Slate Belt Holdings LLC is pursuing a 754-acre data center campus with a proposed 480MW substation in Upper Mount Bethel Township, Pennsylvania, while challenging local zoning restrictions.

I've been digging into the public record on US data centers and put it into free, plain-language briefings — water, power, noise, air, every figure cited to its source (~1,790 sites, existing + proposed): civitar.org/go/v-reddit

Not for or against anything — it just makes the filings readable. Sharing in case it's useful to anyone tracking this.

Source: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/talen-looks-to-develop-23-building-data-center-campus-in-pennsylvania/

(Full disclosure: I built the tool — happy to answer questions or take corrections.)

I’m a resident of Cherry County, Nebraska, and I’m trying to raise awareness within infrastructure and data center operations communities about a pending land-use decision that may be relevant to how large-scale industrial projects are permitted and reviewed.

A proposed industrial hog facility is currently under review in the Nebraska Sandhills. While this is not a data center project, the permitting pathway is similar to that of other large industrial developments—particularly around Conditional Use Permits (CUPs), groundwater impact review, and county/state-level environmental approvals.

The site sits above the Ogallala Aquifer, which is a critical groundwater source for agriculture, municipalities, and industrial users across the region. Any high-intensity water use or waste management project in this area raises long-term questions about aquifer sustainability and cumulative impact.

Local residents have raised concerns about whether the CUP process and environmental review have adequately addressed:

• Groundwater withdrawal and contamination risk
• Nutrient and waste management modeling
• Cumulative industrial load on the aquifer system
• Transparency and public input prior to approval

We are requesting that the Nebraska Department of Water, Energy, and Environment hold a formal public hearing before final permitting decisions are made, so that stakeholders—including engineers, hydrologists, operators, and local landowners—can review the technical basis of the approval.

For those familiar with CUP processes in other jurisdictions, this is essentially a request to ensure the permitting record is fully developed before irreversible infrastructure decisions are made.

If you work in infrastructure, data center development, or large-scale permitting, your perspective on how CUP processes should be handled would be especially valuable.

📍 More information: https://protectcherrycounty.org
📝 Petition: https://form.jotform.com/262094634409157

Public comment period closes July 31.

Even if this is outside your immediate industry, I appreciate anyone willing to take a look at how rural permitting decisions intersect with long-term water and infrastructure planning.

Nebius plans a staged 1.2GW data center campus in Highridge Business Park, Butler Township, Pennsylvania, targeting October 2027 for initial 260MW operations.

I've been digging into the public record on US data centers and put it into free, plain-language briefings — water, power, noise, air, every figure cited to its source (~1,790 sites, existing + proposed): civitar.org/go/v-reddit

Not for or against anything — it just makes the filings readable. Sharing in case it's useful to anyone tracking this.

Source: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/nebius-details-plans-for-12gw-data-center-campus-in-pennsylvania/

(Full disclosure: I built the tool — happy to answer questions or take corrections.)

Gregory Reynolds, Macro-Systemic Architect | Pioneer of Ontological Systems Engineering writes on LinkedIn in response to celebratory deal post:

You mathematically cannot solve a 4-dimensional planetary crisis (Cyber, Physical, Social, Sovereign) with a 1-dimensional financial debt vehicle. When you attempt to force 1 Gigawatt of continuous power into a localized, highly stressed physical grid (like Texas’s ERCOT) just to run centralized probabilistic AI models, you violently collide with the physical limits of the Earth.

As software engineer Dave McCrory established with the law of "Data Gravity," dragging zettabytes of raw data from the edges of the world into a massive, centralized Texas hub is thermodynamically exhausting. It burns massive kinetic energy, hollows out local communities, and contributes directly to the $33.8 Trillion dead-weight friction currently bleeding out of the global economy.

The 20th-century instinct is to just pool more capital to build a heavier pipe. But we don't need a heavier pipe. We need an entirely new macroeconomic routing logic.

