Wednesday, May 6, 2026

Middlesex Township Supervisors meeting is in order...., will you lead us in the pledge? Please rise.

(The Pledge of Allegiance.) "...to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Thank you. Next up, we have public comment. We'd like you to first state your name, your address, and you have three minutes. That's it.

I'm sorry to interrupt. Mr. Chairman, I understand that Mr. Neiderer will be here.

He will, yes.

Do you want to handle all other items on the agenda at this point before we get to the data center?

Yes, we can.

Mr. Neiderer will be here, I understand, in a little while. He's been delayed. And I'm suggesting to the chairman that we undertake items on the agenda not related to the data center to give Mr. Neiderer an opportunity to appear. So for purposes of public comment now, that is for any matters not on the agenda. So if it deals with the data center, that's on the agenda, and that will be undertaken at the time that the matter is undertaken by the board. So with that understanding...

Thank you, sir. My name is Andrew Dymski. I live at Bernheisel Bridge, and I just want to take a moment at the beginning to share a word of prayer. So if anyone who wants to can bow their heads and join me.

Lord God, we give you thanks for this day. We give you thanks for this opportunity to gather in this place. We invite your spirit here tonight. In Romans thirteen, you tell us that no authority exists except from God, and that those that exist are instituted by God. And we recognize that you raise up leaders of institutions of justice in the civic arena, and we ask that you might give our board of supervisors, Mr.

**** Goodhart, Mr. Geistwhite, Dr. Neiderer, would you give them wisdom and discernment as they lead. We pray for the residents and the concerned citizens gathered tonight. You command us in First Peter to live as people who are free and to honor everyone. And there's no lack of things that cause fear in this moment, but we pray for a spirit of peace that might reign over all hearts here tonight, that we might speak and treat each other as image-bearers of you. We thank you for our representative form of government, for the opportunity that we have to share questions and concerns tonight. Would you be with, Lord, our police, our firemen, our first responders who serve and protect us, and would you be with our troops who are in harm's way.

**** Bring them home safely. Would you bless this time as we gather this evening. I ask all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Thank you. Any other public comment on matters not on the agenda? Seeing none. Mr. Chairman, could we start on the...

You've got to turn it on. You can say it louder.

We have more people signing in than usual.

Okay. I've never seen this many people here before.

There are some seats up front. There are seats up front that are available, if you guys want to sit in them now. There are seats up here, too. Up here. Please come up. We have one over here. There's a couple here. There's four or five right here.

Is everybody in? No. There are five seats, six seats up here. Right up here in the front. There's a seat over here in the corner. If you want to stand, that's fine, but there are seats up front if you want to sit down.

Now is everybody in?

Well, somebody just went out. Do they want to leave or they want to stay? Are you locking the doors?

I'm glad you came.

Okay. One more time. Is everybody in now?

Yes.

Okay, great. So I can go on.

Hold on a second. Before you proceed, we had opened up the floor to public comment on matters not appearing on the agenda. Is there anybody here to address the board of supervisors on matters not on the agenda? The data center matter will be coming up. Is there anybody else that needs to address public comment before this meeting?

Seeing none, Mr. Chairman. You can proceed with the agenda. MS4.

Thank you. MS4. What have you got?

This week we had a call from DEP in reference to a complaint from Country Manor involving their swimming pool. The complaint said that they were dumping chlorinated water into the Conodoguinet Creek. When we went out and investigated, they weren't dumping the water into the Conodoguinet Creek. In fact, the pool has been closed since two thousand twenty, and there was no chlorinated water in the pool. And what they were doing is cleaning out or pumping out the pool into a meadow area, and it was seeping into the ground. What they're doing is they want to clean it out, sterilize it, and they're going to fill it back up so the pool is open to the residents this summer.

Where is that?

At Country Manor. Okay? Got anything else?

No.

Okay. Next up, let me move to approve the minutes of April first, twenty twenty-six, and April twenty-fourth, twenty twenty-six. Do I have a second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Let me move to authorize payments of the bills for May. Do I have a second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Okay. I guess I don't need a solicitor's report. You already spoke. I did?

I have no report.

Engineer?

Nothing.

Later right now.

Later.

Police?

Still nothing.

Anything different that we need to be aware of? No. Okay. Zoning? Mark.

If you have questions on my report, there's one item on Roble Drive. They did replace lighting that we took enforcement against that was out of compliance with the ordinance. They're putting in lower lighting that's dark sky compliant.

So they are going through with it?

Yes, it's a hundred thousand dollar project. There's six lights on the north side.

Okay, thank you.

Questions? No. Fire? You can take mine too, right? I do have one matter where I'm trying to...

You'll have to speak up.

Over the last couple years, I have brought up about the intersection of South Middlesex Road. We have some...

Can you stand up, please? Can somebody get him a microphone?

Well, just use that one right there.

Thank you. You just have to get real close in, make sure it's on, that the button's... You have to pull the button towards you there. On the top.

On it. Okay. Covered? Yep. Thank you. Concern about the intersection of West Middle Road and South Middlesex Road. And I know we've discussed this in the past, but I'm resurrecting it again. Last month, April, we had two serious crashes in the intersection. One had the potential to be fatal. It was a T-bone crash in the intersection. The van that was rolled over, the driver was ejected out of the vehicle. The passenger, we had to cut out of the vehicle. We had to fly the driver to the medical center. The only warning signs there, and I know we've talked with PennDOT a number of times about this matter, and apparently nothing that they've done about it.

The only thing that is warning there is on South Middlesex Road, there's a stop sign there. That's the only... I think there should be some more warning signs, lights, whatever it's going to take. And maybe PennDOT has to do... I know we did a traffic study on that a couple of times. But maybe PennDOT has to be brought in on this as well.

Ed, you remember the last time we brought PennDOT in, do you remember their excuse?

No.

Because of all that limestone to the east that creates that hump, and they weren't very interested in paying to fix it.

Well, I thought I'd see one fatal crash there. And I'm telling you, it's not...

PennDOT is working on that intersection currently. They have plans out that they presented a plan to us probably a year and a half ago, where they actually showed a traffic signal, and then they showed a roundabout. Since then they have actually moved forward with the roundabout design. So they are in the process of working with...

So they are actively working on it?

Yes. And I believe construction was 2027, if I remember. Mark?

I know it can't happen too fast.

Are they working on it or doing the normal PennDOT thing and saying, "We're working on it"?

They're working on it. I believe we had a resident even said that there's probably some traffic cameras and stuff out there. We're probably collecting data for that.

It's funded too. It's funded.

Mark says it is funded, too.

Yeah, I know. It was a local article whenever we were...

No, it's not a local article. At the time we were working on it.

But there's a sticking point with that roundabout. The northwest corner on the Dike's farm has a federal agricultural easement.

From a county level, it's no problem. PennDOT can take it for safety.

Well, from a Cumberland County Planning Department standpoint, they think it's a major sticking point. So I guess they'll have to work it out with PennDOT. But is there something that we can do from a township standpoint, roadmaster standpoint, to alleviate this, if this is going to take another year or two?

Still might require PennDOT approval. We could look at maybe putting flashing... We had flashing red lights that we put on the stop signs. This particular accident, was it from our side or did they come through on the...

No, the individual was southbound, did not stop. It was a high-speed crash, T-bone crash.

On Trindle?

On Trindle, yeah. Southbound on South Middlesex, T-boned a van in the intersection. It rolled across the road into the field, ejecting the driver. And the passenger was heavily entrapped.

Okay. We do have... There's a stop ahead sign prior to the intersection. There's actually stop ahead painted on the road. That may be touched up. We can check that out.

Touching up the paint is not going to do anything. I've lived there my entire life, and trust me, with the dairy farm there, I love it when traffic comes five miles, but that's not how I like it happening. These accidents will continue to happen unless something is seriously done. And I think it would mean flashing lights. I think that's the only thing. People who are not familiar with the area will just blow through.

Thank you.

And it's a panic driving on Trindle as you're going through the intersection.

Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Ed.

Okay. Code enforcement. What have we got? You can take mine. That will be my favorite subject.

I just received an update this morning from the new property owners.

He's speaking about the Diamond.

That's correct. I'm sorry. The Diamond. They said they're making progress. They have met with several contractors. Contractors have not submitted their bids yet, so they're waiting on that. They said hopefully by next week they'll have quotes.

Quotes from what, Barry?

For demolition. Well, all three. They have three separate quotes, supposedly. One for boarding the place up, one for removing all the debris from the property, and the third one is for demolition. They said that one of the sticking points is with the utilities. They have contacted all three utilities, asking for certification that the utilities have shut off. The utilities have told them that they have to go through 811, which is PA One Call. They contact PA One Call.

PA One Call said that they can't do anything until actually they have a contract signed, and then the contractor has to contact them, for demolition, in order to get the certification for making sure all the utilities are shut off.

So we're moving forward with that.

So that's actually getting some action, finally, after how many years and how many owners? Good Lord.

Well, this will be the second owner. Or third owner. I'm sorry. Third owner.

Thanks, brother. Municipal authority, that's me. We're having no issues or problems at the moment. The second well is in excellent shape and will eventually come online as needed. Other than that, nothing else from the municipal authority. Roadmaster?

You have my report there. We did some fine work here in the last month. Also had the crew execute some work here around the township building. Removed some of the Bradford pear trees, planted some oaks and some dogwoods, did a little popsicle work around here. They're still working out on Route 11, helping out our traffic signal contractor, finish up the fiber optic work out there, so that they can actually do, like, advanced timing on the signals. It's a PennDOT project. But we're also going to jump on here at some point maybe and actually add traffic cameras

to that corridor, down along Route 11. Talking with the chief about how to work some of that stuff out. Also, we received a letter on behalf of the municipal authority from the municipal authority's engineer about raising the tank there at the 81 shop. So they're going to add some sections to that, add some water capacity. That's something they've been working on for quite a few years now. But they're going to proceed with that, try to actually have a construction date this fall.

