The Story So Far
What’s being considered tonight:
→ Final Land Development plan for phase 1-B. Meaning, the first campus of data center construction is up for approval. While the township supervisors still have the possibility to vote no, as not all conditions for approval have been met by the developers, we doubt they’re going to vote no.
→ Preliminary land development plan for another portion of the campus.
→ Sewage planning approval for 146,000,000 gallons of water use a year + ~100,000,000 gallons of industrial wastewater a year.
→ The (alleged) Community Benefits Agreement, which is essentially a bribe to Middlesex. Hallowed tax revenue!
Who is making the decision?
The Township Supervisors: Phil Neiderer (husband of Cumberland County Commissioner Kelly Neiderer) and Donald Geistweit. They make tonight’s decision alone. Down a man since Supervisor William Goodhart resigned.
Goodhart has not been at a public meeting since June. And while he turned in his letter of resignation to Middlesex on July 31st, the other supervisors only just acknowledged his resignation on August 28th. A troubling development for a governing body that insists it is working with the resident’s best interests in mind!
The supervisors will be supported tonight by township staff as well as an outside engineer from a firm called HRG. The pertinent people here are Middlesex Engineer Bud Grove, Zoning Officer Mark Carpenter, and Keith Brennemen who is the solicitor for Middlesex. They are ordinarily seated with the supervisors.
Why are we in this mess?
About a year ago, Middlesex Planning Commission members and staff – including current planning commission chair Tracy Gleim (husband of State Rep Barb Gleim) – in conjunction with Cumberland County officials, approved a disastrous zoning overlay for the land where the data center is being built. We have since learned from RTK requests that this zoning overlay and accompanying ordinance were, in fact, written by the PAX-1 Developers and their attorney. Whether naïve or compromised, the result is the same. PAX-1 is a veritable nightmare.
What do we mean when we call it a nightmare?
- 694 acres of development right along the Conodoguinet Creek.
- 6 data center buildings. Using 1.35 gigawatts of Electricity. For reference that’s about 1.5 Three Mile Islands worth of electricity. 9x the electricity of every household in Cumberland county.
- About 532 on-site diesel generators, for backup power spewing particulate into the air and the Conodiquenet.
- 70 DBA of noise at the property line. Here is a helpful link for what that sounds like: Atlas Power Data Center noise pollution – YouTube
- 400,000 gallons of water drawn every day. That’s 146,000,000 gallons of water a year!
Who is behind this?
- The land is owned by Carlisle Development Partners LLC. Don’t let the name fool you. They’re a holding company incorporated in Delaware, with an office in Virginia.
- No one knows the exact ownership breakdown of Carlisle Development Partners LLC, but we know PA Data Center Partners and Powerhouse Data Centers (which is a subsidiary of American Real Estate Partners)- are developing the data center.
- Powerhouse are the data center experts. The two names to know here are Pete McGrath, who fronts for them around this area & Petri Ottavanien, PAX-1’s construction project Manager.
- PA Data Center Partners emanates from CEO Igal Feibush, who has allegedly been planning this development for a long time. But he isn’t who will be speaking today. We will likely be hearing from Justin Ross and Andrew Giorgione. Their Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel respectively.
- Justin Ross is an avid hunter + outdoorsman, and lifelong Pennsylvanian, so his role in this data center deal is peculiar. He founded, and continues to run, Livic Civil – a Central PA based engineering firm which serves commercial clients through each step of their development process. PA Data Center Partners has hired Livic Civil to be their guide throughout the PAX-1 project. So, in addition to being a shareholding partner & COO at PA Data Center Partners, Justin is also receiving a major business boon via Livic Civil. A humble, local firm this is their largest-scale project to date and it has exponentially increased his firm’s staff and presence. It must be his big break!
- Andrew Giorgione is one of the founders of One+ strategies – A lobbying and government relations firm, based out of Harrisburg, PA. Giorgione has been working around the area for decades, recently serving Cumberland County Area Economic Development Corporation (CAEDC) as the Solicitor for their Industrial board. But, if you know him, it’s probably from his role in orchestrating Harrisburg’s incinerator debacle. A botched deal which bankrupted the city and led to a bailout from the State – a bailout so extreme that every taxpayer in the room is still paying for it! Harrisburg is still in a receivership with the state of Pennsylvania because of Giorgione.
Regardless of What Happens Tonight it Isn’t Over til it’s Over.
We won’t sugarcoat it, it’s a blow if the supervisors vote ‘yes’ on phase 1-B. It means that, barring a court order, construction on the data center can begin. But that doesn’t mean the struggle is over! Middlesex residents have filed a strong legal challenge against the Data center. Go learn more at stoppax1.com and support their work! Their upcoming court hearing will take place on September 18th, @9:30am.
And finally, while things can feel bleak, it’s important to remember – none of this is inevitable. The future is unwritten. And however it may seem, there is a world beyond the dictates of Middlesex Township and the plotting of the developers. A world governed by a richer logic of fairness, of justice, of decency. And we get organized to narrow the gap. To narrow the space between decency and the law that they’re smuggling these data centers through. Together we will win!
★ We formed the Stewards of Cumberland County to be of service. To spread information and sound the alarm. We have met with residents from around Cumberland County, as well as neighboring counties who want to protect their communities. We want to meet with you. If you want to get your municipality protected –reach out to the Stewards at padatacenters.org, or email at ccstewards@proton.me, or on social media!
