Patrick McLean said during a recent council meeting. “I think the process of siting this facility stinks.”
Our public utilities are in secret contracts with data centers, dedicating power to those corporations and cryptocurrency printing facilities.
The Post and Courier - SC county sued over its Google data center water-use secrecy By David Wren Apr 21, 2024 Frank Heindel filed the complaint in state court this month after Google’s projected water and sewer usage was redacted in a document he requested under the S.C. Freedom of Information Act. The county has said the information qualifies as a protected trade secret under state law — an assertion that Heindel, who lives in Charleston County, said is false.
Secrecy is rampant with the data centers usage of public utilities.
Will data center demands strain Archbald power, water, wildlife? Borough has most data center bids in Lackawanna County, including 29 proposed within about a mile of Eynon-Jermyn Road By Frank Lesnefsky | The Times-Tribune PUBLISHED: November 14, 2025 The power demand from data centers grew by nearly 150% in one year, according to PPL Electric Utilities. In its Nov. 5 third-quarter investor update, the utility company said it has 20.5 gigawatts of power committed through signed data center agreements as of the third quarter of 2025, up from 8.3 gigawatts in Q3 of 2024. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates the average U.S. household consumes about 10,500 kilowatt hours of electricity per year, or about an average of 1.2 kilowatts of continuous load per home. Data centers at 20.5 gigawatts, or 20.5 million kilowatts, would use the same amount of power as about 17.1 million homes in a state with about 5.3 million households. In an emailed response to questions, PPL spokeswoman Dana N. Burns said the agreements with data centers are not publicly disclosed due to confidentiality provisions. The 20.5-gigawatt figure represents projects in advanced stages of planning, which means that each of those projects has signed an agreement with PPL. The projects are located in PPL’s service territory in eastern and central Pennsylvania, she said. (emphasis added)
Even the elected representatives involved in these projects sign NDAs to keep it secret from their own constituents, and some politicians are fighting hard to make it so local communities in Pennsylvania can’t say no.
ABC27 News Lawmakers understand Pennsylvanians’ fear of data centers, but say they are coming no matter what by: Dennis Owens, Jared Weaver Posted: Oct 30, 2025 / 10:17 PM EDT “It does not serve the health safety and general welfare of the residents,” another concerned Pennsylvanian said. Decreased property values, increased water and electric bills, traffic and noise are all among the fears. I asked McCormick about it this week. “We’re in the middle of something much bigger than the Industrial Revolution,” McCormick said. “It’s like a massive change and change and disruption. It’s very scary. I think we have to show people is that the benefit first of all, it’s happening whether we like it or not, and that the benefits for Pennsylvania far exceed those challenges.”
Can’t help but wonder what will eventually come out about Dave Mccormick’s personal life with comments like that. But it’s not confined to Republican Dave Mccormick; Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro is suggesting municipal governments also can’t say no to the data centers being shoved into the communities. That’s what the RESET legislation is about, taking away the people’s ability to say no, and giving power to the building industry to decide if they shove this into your community and line their pockets in the process, and then trying to convince people to like getting screwed with higher utility bills, dirty water, and noise they can’t live with and then no way to escape because your home value is worthless. So of course there’s an incentive by the data center pushes to shut out the public who doesn’t want it.