You know, the interesting thing with that is they raise it from the bottom. They don't add onto the top. They raise it and add onto the bottom. I found that interesting. Okay.

Secretary-treasurer?

Yes. Gentlemen, in your packet you'll see two reports, one being the monthly Cumberland County taxpayer report reflecting distribution for this month as well as calendar year to date. Do you have any questions on that report?

No.

And the other one in there is the treasurer report. That covers all of April through today. The only thing you won't see reflected on that is some of that April has not been completely processed for this week. But that is all of the general fund showing all the receipts and disbursements. Any questions on that report?

All right. Well, while you're on the podium, how about the rec department?

You can take that directly. Just same as it was last...

Nothing different?

No. Just same events and programs.

Have they started to sign up yet for the summer camps?

Oh, that's been full for a while.

Oh. Already started.

That's been full.

Good.

Unfinished business? None. You guys ready for new business? Here we go. Discussion and possible motion on preliminary land development plan for Pennsylvania Data PAX-1, phase 1B data center.

Someone let Mr. Courtney know he needs to come in. I think they wanted to give a presentation. Is he outside?

Yeah, he's outside.

Oh, there he is.

Yes. Good evening, Mr. Courtney.

Good evening. And first of all, I just want to thank Zach and Eileen for rearranging the room. Obviously seating is... There's a lot more seating in here, which is good, so I appreciate you guys being flexible, and then also putting the PAX-1 development first on the list. I think it accommodates the residents better because we know why they're here. And before we start, I just wanted to address Mr. Courtney directly. There was something you said about a month ago at our board of supervisors meeting

and I let it go at that time. It really bothered me. And it still bothered me.

Normally, I would just talk to you one on one, but I felt because of the gravity of the situation, and obviously the public interest, that it was best that I bring this up in a public meeting. I think we were talking about the lights, and you'd asked for a waiver to go to 25 feet, and our albedo says 20 feet unless you get a waiver. We were pretty firm. We wanted 20 feet. And you made a comment that it was really up to the supervisors because that's why you make the big bucks.

That was a quote. And it bothered me at the time, but I just let it go because I know you were kind of tongue in cheek. You've been doing this kind of work for decades. And I know you understand the supervisors really don't make any money. But I think it gives the wrong impression, because I'm getting a lot of accusations from the public that the whole township, whether it's employees, elected officials, appointed officials, are on the take. And so I should have said something then, but it's really just sort of stuck in my craw since then.

And I just want you to let everyone in the room know that there is nobody, whether it's a township employee, an appointed official, or an elected official, that is receiving financial compensation in regard to this project. And the answer is... Well, if you can't tell me that, then I think we have a problem.

Absolutely, it was totally tongue in cheek, right? The ordinance actually provides that the supervisors make the decision, right? I think it specifically references that. So that's why you make the big bucks. Obviously tongue in cheek. Supervisors really don't make much, and it's statutory, whatever's made. And it's completely tongue in cheek. So apologies if that put you and the board in a difficult position, but it was completely tongue in cheek. And there is no compensation going to the board or any other individual that would attach.

Thank you. Thanks, Charlie. You want to say... You have a presentation to make?

Sure. So before you tonight are three plans. All have been reviewed fairly extensively by the township commission and consultants, and recommended for approval by the Township Planning Commission. So two of the plans are final plans. Each of the plans that have been submitted for this overall project are preliminary plan first, followed by a separate final plan submission. So two of the plans are final plans. One is a final subdivision plan. If you recall, this seven hundred acre property was resubdivided to establish five lots, one, A, B, C, two and three.

And those lot numbers correspond to the phasing that are identified on plans. So the preliminary plan for this subdivision plan was approved by the board in January. So this is a final plan. It's the same plan. This plan and the associated waivers have been recommended by the Planning Commission. The second final plan is the land development plan for phase 1A. In March, the board approved the preliminary land development plan for phase 1A. The plan that is before you is the same plan. Recall that phase 1A is essentially the PPL facilities.

And the township's Planning Commission recommended approval of that along with the associated waivers. The third plan is a preliminary plan for phase 1B. Phase 1B is the first phase for the data center building. This has also been reviewed quite extensively by the Planning Commission and consultants before coming to you. For all three plans, and in particular the phase 1B plan, we've presented quite extensively. We've gathered information between meetings. There's a lot of information that's been presented, not just in presentation format, but in terms of documentation provided to the township.

This plan has undergone multiple reviews, and multiple resubmissions to get to a point where last month the Planning Commission made a recommendation of the plan itself and the associated waivers. Again, that is a preliminary plan. So this is the first item that you have identified under new business, is the preliminary plan for phase 1B. And like the other preliminary plans, there would be a separate process for final plan approval. So the preliminary plan is the end of the process for phase 1B. We would have to prepare and submit a final plan and go through essentially the same process with Planning Commission review and then ultimately get to the board of supervisors.

So what we're going to do tonight is we'll walk you through these plans. We do not intend to present exhaustively, as we've done at the Planning Commission meetings on multiple occasions, nor do we intend to simply rehash all of the information that was presented at all of those meetings. But we will walk through the plans. If there are any questions or any areas you'd like us to discuss in particular that we haven't touched upon, please do have them. So with that, I'll turn it over to Justin Ross with the next.

Thank you, Charlie.

So I'm going to go a little bit out of order from the actual agenda. I'm going to start with the subdivision, into 1A and then into 1B, so sequentially

kind of walk the board and the residents who may or may not have seen this before, kind of through the project and try to bring everybody up to speed. And as Charlie mentioned, we're happy to answer any questions along the way. This first plan, this is just the cover sheet of the actual subdivision plan. So the property in question is six hundred and ninety-three acres. It consisted of four tracts of land prior to purchase by the development. Those included the Cumberland Knoll Residential Subdivision, easterly tract, and then three tracts on the west side owned by formerly KMWW.

And then the 1C tract again is part of that third piece that is bisected by Country Club Road. So I'm going to do a little zoom here, just to orient everyone. So the property abuts the creek on the majority of the west and northern sections, this blue line surrounding the outside. This is the creek. This pink line through the bottom here is Country Club Road. So Route 11 is to the south of the page here. This peach line is Interstate 81. The purple line here on the easterly side is Bernheisel Bridge.

And then the brown line here is the existing transmission corridor for PPL. So the large transmission lines and structures that are out there currently bisect or go through the edge of the property. So the first step of this subdivision plan was to consolidate the four tracts into one. And then this plan, as Charlie mentioned, creates lots 1A, 1B, 1C, and 2 and 3, creating five tracts for the development. The subdivision also included an access route within the plots 1A, which I'll further define as part of the 1A plan. But again, this plan is really to consolidate the land and break it into five pieces.

The next plan is the final 1A land development plan. And just showing the same map we looked at on the subdivision. 1A is that eastern portion of the property in light blue. That portion, with this plan, is really the infrastructure, being the PPL interconnection, some roads and stormwater associated with access into the campus. The dark blue

line that kind of loops within 1A is an access drive that is built to public road standards, that connects each of the campuses onto Country Club Road. So zooming in a little bit further, lot 1A, as I mentioned, is infrastructure. There is also a water main relocation as part of this plan. This line here is the existing Middlesex Township Authority water main that bisects the property. This plan included relocation of that water main along Country Club Road to the east, and then north along the eastern property line, and then following the transmission line till it ties back into the existing main.

If folks are close to the property, you'll note that that line has been installed. There's new hydrants along Country Club Road which are operational. And in the near future, once the Middlesex Township Authority signs off, that line will be converted over and operational.

Excuse me. Did you say that the fire hydrants are now operational?

Yes, they are.

I didn't hear that, Ed. Thank you.

So this plan again is that same southeast corner of the property. Country Club Road frontage is here on the bottom side of the property. This gives a little more clarity on what this first stage of development includes. The gray line is equivalent to that dark blue line in the previous slide, the loop road that surrounds this infrastructure. The key piece here is the yellow box, is the PPL switchyard and substation. That will allow power to come off the transmission lines that PPL owns, step it down to a voltage, it'll be utilized for the project as well as additional capacity available for PPL to service the rest of the community.

In addition, there are three orange boxes within this. Again, those are additional substations to step it down again for use on campus. The facilities will be served by overhead electric lines within the yellow to the orange. But beyond the orange, everything else will be underground on campus, so there will be no additional wires other than the current transmission lines coming or going. Slightly different, if you're familiar with the Cumberland Substation currently on Bernheisel Bridge. That's an older substation that has been expanded multiple times. Many lines coming and going. This will certainly be much more streamlined from an aesthetic standpoint, built for this function.

Again, that situation where you have wires on top of wires is really the product of building out infrastructure over a period of time. In addition to that, we have taken a heavy look at landscaping, both from the planning commission's comments, the board's comments, the Appalachian Trail's comments, some neighbor comments. You know, we've been at this for almost nine months now, meeting and talking to local constituents and how we can better provide a good product here. So from that standpoint there are earth berms planned along Country Club Road on the frontage, 12-foot high

evergreen screening. On the eastern side, there are up to three layers of evergreen and deciduous trees along the entire eastern perimeter, to block sight lines from the east. Street trees, which are required around the perimeter of all the streets, for environmental purposes. And then each of the sight lines of the substation fencing all include additional rows of evergreen screening, to ensure that really any line of sight from a public standpoint is blocking fences with trees from all data points. And last, this does include a number of riparian buffer areas, some wetland areas, that have been completely avoided.

