How the fight over US datacenters is scrambling this state’s politics: ‘We don’t want it’
Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s governor, squares off with state lawmakers over the facilities powering an AI boom A controversial haunted house near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , taps into its dark history every fall to scare tens of thousands of visitors. In 1968, a local news sta
Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s governor, squares off with state lawmakers over the facilities powering an AI boom
A controversial haunted house near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , taps into its dark history every fall to scare tens of thousands of visitors. In 1968, a local news station documented appalling conditions for disabled people in the red brick buildings on the banks of Schuylkill River. Residents were found naked and emaciated at what was then known as the Pennhurst state school and hospital . The institution shut its doors permanently in 1987 after a lawsuit over inhumane conditions.
By 2010, a Halloween attraction stood in its place, and Pennhurst asylum’s previous owner suggested during its early years that he wanted to spook guests by repurposing the hospital’s surgical lights and medical cabinets to use as props.
In 2026, fears more real than ghosts float above the property. The site’s owners have submitted a proposal to local officials to make way for a datacenter complex: three buildings, spread across nearly 2m sq ft, powered by methane gas.
The proposed facility has sparked local backlash in the township of East Vincent, especially because it would sit less than 600ft from a veterans’ home. Donald Hyman, a 62-year-old resident, is concerned that air pollution from an on-site power plant and backup generators could disrupt his recovery from congestive heart failure.
Hyman and four veterans living at the Southeastern Veterans’ Center told the Guardian they also worry that the noise could trigger residents with post-traumatic stress disorder and that the construction process could expose them to harmful contaminants in the soil and water.
“You’re trying to force something on us we don’t want,” Hyman says. “We don’t want it, period.”
The developers, Pennhurst Holdings, hit a major roadblock in May, as local officials rejected their datacenter plan amid sweeping opposition from residents. But they plan to appeal the decision in court.
