In a contentious decision highlighting tensions between municipal zoning authority and regional environmental concerns, the New Morgan Borough Council voted unanimously to implement major zoning modifications permitting the future development of data centers along Route 10. The approval followed two packed legislative hearings where overwhelming public sentiment opposed the regulatory shift.
The official action transformed the designated tract from an R-Residential category to an I-Industrial zoning classification. Simultaneously, the borough council established a dedicated data center overlay district positioned at the intersection of Route 10 and Furnace Road, directly across from the historic entryway to Historic Joanna Furnace.
The turnout for the evening was extraordinary given the host municipality's small scale. More than 200 community members gathered to observe and speak during the proceedings, vastly overshadowing the total population of New Morgan, which recorded only 54 inhabitants in the 2020 census. A substantial majority of those in attendance arrived from neighboring municipalities, including Caernarvon and Robeson townships.
The influx of attendees quickly overwhelmed the municipal infrastructure. Conducted within a modest conference room at Borough Hall on 200 Bethlehem Drive that provided only around a dozen chairs for audience members, the meeting space reached capacity almost immediately. Frustrated citizens filled the hallways, packed the foyer, and backed up out the front entrance into the parking lot, with multiple attendees voicing grievances over inaudible audio and asking why borough leadership failed to arrange a larger venue for the public event.
Borough Solicitor Nicole Plank, who presided over the sequential legislative hearings on the map amendment and the regulatory ordinance, defended the timing and intent of the council's measures. Plank repeatedly clarified that no formal development application for a data center facility had yet been filed with the borough. Instead, she maintained that the municipality was adopting a proactive strategy by enacting baseline criteria governing setbacks, electrical usage, noise parameters, water requirements, and buffering before any builder enters the picture.
Echoing that rationale, Council President Tressie Marroon-Bailey framed the new overlay framework as an essential mechanism for local governance. Marroon-Bailey explained that setting the parameters in advance grants the borough authority over the exact placement and operational conditions of any future data infrastructure, while also creating a valuable opportunity to broaden New Morgan’s commercial tax base.
Despite municipal assurances, regional participants expressed severe apprehension regarding how an industrial facility would reshape southern Berks County. Members of the public voiced fears regarding potential deforestation, extensive stormwater runoff, habitat loss, elevated vehicle traffic, and light and air pollution. Others raised alarm over continuous low-frequency hums, surges in local electricity bills, and the risk that heavy industrial footprints would destroy the area’s longstanding pastoral identity.
Agricultural leaders in the surrounding area underscored the immediate vulnerability of local water tables. Ed Weaver, the president of Weaver's Orchard located in neighboring Robeson Township, presented testimony detailing his operation's reliance on five separate agricultural irrigation wells. He stressed that subsurface groundwater supplies in the vicinity have already experienced substantial depletion over past decades.
Weaver explained that irrigation wells that originally operated under natural artesian pressure when first drilled have since dropped between 30 and 40 feet. Speaking on behalf of an agricultural enterprise currently transitioning from its third generation into its fourth, Weaver cautioned that approving industrial frameworks without sufficient regional protections could severely jeopardize multigenerational businesses rooted in the adjacent countryside.
Ecological vulnerabilities were further emphasized by Anne-Marie McMahon, who represents the Hay Creek Watershed Association as its president. McMahon highlighted that the newly established overlay sits dangerously close to the critical headwaters of Hay Creek, a 22-square-mile drainage basin containing cold-water stream sections recognized under state designations as high-quality and exceptional value.
McMahon warned that the council's current ordinance lacks robust environmental safeguards, posing significant hazards to the overall quantity and purity of nearby aquatic ecosystems. Rather than allowing developers to clear intact forested acreage, the association advocated steering data facilities toward previously industrialized brownfields or existing commercial parcels, while requiring continuous groundwater surveillance and mandating the use of public, reclaimed, or recycled cooling water.
Daniel Nugent, a resident of Robeson Township, presented a detailed comparison between New Morgan’s newly passed measure and guidance issued by regional bodies, including the Berks County Planning Commission. Nugent explained that his position was not an outright rejection of data center infrastructure, but rather a critique of the ordinance's inadequate safeguards concerning thermal output, renewable power mandates, recycled water rules, buffer distances, and regional impacts extending past borough lines.
State Representative Mark Gillen also addressed the council, urging local officials to exercise caution and demanding higher transparency concerning water draw and regional electrical grid impacts. Gillen argued that neighboring communities beyond New Morgan's borders bear the brunt of external consequences without having adequate representation in the borough's decision-making process.
Gillen directed specific attention toward emergency response limitations during the second hearing, recounting his recent discussions with the Pennsylvania state fire commissioner. He revealed that state authorities have yet to formulate or distribute standardized firefighting procedures tailored to data center blazes to municipal volunteer fire departments, asserting that the commonwealth remains unprepared to handle major public health and emergency safety events at such industrial facilities.
(0)