Those areas will be replanted, and brought back to a better condition than they currently exist. Near the ball trees, on those fringes, have been designed around and will remain. So the existing vegetation, which is probably the most impactful from the ability to screen, will remain in place as much as possible.

As I mentioned, the berms, this is a conceptual rendering, just to give you a feel for the berms along Country Club Road. They will be set back to allow for stormwater management, some other utility access in the future, for the community. The berms will be gently sloping, and then again, the vegetation, screening and evergreens on

top. All of the landscaping will be part of this development agreement for security. The developer is required to maintain that in perpetuity, replace it, ensure it's sound and looks nice to the community.

So I just go back to this slide again. Zooming in a little bit more, sometimes it's hard to look at and understand the plan. So the yellow box here, as I mentioned, is the PPL substation. This is just kind of a schematic of the structure and cabling that goes on in there. So the 500 kV line is in this location. If you think about a circuit or extension cord you plug into, the main transmission line or your wall, that comes into this location. It runs, let's say, your appliance, different things, and then steps down through that.

So all of that infrastructure is within a fence. It's all within a secure perimeter. It's all under the direction of PPL.

So those stations actually belong to PPL?

That is correct. So the last slide here, this is a photo of the Upper Allen, so near Friendship Park on this other part of the county here. This is the Upper Allen substation. Our proposed substation won't look exactly like this. This is again trying to give you a feel for how this is different than what currently exists in the township here. Similar fencing, similar aerial overhead coming in, and similar components on the pad. But again, this is kind of, for people that can't quite understand what's going to be built on this side of the property, this is the look and feel of what will be there.

Is this the same size?

Is it about the same size? Excuse me.

This is not a time for public questions and comments.

It's very important to let the developer give the presentation, let the board of supervisors hear the presentation uninterrupted, and then everyone will have their time to ask questions.

Proceed. Because it'll probably come up later, our substation is slightly wider than this. But it's essentially the same look and feel. The last part of 1A, I'll just touch on because it does impact local residents, is Country Club Road. The early start of construction was hauling of some materials in, proved that the road was not up to the standard for those types of vehicles. We have worked to patch that along the way. We've also understood that that was not going to be a sustainable long-term fix. I think the end of last week, there was a full depth repavement of a section of that road, which was the worst shape.

That has been completed. But I will add that our goal for what we want to leave the community at the end of the project is to rebuild the entire road from Route 11 to Bernheisel Bridge. So we are working through that with the engineering team to understand what that looks like and how it looks. That will be in the development agreement, so it'll be bonded and secured. But really the intent is that this is a high-quality, new road for the community at the end of the project. Obviously, along the way, there'll be corrections and fixes to make things user-friendly for everybody.

But that is a long-term commitment of the team. All right. So that rounds out 1A. Any follow-up questions on 1A?

I just wanted you to speak about the lighting for the site, because I know we've discussed that several times. Your site is beholden to the zoning ordinance of the township. A public utility is not. They can go wherever they want, and they can do whatever they want. They're not beholden to our zoning ordinances, lighting. They're not beholden to any of that. But we have met with PPL. They seem like they want to be good stewards, and good partners in the community. And your team has stated that you're going to be dark sky compliant, which I think will make a big difference, particularly for the adjacent neighbors, particularly having dimming at night.

What's your thoughts about PPL and what they're going to bring to the table in terms of lighting?

Good question. So we work with PPL every day. There are design calls. So we have relayed the information that we are intending to be dark sky compliant. Again, talking about dimming after hours, certain color of light, height of light standards, shielding of light. So all of those items are a benefit to ensure that there's no trespass onto the community. We have approached PPL and recommended and asked them to kind of follow along with us in that standpoint. We believe that they are willing and will be able to do so.

The only item remaining is that this is a secure facility, and they have certain standards that they need to meet from a security perspective and an after-hours maintenance requirement. But our understanding at this point in that discussion is that they will be able to do many of those things to accommodate the request.

Okay. And just keep pushing that on behalf of the township, please.

And keep Mark informed on that. He's sort of our light guru when it comes to that.

Understood.

You got anything else?

Not on 1A, so I'm going to jump to 1B. So 1B is the preliminary land development plan for the first campus of buildings. So again, just to reorient everyone, 1B is the northern or green portion on the screen. That is the first campus. Campus two is in the middle there, and campus three is planned for the southern portion. So this plan only is looking at lot 1B, which will include six data center buildings. Again, zooming in on that green area, the area here to the south is the 1A area that we just discussed.

This is the PPL, the yellow box from the last screen. These are those corner boxes in the last visual, and the access roads. So kind of spurring off of that infrastructure to the north is the first campus. I'll just zoom in here. So the internal circulation road, within 1A, is here. The access for campus one will come off of that. There'll be a secured entrance facility in the front that would be manned twenty-four hours a day for inbound and outbound of the campus. The campus is fully surrounded, close to those buildings, with a secure perimeter fence.

So while the other parts of the campus, which are currently secured now, after construction, that frontage fence will leave. The 1A part will be essentially open, and then each individual campus will be fenced, and each substation will be fenced. So the majority of the property will be open for wildlife, open for those types of things. So again, the first two buildings that are planned to be constructed are on the left side there. Then there's different staging as the other buildings. The design incorporates an orientation.

So the data center has a building. So think of it as a storage unit. Within each storage unit bay, there are servers and racking that store the data. Outside of that is equipment, which would be the generator yard, air handlers, and the material or the equipment for power, backup power, and cooling. So for these first four buildings on the right, the generators are inwardly facing. Those buildings act as a buffer for sound and noise and visualization. And then we did discuss that these buildings here on the southwest, because of the way air flows in and out of these buildings, the generators are westerly facing.

Because of that, there will be a full-height screening wall. So the full height of the building. The portion of that building will include sound attenuation at the generator level, and then the full height will screen any of the mechanicals from that side of the building. So from an outside-looking-in standpoint, it'll look like any side of the building. It'll be architecturally done, with earth tones and different colors and the materials as we get into a final land development. But that is our goal, is to make sure that that is aesthetically well done and

the side of the building looks just like the others.

We did notice down in Virginia when you guys took us down there to see the one building, we noticed that the majority of the mechanical was on the roof. Is there any plan to do that with this?

So there are some mechanicals on the roof. Depending on the building, there are fans on two of these. The remainder of them, most of the fans are inside the building.

Thank you.

I'll also note, the blue areas on the plan are stormwater. While these look like ponds, that's a visual representation. So there's one on each corner of the project. These will de-water within the 72-hour requirement of DEP. They will essentially be dry. They'll allow the water to infiltrate as much as possible and then flow out towards the creek actually. So I mentioned some of the landscaping on the 1A plan. Similar on this plan, we have added an extra amount, based on those discussions. There'll be screening along the perimeter of the security fence in all buildings.

There are a number of areas that aren't planned to be redeveloped that'll be turned basically from farmland, ag row crops, into seeded meadow mix, reforestation, food plots. All of those things we've included in the plan. So most of this property, I think there's really about 17% of the total acreage of this phase will be built on, so buildings or pavement. The rest of that will go back to a natural condition outside of the project area.

Justin, can you tell us what the distance is from the buildings, say the two northerly buildings, to the creek? What distance are we talking there?

So I believe you're talking about these areas here. This is about 400 to 500 feet. This is probably about 700 feet to our property line on our side of the creek. There's probably about another 200 feet with the creek and the buffer on the other side of the creek. I did look this morning, and this phase is 1,400 feet to the nearest residence. And for the most part, over a half a mile to the vast majority. So the closest home to this campus, those buildings on this campus, is 1,400 feet.

That's good.

Are you also referring to the ones on the east side? Those are the ones on the east side? Which is the most density, is on that side.

Correct.

So we shared these with the planning commission. The key word here is conceptual. There has been a revision to these, which we will again present as part of the next final plan. Mainly because our internal team didn't like the look that we were delivering. We thought it could be better. So the architect has worked this week to improve what we see here, and I think I've had a sneak peek, and I think they do look considerably better. But this is showing kind of the conceptual rendering of the building facade.

We anticipate including earth tones. Absolutely will meet the local zoning code standards, which drive much of this design based on glazing, articulation, and some other things. All of the equipment will be screened. There will be about a nine, 10-foot roof parapet. So the items that Don mentioned, as far as any equipment that could be on the roof, will be screened. And then again, I talked about the higher screening walls around the generators and that equipment. So part of final land development is making sure that these meet those standards and the planning commission signs off on the look of the building.

So that is the next step that'll be coming. We did mention, we talked a little bit briefly on the last phase about dark sky lighting. This is again some of those standards. As we push PPL to accommodate these standards, we will certainly provide these. They're in the base system design currently. And I think the key one that we've got a lot of discussion on is the dimming after hours. So there'll be the timers, lights will pop on if somebody's present or somebody drives through the campus. They'll stay on for a period of time and then drop back down.

So those elements again will ensure that there's a limited amount of impact, if anything, from a lighting standpoint. Generators was a great topic on the planning commission discussions. First and foremost was the visual impact. We kind of talked through operationally what happens with the generators. So they are not to power the building for a long period of time. They are meant for emergency backup only. The new substation, PPL interconnection, has been built with a tremendous amount of redundancy so that if an element fails, power switches over and maintains.

