New Jersey fines data center $1.1M after drone pics expose 62 gas generators

Previously, DataOne told Floodlight that it “remains committed to meeting all applicable environmental and permitting requirements.”

But trust is broken with the neighbors of the Vineland data center. The residents know the data center is powering Microsoft’s AI tools like Copilot and worry DataOne will do whatever it takes to keep that deal in place. They’re questioning why DataOne would quietly start operating potentially polluting generators in an area “near farmland, homes, and two schools,” the NYT reported.

Also baffling, because their concerns were first raised at a public town hall in February, they want to know why it took state and local officials six months to enforce the state’s pollution controls. Tiffany Leone-Vespa, a mother who’s been in the neighborhood for 18 years, told the NYT that questions remain about air quality.

“What have we been breathing in since they’ve been running these generators without permits?” Leone-Vespa said. “What emissions were released? What’s the air quality surrounding this neighborhood? Has it ever been measured?”

“It’s still kind of a drop in the bucket for a company that has several billion dollars of capital,” Brown said.

Leone-Vespa agreed that million-dollar fines won’t end billionaires’ data center pollution.

Zac Landicini founded Sustain SJ to fight for responsible development in South Jersey. He told the NYT that he spoke up at the public town hall meeting last February after a “farmer first spotted ‘some type of unit’ on satellite imagery” taken on DataOne’s site. The farmer wasn’t trying to probe the site, Ars learned, but was innocuously photographing a neighboring golf course.