{"id":6013,"date":"2026-10-05T01:57:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T01:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vaultinsider.top\/?p=6013"},"modified":"2026-10-05T01:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T01:57:11","slug":"meet-the-mini-erin-brockoviches-battling-a-data-centers-eminent-domain-threat-and-amazons-shadow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vaultinsider.top\/?p=6013","title":{"rendered":"Meet the \u2018mini Erin Brockoviches\u2019 battling a data center’s eminent domain threat\u2014and Amazon’s shadow"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n
Erika Cook knew about NorthPoint Development\u2019s plans for a 1,300-acre data center years before Hazle Township residents received a letter in the mail in June, outlining a potential $10,000 payday for eligible households who agreed to the data center\u2019s construction.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Receiving the money was contingent upon the residents of the rural Pennsylvania region at the foot of the Poconos allowing the developer to build a 15-building campus, dubbed Project Hazelnut. NorthPoint\u2019s proposal to Hazle Township was a $165 million investment in the area, which beyond the payout for \u201celigible households\u201d in the township\u2019s 4,500-property township, also included funding for a local police department, according to the letter to residents viewed by Fortune<\/em>. <\/p>\n
The Wall Street Journal<\/em> was first to report the $10,000 incentive, which would only be paid once the first building of the data center campus is complete, and which was largely rejected by the township\u2019s residents.<\/p>\n
In their efforts to combat Project Hazelnut, locals told Fortune<\/em> they\u2019ve discovered just how large these efforts extend, potentially to Amazon, whose name is conspicuously absent from all Hazelnut and NorthPoint branding.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Local officials and NorthPoint refused to confirm if Amazon would be Hazelnut\u2019s end-user, but locals began filing right-to-know requests and confirmed Amazon\u2019s role in the project when records were released in January between Amazon and the Pennsylvania\u2019s Department of Community and Economic Development.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The emails, viewed by Fortune <\/em>and previously reported on by local outlets, showed that while state officials tried to disclose Amazon\u2019s role in the project, Amazon wanted its involvement to be covert due to broad \u201ccontractual issues.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
An Amazon spokesperson told Fortune<\/em> the company is \u201cevaluating multiple sites across the Commonwealth\u201d and is in discussions with NorthPoint, but does not have a definitive agreement in place. In a blog post published on Friday, Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman said the company has committed to no longer entering into nondisclosure agreements with government agencies related to data-center projects.<\/p>\n\n
<\/div>Data centers are growing more unpopular, with about 70% of Americans opposing their construction in their local areas, according to one Gallup poll.<\/figcaption>
Paul Weaver\/SOPA Images\/LightRocket\u2014Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
Beyond being frustrated with the secrecy, locals said they were baffled by the lack of specifics and clarity the stakeholders had about the project, per the records.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really had no idea what was happening,\u201d Cook told Fortune<\/em>, \u201cand a hyperscaler data center of what they\u2019re proposing\u20141,300 acres\u2014is not a small project. We\u2019ve been trying to get information, and unfortunately, the only way we\u2019ve been able to get it is by right-to-know requests.\u201d<\/p>\n
NorthPoint did not respond to Fortune<\/em>\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n
Activated by eminent domain<\/h2>\n
Cook, an insurance agent living in Sugarloaf Township next door, has her own reasons to oppose the data center project. She owns one of the 28 properties facing eminent domain threats from local utility company PPL Electric Utilities for that very same data-center offering the five-figure check, Cook said. In 2024, the utilities company and a developer approached residents in Luzerne County, where Sugarloaf is located, handing out pamphlets asserting the right of eminent domain, or the government\u2019s power to seize private property in the public\u2019s interest. PPL Electric Utilities proposed an 11.2-mile high-voltage power line running through the homes that would supply electricity to the campus.<\/p>\n
Hazle Township residents\u2019 disdain for the $10,000 incentive is just the tip of the iceberg, Cook said. Impacted residents and neighbors formed the Alliance to Stop the Line and have filed about 20 formal protests with the Public Utilities Commission challenging PPL\u2019s plans, arguing a high-voltage line would decimate property values, emit noise pollution, and generate electromagnetic fields associated with health risks, next to their homes.<\/p>\n
Last month PUC administrative law judges temporarily halted proceedings for the powerline, determining it was too early to grant utility extensions while the data-center developments had yet to be approved and were still being contested in court. In the first three months of 2026, at least 75 data center projects worth more than $130 billion connectively were delayed or cancelled, and active opposition groups across 49 states grew from 396 from the end of last year to 833 by March, according to a Data Center Watch report published in June.<\/p>\n
Hazle Township is familiar with grassroots protests over social and economic issues. Hazle Township completely encircles the City of Hazleton, which became the face of an anti-immigrant movement two decades ago, when then-Mayor Lou Barletta passed the controversial Illegal Immigration Relief Act, fining landlords who rented to undocumented immigrants and withholding permits from businesses employing those immigrants. Barletta capitalized on a period of deindustrialization and demographic changes to draw in working-class, white supporters. Barletta ran for Pennsylvania governor in 2022, losing in the Republican primary, while Hazleton continued to become a heavily Hispanic city afterward, scrambling commentators\u2019 brains as many of those residents chose to vote Republican. <\/p>\n