So the likelihood of a power outage on campus, while it is not zero, is unlikely. The fact that this is a five hundred kV transmission corridor adds to that. PPL does not want that line to be down for a whole host of reasons. They also have obligations to ensure that if there is an outage they have a response time, requirements to ensure that things get back up and running. So the generators on site, again, emergency only. And beyond that there is maintenance. So they are required to go through monthly runtime testing to ensure the reliability.

That's all federally required and scripted. And there's a sequence of those units, certain days of the week coming online for thirty minutes, ramping up, running, and then shutting back down. There's a dedicated team that does those. They may test two, three, four at a time, and then move on throughout the day. So because of the number, that is a daily activity that will occur. But from the standpoint of everything else we talked about, the screening, and we'll get into some sound in a little bit.

Those impacts are mitigated. So the last statement, generators are top of the line. They're made by Caterpillar, Rolls-Royce. They're tier four. They have special acoustical housings to ensure that they are sound compliant. They have special mufflers again for sound and the emission standards. So these are hospital-grade units. Though there are a lot of them, they are the best in the business that you can get right now.

So we did want to touch on sound.

Before we get into sound, there's a lot of concerns about air quality. It is interesting, if people want to look at a website, purpleair.com. They have monitors, mostly over the eastern part of the country and also in Europe, South America, Africa. It's an interesting website. There's a monitor in New Kingstown, and it gives you the AQI. It's updated every ten minutes. I've been looking at Ashburn on a regular basis, and the AQI there, it's a place where there's two hundred data centers.

The AQI is usually under fifty, which was kind of surprising to me. So I think it's a good site for people to look at who are interested in air quality, because this is an independent monitoring system. But in terms of the DEP permits, because my understanding is, of course, that's Pennsylvania, it's not federal, so PA DEP is the one that really controls the air quality and the emissions, and you have to get a permit from them. And you'll have to give them, once you know how many generators, who the end user is, what the testing schedule is, and they'll have to approve that, and then they monitor that on a regular basis, and presumably report it as some public document or certainly something it will get on township level.

But can you expand at all on that? I mean, am I pretty much correct in that assumption?

Yes. That is well said. But yes, there are air quality permits, and we want for each campus or every unit. Those are prescriptive that say that in certain summer air quality concerned environments, the testing can't be in the middle of the day. So there are many provisions in that permit. It is regulated by the state, as you mentioned, and we will be complying with that.

And if anybody wants to go on the Pennsylvania DEP website, it takes a little bit of looking, but you can sign up to get alerts for when the permit is issued. And you can get the data on emissions as it moves forward. So people can monitor that independently. We'll certainly try to keep track of that from a township level, but most of that is a state Department of Environmental Protection issue that monitors and has corrective action if needed.

Correct. You can go on to sound.

So moving on to sound. Again, as one of the many reports that are required by the state, the local community, zoning, SALDO, sound, as part of the environmental impact statement, is one of those provisions. So again, this is a preliminary plan. We do intend to continue to update sound modeling, with the final plan, with building permit submissions, with final equipment. A lot of this is dependent on the types of fans, the types of generators, the actual models that are purchased will have cut sheets that provide a tested sound level.

So this is preliminary again, to show compliance, to show that we will be well within the local requirements, which is a basis of design for our team, for the end user. The last thing they want is sound or noise complaints after the fact. So kind of going a little above and beyond on this approach. We did do some ambient testing that records the current environment, that was completed this spring. And I'm not a sound consultant. We did have a sound consultant at one of the planning commission meetings that spoke kind of extensively and answered a lot of questions on this.

But essentially the L90 is the 90%. So we had sound recordings or readings from 30 decibels to 90 decibels. But the 90% of the time, the sound levels surrounding the property were between that 41 and 51 decibels. Through the sound modeling, which included modeling not only of 1B, but all three campuses, we did three scenarios. One is normal operations, so no generators running, no generators being run for maintenance. It's simply fans on at the site. And again, conservatively where you have all fans at max power at the same time, not a very likely scenario, but that is what we designed to, the worst case.

That normal operation shows that the decibels at the property line is in that 45 to 50 dBA range. Again, consistent with current ambient conditions, tests out there, and the current zoning requirement is 70 dBA. So our goal has been to be 15 to 20 dBA below the requirement of the ordinance. Second scenario is generator testing. As I mentioned, those ones, twos, three generators throughout the day being tested. Same results, that may seem interesting or hard to believe, but again, it's the sound attenuation units surrounding the generators are a fully enclosed unit with soundproofing, the mufflers and various things.

So that sound contributing to the operations is de minimis. The last one, we did look at an emergency situation. While we said this is a rare event, unlikely event, in the case that it does happen for 10 minutes, an hour, those types of things, we did model that. So every generator, every fan on site running at maximum capacity, maximum RPM, the sound modeling is showing 47 to 55. So a slight increase. Again, most people think about these as going to be massive sound generators. The equipment and technology that occurred in the last 10 to 15 years is light years ahead of where it was 25 years ago.

So again, speccing that, designing and engineering, there's some sound walls in here, different things. From a sound standpoint, it almost becomes a non-issue. What you will hear more is a local UPS or FedEx delivery truck idling on the side of the road. So those sounds

are significantly louder than what these generators are.

I'll end at, we do have a development agreement post-construction verification. So after the project has been built, we will work with the township to have testing validate that against the model, and again, correct if there's anything out of line or needed. So that's kind of a last step just to ensure that what is shown here in the design stage is proven in the development stage.

Now, will that be outlined in a master development agreement? And we don't have that yet, correct?

We have a master development agreement that covers the plans for which there's a final phase. And then we would expect as part of the final plan for phase 1B that we would have an amendment to that agreement that addresses sound and whatever other items come up in the process.

All right, because obviously there's been a lot of concern on a lot of levels, whether it's emissions, sound, and lighting, and those things were not really reflected in the initial master development agreement. Is that correct?

Correct. The master development agreement was primarily dealing with security for the required improvements and for the ultimate reconstruction of Country Club Road. There are other issues to be included in that. I know there were some other transportation improvements that were included in that. There is lighting, if there's something that the township would like to have. But our plan has a specific proposal with specific fixtures and so forth. So the plan itself would control that, typically. You don't have a line item in the development agreement for every item.

The plan itself as designed covers it. But a post-construction noise, sound study and mitigation would be something that we would include in that agreement. And again, that would likely be an amendment that would be done in connection with any final plan approval for phase 1B.

So last slide. We started to talk and ensure that everybody kind of understood the water. So first kind of misnomer we've heard a lot about, is there is no water being taken from or dumped into Conodoguinet Creek. There are no wells on site, and there actually will be a provision in the plans that wells are not permitted on site. So there will be no water withdrawal from the aquifer on site. All of the water will be provided from MTMA, Middlesex Township Municipal Authority. That has been allocated late last year. Again, the allocation is based on what they had available, what they feel is necessary to ensure future development within the township, and then they allocated an amount that they wanted to sell to us.

So that is four hundred thousand gallons per day for the entire campus. If that number is exceeded, there's no water.

That's per campus?

That is total.

That's total. This is not the time for public questions, please. People will have their chance to ask questions.

They have a chance to make a presentation. You will have your chance after they make the presentation, so the board of supervisors can have... We just can't have people yelling out questions and disrupting the process.

The issue is a lot of people is attend here. That's a spot. It's really small. It's really hot. A lot of people want to go because it's hot. You should be answering our questions before hearing the... You already know what they say and what they're doing. You're approving it. So you should be listening to us.

Are you going on a trip with this guy? You should be listening to everybody here. Us people have our own water out there.

Can you go ahead technically? So as I mentioned, the four hundred thousand gallons of water is for the entire project, entire campus. That has been allocated and secured from the township's authority. That water will be used both for domestic purposes, within restrooms and facilities, as well as cooling for the facility. The facility is a hybrid-cooled project, which means most of the year, most of the time, it will be cooled by fans. Water is only used at peak summer demand, when temperatures reach eighty, eighty-five. So again, it's not eighty-five degrees all hours of the day in the summer months.

Over nighttime hours, the temperature typically drops. So the water usage is on a specific set point, and is used for those peak conditions. Again, not utilized much of the rest of the year. So the water balance is really an engineered solution with water storage on site, technologies being used, and so forth. So while this is the water cooling approach from an evaporative cooling standpoint, very similar to other commercial and industrial applications already in existence in the township. So those systems, because of the township water being hard, through testing the local water system is a hard water.

Much like many residents probably have water softeners and other things in their homes for scale and buildup. There will be a water softening on the inbound of this water. There is some chlorine treatment just to maintain the same standard that comes in from the authority. The authority provides chlorination in the current water, which will be maintained. There's been some requests on corrosion inhibitors and those things. There won't be chemicals used for that. The system is a top-of-the-line, designed with stainless steel components and the like. So that reduces the corrosion requirements.

So again, there will be sampling manholes on the facility for outbound water. So what is not evaporated is cycled through the system several times, for efficiency. It is then discharged, will be discharged to municipal authority, through the municipal sewer system.

Where is the storage system?

Sampling manholes, again, will be right outside. The authority has provisions in place to test if needed, at any point in time. So I think that concludes kind of a summary of each phase of development. There are a number of waivers that are in line with what was in the preliminary plans for each of these.

I don't believe there's any new waivers that we haven't previously discussed or been requested. But I'll turn it back over to the board.

Well, I certainly have spent a lot of time trying to understand this project, and I've been to every planning commission meeting. I don't think I've missed a minute of any of the meetings, and they've lasted sometimes past 11:00 at night. The Cumberland County Conservation District, that has to approve your NPDES, I know they just submitted a letter today that there was 24 items that needed to be corrected. Most of them were relatively seemingly minor corrections, but you won't be able to move dirt until that permit is issued. But talking with the people at the Conservation District, they've spent so far well over 300 hours in review of your plans.

