On Tuesday, Food & Water Watch, Environmental Health Project, Environmental Integrity Project, and Mountain Watershed Association kicked off a new webinar series about environmental concerns in Pennsylvania. Nearly 100 people attended.

The first session highlighted the impacts that heavy industrial projects, such as fracking wells and data centers, have on community health. Speakers shared personal testimony, research findings, and information about what people can do to protect themselves. Panelists also provided the latest updates on the proposed data center in Elizabeth Township, Allegheny County. 350+ township residents have signed a petition rejecting a 3 million square foot data center proposal that includes a gas-fired power plant.

“As a resident of Elizabeth Township, my community has been directly subject to the vast harms of the oil and gas industry, and now we’re facing the predatory data center industry — but we aren’t alone in this fight. This webinar series is meant to unite Pennsylvanians who are experiencing some of the worst air in the country and rampant abuse from polluting industries,” said Joelle Whiteman, Senior Pennsylvania Organizer with Food & Water Watch. “What happens in our backyard doesn’t stay in our backyard. Pennsylvanians must come together and fight back against the fracking that’s harming our health and the data centers that will make things even worse.” 

“We cannot address the health risks of proposed data centers without also addressing those of fracking operations that support them by fueling power plants,” explains Talor Musil, Field Manager of the Environmental Health Project. “Elizabeth Township experiences more toxic pollution and higher rates of chronic health conditions than most of Pennsylvania. Preventing hyperscale data center development and placing new wells away from homes, schools, and hospitals will reduce exposure to harmful pollution and improve the health and well-being of this community.” 

“Now is the time for increased protective buffers from fracking well pads,”said Lisa Graves Marcucci, PA Coordinator Community Outreach, the Environmental Integrity Project. “Given the increase in energy demand that the potential data center boom would necessitate, Pennsylvania must act now to increase minimum setback distances based on independent, peer-reviewed studies linking greater proximity to fracking to grave health effects.”

Pennsylvania’s constitution guarantees residents “a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment,” stating that “Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come.”