Residents of these northeastern Pennsylvania towns today see their campaign as a small but vital part of a national opposition to the AI infrastructure buildout associated with rising costs and widespread environmental risks.\u00a0The widely cited statistic is that nearly 70% of Americans oppose a data center being built in their area, according to surveys by both Gallup and NBC News.\u00a0\u201cThe data-center rebellion, with its local origins and compounding grievances,\u201d The Atlantic<\/em>\u2018s George Packer recently noted, \u201cis thoroughly American.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
<\/div>Data center construction has become a flashpoint in local council meetings, including in Archbald, Pennsylvania.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
According to local protester Annie Vinatieri, today\u2019s data-center protests are a nonpartisan movement driven primarily by Americans with little experience with environmentalism, with demographics \u201cmostly white working and middle\/upper class.\u201d She said a minority of Dominican Americans, \u201calmost all of whom are immigrants,\u201d have also shown interest.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of us are \u2018pro se,\u2019 mini Erin Brokoviches actually getting somewhere,\u201d Cook said. \u201cWe\u2019re having these small victories here and there, and it\u2019s all adding up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Project Hazelnut\u2019s detractors and supporters<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced Project Hazelnut in November 2024 as the first test subject of an executive order signed the day before fast-tracking the permitting process for AI infrastructure. Months later, in July 2025, Shapiro announced Amazon would invest $20 billion in an AI buildout in Pennsylvania, the largest capital investment in the commonwealth\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
The investment plan will account for just a handful of the 4,767 data centers in the U.S., part of a ballooning AI boom expected to reach $7 trillion in spending by 2030.<\/p>\n
At first, the announcements didn\u2019t raise many eyebrows among area residents, according to Vinatieri, another Sugarloaf resident. These buildouts were not for data centers, but rather \u201cinnovation and technology campuses.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you say technology campus, that\u2019s very vague. It sounds very academic,\u201d Vinatieri told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cWhen it became apparent, What was happening? People really got concerned and started to understand what it meant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the data centers having yet to gain approval, hundreds of acres of land were cleared. Vinatieri spoke with neighbors who claimed they saw triple the deer and wildlife in their backyards as a result of habitat displacement. Residents like Cook were particularly concerned about the construction\u2019s proximity to some of Pennsylvania\u2019s Superfund sites, or pieces of U.S. land requiring long-term clean-up efforts as a result of hazardous waste pollution, as construction could damage toxic containment barriers.<\/p>\n
But tensions increased in earnest when Amazon began snapping up land in neighboring areas, such as in July 2025, when Brewster Development Company sold about 350 acres of land in Kline Township, Pennsylvania to Amazon Data Services for about $180 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Victories for data center opposition<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The released records from the right-to-know requests fueled public dissent for the data center and scrutiny over the campus\u2019s potential use of natural resources. In May, a Luzerne County judge denied an appeal for the Project Hazelnut data center on the grounds that the project did not have required zoning approval, in part because data centers were not included in the local zoning ordinance, and because the initial approval process did not have adequate opportunities for public input. NorthPoint still has options for gaining approval.<\/p>\n\n
<\/div>Data center opponents fear the health and environmental implications of data center construction near their homes.<\/figcaption>
Paul Weaver\/SOPA Images\/LightRocket\u2014Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
Shapiro has also since walked back some of his support for data center construction. In August, he signed an executive order eliminating fast-track permitting and requiring local, rather than state-level Department of Environmental Protection for prospective data center projects. He recently cited similar concerns as those in Hazle and surrounding townships: that companies were withholding information from the public in part because they didn\u2019t have the answers to key questions yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I was finding after listening to the neighbors about their concerns, and then talking with some of these developers, is those developers who were wreaking havoc on the communities, they actually didn\u2019t have any access to power,\u201d Shapiro told CBS News Philadelphia<\/em> last week. \u201cThey actually didn\u2019t have a technology company that wanted to, you know, use their development, and so they were kind of speculating. And in the process of speculating, they were wreaking havoc on the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cook would like to see her and her neighbors win over the PPL\u2019s eminent domain case and would consider it a victory for NorthPoint to abandon Project Hazelnut. But even then, she has concerns. NorthPoint is exploring data center development in other parts of the state, including a 1,400 acre development in Banks Township.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy fear is that they\u2019re just going to go somewhere else, right?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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