The Cumberland County Planning Department has spent well over 100 hours reviewing your plans. I know the planning commission members, several of which are here tonight, have spent countless hours reviewing plans. I know Bud Grove has spent countless hours. I can probably tell by the check we have to write for HRG. Because Mike Hess from HRG, working on behalf of the township, has

over 1,000.

Yeah. So people have sent me emails saying that this process has been fast-tracked, and we're not doing our due diligence. And I understand the emotion around this project, but to state that we're not doing our due diligence is just not factual. We're spending an awful lot of time. A lot of people are spending an awful lot of time in reviewing this process, as they should. This is a grand scale project. But we are spending an awful lot of time on this, and we'll continue to spend a lot of time on it.

A lot of it's going to have to be making sure we have a master development agreement that puts into writing the things that we want you to monitor going forward. I know the municipal authority is essentially going to have a kill switch. You hit 400,000 gallons a day, it's going to shut off. So I know that you will make sure you don't get shut off. I know you're going to have a lot of water storage on the facility that you'll use when maybe you have a couple days or a week or two that's 90 plus.

I know the effluent's going to be monitored, with a manhole, by the municipal authority and the wastewater treatment authority, and will meet DEP standards. But I feel that we've done a lot to evaluate this project, and I know that a lot of people aren't happy.

But I feel that we've done everything that we can do.

Is that a yes? It's a fair question. And at this point I think it's time for public comment. Because we're not going to vote on anything until we get public comment, so people can come up to the microphone. And we're on a three-minute timer, because we have a lot of people. You need to state your name and your address. You can only speak if you're a township resident or a taxpayer. And please speak into the microphone so we can hear what you're saying.

I think that's a good question. When there's a response back, does that stop the timer, or is it three minutes including the response back?

It's a fair question. I think the three minutes is your comment and questions. And so we can take as much time as we want, either the board or the engineers or the developer, to answer your question to the best of our ability.

Thank you.

Can you classify taxpayer?

As someone who pays taxes in Middlesex Township.

Just for clarification purposes, I am not a Middlesex Township resident, but I'm Silver Spring Township. I live, um, 50 feet in the creek, 100 feet maybe. I don't know the distance.

Well, if you're a Silver Spring resident, then you don't have the ability to speak at our meeting.

Has any meetings been held between your supervisors and their supervisors?

I have met with their supervisors. I've also discussed the proposed data center with Monroe Township, the Monroe Township Supervisor.

This facility covers the whole county.

But this is the time for township residents and taxpayers, so you're not allowed to speak.

Township residents and taxpayers can speak. That's it. It's black and white.

I'll hold the mic, and you tell me what you want me to ask him.

Go ahead.

Hold on. Hold on. Let's be gentlemen and ladies here.

Are you a resident of Middlesex?

Yeah, I'm a resident.

These guys got, like, you know, five years left of life, and they're going to fuck it up for everyone else.

That's... Yes. They don't care. This is a very clear concern, and it should have been addressed earlier.

This is not a political debate. I know you're running for office, but you're not allowed to speak at our township meetings.

Well, somebody just gestured me to say what I was gonna say.

And all I'm going to say is that what they're saying, Keith, all I'm saying is it's a valid complaint. To think that people are... that these issues that people are concerned about are confined to municipal boundaries, they are not. That's all we're saying.

The general assembly, so you can deal with those issues if you get elected.

Everybody knows that. This is not a political thing.

If you have any questions, can you please come up and ask your question?

If you have a question for me, I'm going to give you a response as well. It's already decided.

Ma'am, right here. Go ahead.

Hi. My name is Rachael Dymski. I live at Bernheisel Bridge Road with my husband, four children, and a herd of beef cattle, and I just have a comment that I wanted to make.

We live on a sixteen-acre farmette with a big red barn, a farm that anyone who has lived here long enough will remember as the old Anderson place. Harry Anderson passed away a few weeks ago, and I have been thinking lately about the legacy that he left behind. The fact is that my husband and I owe so much of the goodness of our current life to the work and careful preservation of the person who owned the farm before us. On any given day, you can find my children running barefoot outside between cows grazing in our fields, searching for minnows in the creek, making tunnels in the hayloft after bailing day.

The Andersons' careful attention to the bones and heart of our farm has made so much of it possible. It is the temptation and the weakness of all of us to become myopic in our own lives and work, to forget that we are only a piece of the story. We inherit the legacy of those who come before us, and that is a legacy of either thoughtfulness or carelessness, and we leave a legacy for those who come after, whether that is a legacy of loving the quick profit, the annual gain, or a legacy of pursuing beauty and goodness for this generation and the ones to come.

Country Club Road is only a few miles long. It is just a blip in our township, but everyone who drove this beautiful road up until the fall of twenty twenty-five got to experience about four minutes of beauty and peace. I have spoken to so many residents in this room who have said that this used to be their favorite road, that they could feel their spirit settling and calming as they drove around that bend. For thousands of people, those four minutes of beauty and peace no longer exist. It is a small thing in a day, but a large thing in the course of a life, larger still in the cumulative effect of a community who has lost that daily dose of beauty, and even more significant in those eleven homes on Country Club Road who have had the noise and hum of cold knowledge and progress rattle on their homes and doorsteps.

A data center feels fundamentally different from a neighborhood or a development that could have been there, and all of us feel that on a soul level. A development houses dinner tables, childhood bedrooms, story time, and games of catch in the backyard. A development uses natural resources to raise children who will hopefully give back to this community. A data center offers only progress, only drainage, only a slow depletion of our natural resources. I am deeply worried about the way that data centers are exploding across our country and the way that our state governor has seemed to jump in without thinking, the way that we are willing to so readily exchange the quiet beauty that feeds our soul for the cold, bottomless access to knowledge.

This is the first data center to go up in this area. How you all handle this decision is not only going to affect our township, but our entire valley. This is a Pandora's box that would be better left unopened.

Good evening. Beth Legore, Teaberry Drive. I have a question pertaining to the potential use of lithium ion battery backups at the data center. And even though there may not be a plan for them to be used currently, this is the main backup source used in data centers across the country that I've been reading about, and it has the potential for the leading cause of fires at data centers. And I would like to know how Middlesex Township and the developer will protect our community from this unique fire and environmental risk that occurs with large scale lithium ion battery backups that can create a self-sustaining fire.

Is there currently an ordinance that we can review that calls out specific safety standards for this to control a thermal runaway event, which occurs when rising temperatures trigger chemical reactions and release more heat until the batteries self-destruct? How will our homes, the Appalachian Trail, the Conodoguinet Creek be protected? I noticed that tonight on the agenda, the discussion is to approve four local fire companies to protect our township. Has the township confirmed that these local companies have specialized training, PPE, massive sustained water supply required to manage a multi-day lithium fire? And is there a binding emergency response plan from the developer to protect those first responders, as well as to control toxic gas complaints, mandatory testing, and waterway protection?

What is the township specific timeline for reviewing these specific battery safety risks, and will there be something signed before anything is put into a vote and approved?

I'll give you my understanding of this thus far, and we'll let our chief speak. Obviously, as you can imagine, these buildings are full of very, very expensive servers. And my understanding is that the lithium batteries will be in enclosed rooms in one portion of each building. And they'll have state-of-the-art fire suppression systems because they do not want to lose maybe upwards of a billion dollars of computer equipment and servers with a fire. But I will let Chief Beam speak about this because I know he's been involved. He's been at our bi-weekly site meetings to talk about fire risk. And he's an expert in this, so we have been on top of this from day one, and I'll let him speak.

Okay. First of all, I don't think water is a problem as far as fires because we're talking about electrical components, and one thing you don't do on lithium is add water. So I don't think that's a problem. What we would do is use dry chemical, dry chem. And there will be... I will be meeting with the principals as far as getting ample supplies of dry chemical on site.

Could I follow up? Is there currently an ordinance or a bylaw or article that calls out the control of what happens when those chemicals are used? Are they going to run into the creek? Are they going to go into our air?

Well, I can't answer that.

But shouldn't we have an ordinance, like you have a procedure for things that you work to understand, the process...

Our companies have been getting a considerable amount of training on lithium ion battery fires because we have encountered them, but they're in small amounts. We have had minimal fires as a whole.

But this could be ten thousand batteries.

What's that?

This could be tens of thousands of lithium batteries.

That doesn't say they're all going to burn at the same time.

But we should be prepared for the worst case.

No, part of the plan is for further training for the fire companies.

Okay. But would we expect there to be an article, or I think article 11 has to do with industrial regulations for the township on the lighting and things like that. So should there be another article added to deal with this type of thing?

Correct.

So there will be? Okay. So there'll be an article added to control lithium battery fires for Middlesex Township?

Mark, do you want to comment on that?

We do have a state building code. Middlesex Township adopted the Pennsylvania Uniform Construction Code in 2004. Currently we enforce the 2021 International Building Code and any references to the International Fire Code that are contained within the 2021 Building Code. The 2021 Building Code does require fire suppression systems in all commercial industrial buildings. And these gentlemen, we've visited some of their sites in Virginia. They have designated fire areas where these batteries are kept. If there was a fire, it would be controlled in a contained fire area as prescribed by the building code. So I don't see it as a problem myself.