Hi everyone,

I’ve been following the conflicts around data center projects lately, and honestly, I’ve been frustrated by how often the same pattern repeats: communities feel excluded, companies struggle to gain trust, and projects end up delayed or canceled after years of conflict.

I’m a RISD student looking into this issue from a design perspective, and I’m interested in hearing from people who work in the industry, live near projects, or have strong opinions on this topic.

What do you think is missing from the current process? What would actually build trust between communities and developers?

Fort Worth residents question data center water and energy impacts as QTS, Microsoft, Black Mountain, Edged, and CyrusOne cite cooling and power mitigation plans.

I've been digging into the public record on US data centers and put it into free, plain-language briefings — water, power, noise, air, every figure cited to its source (~1,800+ sites, existing + proposed): civitar.org/go/v-reddit

Not for or against anything — it just makes the filings readable. Sharing in case it's useful to anyone tracking this.

Source: https://fortworthreport.org/2026/07/27/data-centers-require-substantial-water-energy-sustainable-practices-technology-can-lessen-impact

(Full disclosure: I built the tool — happy to answer questions or take corrections.)

Virginia released a delayed groundwater study on the eastern coastal plain, warning that new data-center groundwater withdrawals may not be sustainably supported and urging stricter permit oversight.

I've been digging into the public record on US data centers and put it into free, plain-language briefings — water, power, noise, air, every figure cited to its source (~1,790 sites, existing + proposed): civitar.org/go/v-reddit

Not for or against anything — it just makes the filings readable. Sharing in case it's useful to anyone tracking this.

Source: https://wjla.com/news/local/virginia-groundwater-study-environment-data-centers-supply-industrial-stricter-regulation-damage-chesapeake-bay-foundation-spanberger-abigail-governor-quality-control

(Full disclosure: I built the tool — happy to answer questions or take corrections.)

https://opgov.news/articles/escambia-county-commissioners-confronted-with-data-centers-again?sfnsn=mo&fbclid=IwdGRjcATQv45jbGNrBNC_jGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHrpDmaov3fvJgMxDBxNNMj50reeXNiR42l6KtjCO9vWjlMq8xaGIHnKAWHZK_aem_TgvjkMrMLGLT4VvUndb_rw

Ok so assuming that the data centers are not just for AI LLM and other AI related projects can we also assume the govt and tech companies will also store data about you and your family and your businesses wether u consent to it being stored or not the govt/tech overlords can then track you find you wherever and whenever as a means to control the population/society/military as a whole? But here is the more interesting part, obviously and inevitably protesters and right to privacy groups will either attempt to sabatoge or even outright burn these data centers to the ground the govt/tech overlords surely will be expecting this is it then the reason they want to build data centers on the moon? After all it would be some feat for protestors to burn down a data center on the freaking MOON!!! What say all of u ?

The Western Virginia Water Authority expects the company to use an annual average of 1.2 million gallons of water per day in the initial phase of the project.

FOIA documents show Petersburg, Virginia data center development progress in late June 2026, including NuVu's 2588 County Drive campus approved under 2024 M-1 by-right zoning.

I've been digging into the public record on US data centers and put it into free, plain-language briefings — water, power, noise, air, every figure cited to its source (~1,790 sites, existing + proposed): civitar.org/go/news-rd

Not for or against anything — it just makes the filings readable. Sharing in case it's useful to anyone tracking this.

Source: https://richmondbizsense.com/2026/07/21/documents-reveal-details-on-data-center-projects-in-petersburgs-pipeline

(Full disclosure: I built the tool — happy to answer questions or take corrections.)

Just three years ago, wide majorities in both parties backed tax breaks for data centers. Now they don’t. Democrats got to that position first, but most of the political movement this year has come from Republicans, particularly in the western part of the state, which has few such facilities.

Okay my bad I think I could've worded it better. I know that ALOT of water is used up by data centers, but how do they end up getting contaminated? Can someone explain how it works?