I don't have every answer to the emergency plan to deal with, but we know that they'll be filing plans with us. If we have to use dry chems, they do have to be cleaned up properly. In these data center buildings, like Mr. Geistwhite said, there's billions of dollars of computers. The last thing they want is a problem with a fire related to that. And they know they have to use the right kind of dry chem systems to put out an electrical fire or battery fire. So within these fire containment rooms, they would have those chemical systems set up.

It's unlikely that the fire company would even have to respond.

Would the community be notified if there were a fire, if the fire department's not notified of that, if they don't have to respond? Would we know that this has happened?

Yeah, I'm not sure how to answer your question. Do you know when there's other fires at the Giant Eagle where they have data centers? I don't know how to answer your question.

I think it would be nice to have, I guess it would be an ordinance or something that calls out what happens and how the community would be alerted as well, for, you know, if somebody has a breathing issue.

If there was a danger to the community, the community would be alerted. If we had a problem with the UGI three million gallon natural gas storage facility with LNG gas, you would be notified if there was a problem, especially to the immediate area. I mean, that's something that the first responders do routinely. They respond.

And then I'll be done. But is there a process to notify the public of those things that's called out in the township's articles?

Yes. The township has an emergency management plan.

It's the emergency management plan.

Correct. It's not in the articles. Cumberland County has an emergency management plan. The township has an emergency management plan. We're required to adopt that on a 10-year basis so that we can get FEMA funding when there is an emergency.

Okay. And then...

We plan for things like dams breaking, flooding. We plan for any emergency event that would come up. Ed Beam's integrally involved with that. The chief of police has been involved with it. I've been involved with it.

Okay. So great, and then I'm assuming an addendum would be made to that to encompass data centers since that's a new thing.

The building code and the plan already identify what we're going to do with this data center. I'm not sure what you don't understand.

Well, I'm just saying if there are emergencies...

I'm saying that we just said this is brand new for everyone, to have a data center, so I think language in current procedures or instructions would need to have an addendum to them to include data centers.

The building code does address battery electric vehicles, fires. It does address data centers. It does address high-hazard occupancies, similar to like a mill where they would have flour. You get flour in the air, that can explode. You get aluminum grinding shavings in the air, they can explode. There's different designations within the building code and the referenced fire code about how to handle different hazardous occupancies, and it would be handled in that same manner. It's another use, yes, it's a new use, but we already have high-hazard uses in the township and we handle them fine.

Great. I'm just making sure we're covered. Thank you.

Is there anything else from the public in that regard that you think the public should know?

Yeah. As we get into the building application process and the project gets further, the end user is very keen on working with an emergency management plan on site with the community, with the fire chief. So there will be an extensive amount of training from our side to the community side to ensure that many of the items requested do not happen.

Do you plan other community outreach, Justin? You guys are talking about other community outreach, aren't you?

We are, yes. So from a construction standpoint, we want to ensure that as the project goes on, various elements are communicated, questions can be asked. So there's currently a planning process going on internally to coordinate a resident or a neighbor meeting on site, again, to ask questions, to understand what is occurring on construction. We have put together a website that provides some preliminary frequently asked questions.

What is the website?

I knew you were going to ask me that.

PAX-1.campus. It is PAX-1, P-A-X-1, campus.com.

I understand there's a place you can register on there and ask questions.

Yeah. You can certainly ask questions. Our team is responding to any questions received. And to your point, Mark, yes, we will be doing kind of a neighbor invite meeting, to talk through current activities, future activities, just to ensure that the community and the neighbors who are most impacted by construction understand and can have the opportunity to ask one-on-one questions of the industry.

Hi. My name is Michelle Miller, and I represent the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. The Appalachian Trail, as you know, is located in Middlesex Township in part. I don't know if that allows me to speak or not, so you can tell me. But basically, I just wanted to pass along...

If I could just make a comment. It is at the discretion of the board to allow other people to speak. Because I think you're obviously an important resource in the country, in the East Coast, in the state of Pennsylvania, in Cumberland County, Middlesex Township. I think we owe it to the residents to hear what you have to say. So please.

Thank you.

Basically, I am just here tonight to let you all know, and you should have seen, I think Mark and some others on the board of supervisors did receive this already from our regional director. The ATC, after meetings with the developers and conversations with the township about our concerns over the impacts of the data center on the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, which is approximately, as the crow flies, about three-tenths of a mile away from the property of the data center. We feel that our concerns have not really been adequately addressed.

So we have released a media statement today saying that we are in opposition of the location, size, and scale of this data center. And I just wanted to say that and drop off this media statement to you all.

Good evening. My name is Roger Drake, and my wife and I live at Sugarloaf Road in Middlesex Township. I'm not here to oppose development, but to make sure a project of this scale is done right with proper safeguards and real benefits to our community. First, I respectfully ask the supervisors to ensure that all required permits and reviews are fully vetted and clearly communicated, especially stormwater management, environmental protections, traffic impacts, and noise from operations. And to my knowledge, this hasn't occurred. Full compliance with the Pennsylvania DEP is critical. These are the protections that safeguard our properties and quality of life. Second, this project will impact our infrastructure: roads, utilities, water, and power.

And necessary upgrades must be funded by the developer, which they are, and not by the taxpayers. Third, this is a real opportunity for our local economy. Several local contractors are working on this project currently, and the company I work for is actually one of them.

And many more will be as the project progresses. And this provides paid employment for many of our neighbors and friends. Fourth, while data centers don't typically create large numbers of permanent jobs, they should still ask what long-term employment opportunities will exist and whether partnerships can be built with the Cumberland Valley School District to prepare local residents. Finally, this project will significantly impact the tax base for both the township and the school district.

Remember, there is no tax incentives for this project. The development team is paying the way for this entire project. We only get one chance to get a project of this scale right. I respectfully ask that it moves forward with full transparency, proper safeguards, and clear benefits to the people of Middlesex.

Good job.

I'm Philip Coleman. I live at Teaberry Drive. Been here for a number of years. And I just have a quick question for the team. To say that they're in a fast-moving industry is probably the understatement of the year. Not that long ago, NVIDIA released their Vera Rubin architecture, which many companies are picking up rapidly.

That may not mean much to the people in the room, but the cooling of that system is forty-five degrees centigrade, which is basically hot water. Now, systems that are integrating these systems in their own environment are looking to use two-phase direct liquid cooling, which would use a lot less water and may actually be an economic incentive for the company. I'd just like them to take a look at that issue going forward. Does that make sense to you?

And if I could just say, just talking to the people from PowerHouse, and there's some of those people here, they certainly can opine. Pete can opine if he wants. But I know they're building the center to eventually not use liquid evaporative cooling, but to use a gel cooling type of system. Two phase. So they are building it to be converted to that type of system in the future. And I don't know if, Pete, am I correct?

Yes, it's a good point. Today's technology that our tenant utilizes is not there yet. But that is where the industry is going. So it is absolutely something that is being considered.

My name is Hilda Vazquez. I live in Buckeye Lane, Country Manor West Community. Given that the PAX-1 project will extract, whatever say a million is, a million of gallon daily, how the board present today the specific hydrogeological modeling study that guarantee with the data and not just projection that the radius of influence of the project well will not cause a drop in the static water level of nearby private well or a degradation of the ecological flow of the Conodoguinet Creek during period of drought? And if a resident well fail, what financial warranty of mitigation fund have the municipality required for the company to compensate citizen immediately, or did you simply not think about the resident?

I'm assuming Country Manor West is on municipal water. Am I correct, or are they on a well?

No, we're on the water.

Municipal water. And again, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission and the DEP are really the ones who are in charge of water usage in the Susquehanna River Basin. And they're hydrogeologists. I've spoken with them on the phone about this process. I spent a lot of time speaking to the municipal authority. They currently have one billion gallons of excess capacity that will diminish as the township grows and more developments come in. But the SRBC has given the municipal authority the power to allot water. So they have allotted four hundred thousand gallons a day to this development, which they can't exceed because there'll be a kill switch.

Sometimes they'll probably bump right up against that, because there'll be hot days, there'll be sometimes in the winter where they'll just be slowly filling their tanks. But I'm certain that the municipal authority is on top of the situation in terms of controlling the water, and they are under the guides of the DEP and the SRBC. So I feel very comfortable with the water situation. And I'm on a well in my house. I'm very comfortable with the water situation for this project.

But they have a study, or it's only projection? If the board can provide the study, not a projection. Why? Because that project is bigger. It's too bigger for that area. The board don't understand what is the sufficient for the resident, because probably you don't live close to the data center. Maybe a lot of people in here, specific maybe the guy in the project, the two guys in that table, don't live around here. Don't care what happen with the resident. The board need think in the resident, not in the money, in the project, in the building.

It is in the resident. Maybe I don't have long time to live here. I have only six year. But in six year, I can see. And what that company make in four months, three months, they destroy the beautiful area. It don't have sense. The board have to think in the resident, in the Middlesex Township. It's not sense.

Good evening. My name is Alexia Gerber, and I reside at Bernheisel Bridge Road. And I would request ceding my time to my husband, Kyle Gerber.

Good evening. My name is Kyle Gerber, and I live at Bernheisel Bridge Road. We're about a mile northeast of the proposed PAX-1 data center site. I was born and raised here in Middlesex Township as the third generation on my family's farm. Many of you know about it. You know of it as the Wyndwood Christmas Tree Farm that has served this local community for over two decades. My wife and I are now raising the fourth generation on that same land, two young boys, one four, one age one, and a third child expected later this year. This is our home, and I hope to see generations five, six, and beyond grow up here.

This is why the prospect of a hyperscale data center in the middle of our community disturbs me. PAX-1 is projected to be one of the largest single-campus AI data centers on the East Coast. It's unlike anything that Cumberland County has ever seen. Its footprint alone should have given this township pause, to say nothing of its extraordinary demands on local infrastructure, such as water and power. Its scale guarantees harm to nearby residents, sets a precedent for future projects, and leaves an irreversible mark on this community. A project of this magnitude demands the strictest possible scrutiny. Instead, based on months of township meetings that I've attended and past minutes, it appears to be rolling forward with little concern for the public interest.

The influence of this project will extend far beyond the immediate vicinity of Country Club. We've been told by the developer that PAX-1 will adhere to some of the best engineering practices available, and that all of these innovations address our concerns. I hope that's true, and that the intentions behind them are genuine. But a project of this scale brings real threats to our air quality, water supply, noise, and light environment that will affect everyone living nearby. Most critically, it poses a threat to the long-term health of our families and our children. PowerHouse and PA Data Center Partners are financially incentivized to paint this project in the best possible light, and we are essentially being asked to take their self-conducted impact studies on faith.

That is insufficient. The township, and specifically the Board of Supervisors, must hold the reins here. Unlike the developer, their obligation extends beyond monetary interests. Their charge is to ensure that all development serves the flourishing of this community. The primary justification for this project is the tax revenue it will generate, a claim made by the developer, yet not one that has been independently verified by the township. Without specific guarantees of what this will look like, neither officials nor residents know what we actually stand to gain. But even if the financial benefits are legitimate, we must weigh the cost of realizing them. I have concerns for my own family, but there are many families that live far closer to the site than I do, some of them directly across the street.

These families are facing irreparable losses and have brought their appeals to the township. But rather than receiving compassion and protection, they have been largely met with dismissal. The message sent to them is that perceived financial gain for the majority justifies the suffering of the minority. They are being reduced to collateral damage in the name of progress, and that is both unethical and unlawful. These are people's homes and lives. They deserve to be protected by their local leadership. We are repeatedly told that this project is inevitable because it complies with our ordinances. But little accountability has been taken for the fact that recent amendments to those ordinances have welcomed it with open arms.

When residents have challenged those amendments, they are told that they should have been more involved when the changes quietly took effect a year ago. That response is unacceptable. A woefully outdated comprehensive plan and a failure to communicate with residents are not the fault of this community. This entire project is the result of poor planning and a failure of this board's discretion. The best time to stop this project would have been a year ago, before the data center overlay was applied to the project site despite its obvious incompatibility with the surrounding homes and environment. But since that didn't happen, we now need you, the Board of Supervisors, to humbly admit failure, change course, and step up and act on behalf of your people.

Instead of explaining to us where we are in this process when we raise concerns, relentlessly pursue satisfactory answers. Instead of deferring to other organizations within the state, take full responsibility for the welfare of your residents. Rise up as strong leaders who don't wait for others to care for those in their charge, but actively and intentionally safeguard the well-being of everyone entrusted to them. My charge to the Middlesex Township Board of Supervisors and every member of this municipal government is simple: fulfill

with excellence the role you have been given. Listen to your residents, represent them, defend them, and serve them. This is your legal duty as public servants and your moral obligation before the Lord. And it is our entitlement as citizens of Middlesex Township and of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Thank you.

Andrew Dymski, Bernheisel Bridge. I have two questions, and I'll talk as fast as I can. First is on water authority and allocation. At the Planning Commission meeting on April thirteenth, I asked Mr. Ross, who's an executive of both PA Data Center Partners and Livic Civil, about the status of the Susquehanna River Basin Commission permit for their water use. And he shared that they did not need a permit from the SRBC because they get their water from the Middlesex Township Municipal Authority. But then I was on the webinar the other night that the county put on, and Todd Eby from the SRBC was on there.

And he answered a question that I had, and he said, quote, "Data centers using municipal water sources that exceed regulatory water thresholds are required to get approvals from the Susquehanna River Basin Commission." I've got his printout here if that's helpful, but I don't think it matters because it's already in our zoning ordinance. It says, "The applicant shall provide proof of review and approval from the Susquehanna River Basin Commission on projects that involve withdrawals of over a hundred thousand gallons a day." So the MTMA has issued clearance up to four hundred thousand gallons, but it sounds like those are checks they can't cash because we need the Susquehanna River Basin Commission to weigh in.

And so my question is, why wouldn't they be asked for a delay while they got their permit filed? Because the Susquehanna River Basin Commission has a website where you can check the status, and there's no application there for this site. So where does it fit in the process?

As you know from the webinar, I think the gentleman, Mr. Eby, said they've issued one permit in their region. The reason why this doesn't need a permit is they've already given a master permit for, I think it's two point nine gallons per day, to Middlesex Township, and this falls under that master agreement. So we're not exceeding that. They would only need to get a permit if they've exceeded their master agreement. That's my understanding.

Even a single draw? Because he said it's a hundred thousand gallons a day, if you hit that threshold, you're on, like, a different level.

All right. Well, and I think because they have a master agreement that they've allotted us, you know, almost three million gallons a day, we're not exceeding that, that they essentially don't need that additional permit. That's my understanding. And I don't know. We'll ask the developer. Just to clarify.

Good question, Andrew. So the SRBC controls several things. One is intake or withdrawal, as well as consumption. So there are actually two situations. So the withdrawal permit, as Phil stated, is not necessary because the MTMA has the withdrawal permit, so they can allocate based on that approved withdrawal permit. The consumptive piece of that is a consumptive use permit from SRBC that is required to be obtained prior to operations. So once the cooling system equipment is all designed, engineered, and building permit, that then goes to SRBC to apply for consumptive use.

How do I explain it? It's a permit based solely on reporting. So there are reporting requirements of the end user throughout operational life. So the permit basically is an application that establishes usage, and then it starts the reporting process long term. There is no kind of upfront permit to say we approve or deny. It's an ongoing permit, if that makes sense.

The zoning ordinance thing throws me off. Why would we say you have to use municipal water and have the Susquehanna River Basin Commission review and approval in our ordinances then? That seems redundant, doesn't it?

I believe it has to do with if it's required, if it's necessary. But I'd have to look at that section. I believe that's what it means. If necessary. In this case, it's not necessary. He explained the withdrawal permit and consumptive permit. And the guy on the webinar did that also. He talked about withdrawal and consumptive use. So I think we've answered your question. We can look at that section of the ordinance, or have the attorney look at it too, but I believe that's what "if required" means.

"Applicant shall provide proof of review and approval of the Susquehanna River Basin Commission for projects that have water withdrawals of one hundred thousand gallons per day or more in the thirty-day average rolling." So if you can do that, that's great.

Well, we can contact the municipal authority. I mean, I believe Phil explained it. The municipal authority has the permit. The municipal authority is providing the water. The applicant's not withdrawing the water.

Okay. Thank you. All right. My second question is about the environmental impact assessment. So Carlisle Development Partners LLC, they own the land. Mr. Courtney has explained that that's a partnership structure with PA Data Center Partners and PowerHouse. Livic is the engineers for the phases. Livic prepared the environmental impact assessment for the project. Mr. Ross is both a principal at Livic, and he's also the chief operating officer for PA Data Center Partners. The Middlesex Township SALDO, Section seven-eighteen-C, this is the environmental impact assessment, says, quote, "By whom prepared: a study shall be prepared by a qualified consultant who is mutually agreed upon by the developer and the township." So the township and the developer have to come to a mutual agreement on who does this impact assessment.

And the person that they chose is a co-owner of that development being assessed.

And I read the report that they did. It's damning. For non-renewable resources, they say, and this is in August twenty twenty-five

"Project Bolt will rely heavily on non-renewable resources. Electricity: continuous power demands will require substantial energy supply from the regional grid. Diesel fuel: backup generators tested periodically and only used during outages. Rare earth elements: data center equipment, batteries, and servers depend on limited mineral resources that cannot be readily recycled or replenished."

It goes on to talk about the loss of environmental resources, the permanent loss of arable soils and farmland productivity, elimination of habitat areas supporting wildlife, long-term hydrology issues.

It goes on to talk more about water, the long-term changes that will result in the long-term reduction of groundwater recharge. The assessment concludes

"Therefore, these effects represent irreversible transformation of the site from farmland and open space to a built technological campus. Mitigation measures such as runoff containment, stormwater management, revegetation will be associated with this development."

This is a dark assessment, and Mr. Ross works with the developer who he was assessing here. And there's no personal slight here, but it's just the pressure. If I knew my boss was an owner in the client work I was doing, I know what I would do.

I'd protect my job. So what I quoted here was a report from August 2025. So I guess my question is to Mr. Geistwhite, and to Mr. Goodhart: did you guys know about his affiliation when this determination was made and when that collaborative decision came to pass for the environmental impact statement?

I just learned this a couple of days ago.

You asked me a question and I gave you an honest answer.

Just so we're clear, every part of the submission that is made, from the plan itself to traffic studies, to environmental impact assessments, to any other type of report that's required under the ordinances, what is done is

it has to be done by somebody who has the qualifications. And regardless of Justin's interest, he is a qualified individual. Livic is a qualified company to do impact assessments. But this is not a situation where we submit it, and there it is, and the township does nothing with it. In this respective aspect of the submission, it was provided to the township's engineers, both in-house and outside, HRG. HRG had its own folks review the environmental impact assessment. And all of that, by the way, per Pennsylvania statute, all of those review costs go back on the developer.

So this was done by somebody who's qualified and it was fully reviewed and fully vetted by consultants that are working solely on behalf of the township.

Thank you. My concern is not their qualifications, it's the compromise. And so if this is just coming to light now, Mr. Geistwhite, would the township commit to a renewed environmental impact study? Because even if HRG reviewed it, that's great. I'm so glad that they're involved in this process. I've read their comment letters. It's been very thorough. But at the end of the day, they're reviewing somebody else's work. In an environmental impact study, especially in a place this sensitive, if you look at the... There's endangered species identified on this map. There's wetlands. The Conodoguinet Creek hosts endangered species there as well.

When we talk about dotting I's and crossing T's and doing this well for future generations, the environmental impact is ground zero for that. If there's any doubt about this, or if this was not indeed mutually agreed upon as the SALDO says, I would just ask, are you guys willing to look at a different environmental impact study from someone who's not associated with the developer who owns the ground?

So I guess the question I have for you, Andrew, is what information do you think you'll obtain that will change this process that's permitted by right?

A non-biased review. I don't know. But, like, it's the unknown. Because like I said, I read this, and these are pretty damning projections. Especially when the overlay was pitched as, like, low impact, high tax revenue. These are huge impacts. And again, it's the compromise. Well, I'm not accusing anyone of anything, but it's like if a business needed an audit, and they hired the accountant who works at the business to do the audit. I'm not making accusations, it's just, it's shady.

And just to respond to Andrew's comment, I agree. It's a bad look. And you pointed out some things. I wasn't on the board in 2025. I don't know how the decision was made. Mark, I don't know if we have any documentation of the discussion, if that was made in a public meeting. And I guess this would be something that, you know, we could talk internally about: what's the realistic options for getting another environmental impact study done

prior to this process moving forward.

I just want to thank you. Say thank you again, Phil, for you continue to lean up and engage and just participate in this. And as a resident, I really appreciate your posture here, so thank you for that.

Go ahead.

Hello, my name is Addison Alman. I live at North Middlesex Road. Members of the board, I acknowledge the complexity of your work and the fact that decision-making entails prioritizing projects. Nevertheless, the approval of the recent data centers appears to disregard the will of the majority of the residents. Most concerning is the message being sent to the young people of this municipality. As adults, we are making decisions regarding an environment that you yourselves will not have to endure for the far future. By approving projects that affect our quality of life, you are signaling to the youth of my age, including my schoolmates and those adjacent to me from my school, that our future and the environment are not a priority when weighed against commercial interests.

My question for every single member of this board is, is this the legacy of progress you wish to leave to those who are just now growing up here in our community? Thank you.

What's the answer?

Well, it's a difficult question to answer. I live here. I live on an 80-acre farm in Middlesex Township. I have children who live here as well, so what I do will affect my children and hopefully my grandchildren at some point. So I take this thing very seriously, whether I live half a mile from the data center or I live approximately three miles from the data center. So yeah, it's an important question, and that's why we don't go through this process recklessly. Again, as I said earlier, we've spent literally thousands of hours reviewing documents in regards to this project.

And there's things about this project that will be surprisingly beneficial to the community. And the tax revenue will be one. We don't know what that's going to be. The developer is agreeing to a community benefits agreement, which we'll be able to share with the public at some point, hopefully within the next one to two months, which will be a substantial amount of revenue to enhance our park, enhance police services, allow us to enhance the first responders, and also start a land preservation program, which is something I would...

Okay, that's great. So you people just want to laugh, and we're trying to do something good out of this project. And if we are going to be able to get money for a land preservation program to preserve farmland in this township, that has the potential to make something good out of a situation that a lot of people find very unpalatable.

Chairman, I appreciate your answers, and I appreciate the thought you put into this. I guess my main concern is what good is all these future projects, these future things, if nowadays our earth is dead and our community is dying because of this project? And this is going to damage everyone and everything.

Hello, my name is Cadence Alman. I also live at North Middlesex Road. Mine is a simple question. You say that you want what is best for us residents. However, we're saying what we want, and it's being met with opposition. So I don't understand why this is continuing after we have expressed our concerns, and I understand the gentlemen here today, they've come and said, "This is the best we can do." For me, the best we can do is stopping the project, so I don't understand why that isn't the way we're going after all these concerns have been met. What else do you want us to do?

We've signed the petitions. We've come. We've protested. So my question, I guess, is what are our next steps to stop this project?

Good question. This project is permitted by right based on the zoning ordinance from September 3rd, 2025. The data center overlay was approved May 30th, 2025. We changed the ordinance. Unfortunately, there's really nothing the board of supervisors can do to stop this project.

Exactly. They are permitted by right.

This is a legal document.

They have their foot in the door. The door is now opening, and there's nothing the township can do. If we all voted no to any of these things, which would make everyone happy, all that would happen is the developer would take the township to court, and they would win very quickly.

Then we just want to see you fight. It's not spot zoning in the... And when I get right to know, when I check the paper, we don't find a spot zoning in any paper. Doesn't matter it's back, three years back. We can found something in the paper when I get the right to know, because we check all paper, each paper, each email, each financial, each contract, everything. Nothing. Three years back. Let them take us to court. We go check everything.

And please do. Obviously it's your right as a citizen to check. And I know I have nothing to hide in this process.

Just one more thing. So if you guys can't do anything, I guess my question would be who can we go to if you guys aren't going to be the ones fighting for us?

You can sue the township.

Wonderful. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Kevin Davis, I live at Fieldstone Drive. I came here tonight because I didn't know a whole lot about it. I knew it was going in. Did a little bit of research online, didn't know a whole lot. I'm going to be honest, the presentation I got earlier, I didn't get a whole lot out of. You threw slides up there. You want to talk about fine print? I don't know what magnifying glass you're using. That I wasn't real happy with. I'm still up in the air of how I feel about it. I'm going to be honest, the one thing I don't like about it, and I used to archery hunt on Wyndwood Tree Farm when Don was still alive, is just losing the farmland.

You're a farmer yourself. I don't like seeing it go. But one of the questions I have is we talked about, like, the sound pollution with the decibels. That means very little to me. You say below 50. Okay. Well, what do you compare that to? Because that could be subjective. So my question is, has the developer worked on a project that is comparable to what's being put in

and that is within a reasonable commuting distance? I'm going to say an hour. I'm going to be honest, all I want to do is I want to drive, I live about 400 yards away, I'm going to park my truck, I'm going to go for a walk, I want to hear what I hear and see what it's like. I mean, you can throw PowerPoint slides up all you want, but that doesn't tell me anything. So I think that's fairly reasonable. If there's nothing comparable within an hour's driving distance, is there anything in the country that can be comparable?

I think there is things that are comparable. That's why a lot of us from the township took a tour of Ashburn, Virginia, data center alley. Yes, it was sponsored and run by the developer. So now you can say, well, they just took you to the best spots. I can tell you that the sites that we went to that are similar buildings, although not quite the scale, certainly made no noise. There are public trails there, and maybe I can have Pete from PowerHouse give you the trail. That's two hours away, but you could walk up and down the trail there, and it's near railroad tracks too, so you might hear some trains.

It's not too far from Dulles Airport, so the planes will come in and out. But I encourage anybody to go down there. There's public areas where you can walk. And they're building brand-new houses right across the street from data centers down there, which is astounding. But I would encourage you to go.

There's already two big housing developments with very expensive homes in them. Right at the...

One of my other big concerns is kind of, you know, whenever you talk about, again, because I hate seeing the farmland go away, and brought about the EPA and the environmental impacts. Just my personal opinion, that impact, it's already dead. Damage is done. Whatever was there is gone. It's not coming back.

And we can say whenever you build this stuff that you're going to improve it or you're going to put in plant flowers or whatnot. Just my personal opinion, Mother Nature's been here a lot longer than us, and she rebuilds pretty damn well. So that's a great subjective of replacing what was taken away. But again, that's just my personal opinion on that.

So, thank you for your time, and I'll certainly look into that rationally. And in terms of the plans, I know they've been presented at planning commission meetings. I know people can't attend all the meetings. I understand that. They've gone into significant detail over two to three hours. You're certainly welcome to come in. I know Mark has met with people individually to go over the plans with the fine print, which I realize is hard to see on here. They gave a streamlined presentation because we've heard this presentation about a half a dozen times. But feel free to call Mark's office if you want to come in and look at plans.

He'll be happy to sit down with you.

Thank you.

So my name is Nathan Wolf. I'm an attorney here at Carlisle. I am representing a number of the residents. Some of whom you've heard from tonight, and some of them you will not be necessarily hearing from in their three minutes. I've been asked by Bonnie Morton at 120, what did it say? And Bob Byerly, who is here. I can't remember the street number.

He's at Country Club Road.

Thank you. To each of their three minutes, I've been asked to speak on their behalf. When I came in tonight, I heard two comments, one of which Mr. Courtney said that these properties were combined and resubdivided to lots. He speaks in the past tense as if things have happened already. Much the same way that we have heard in other venues that this project is under construction. One of those examples was the request by one of the developers here, or the representatives for the developers, that has approached Monroe Township and asked to address them for another data center project where it was described, as you may or may not know, that companies are

"currently in active development on much larger data center PAX-1 in Middlesex Township, where construction has already begun."

Those words are troubling.

This board is here tonight to make a decision, whether it's tonight, whether it's in the future. I'm not here actually tonight to tell you to say no. I'm asking you to say not tonight. On Monday, I intend to file a spot zoning challenge. I don't do that lightly, and I've litigated those before successfully. This bears all the same hallmarks, and I won't go into that part tonight. What I will do tonight is ask you to do something critically important. Dr. Neiderer, you talked about how they had their foot in the door, how this is already used by the way. But you, Mr. Geistwhite, just learned recently of that relationship.

It really does color what kind of conclusions come out of an environmental impact assessment. One of the most critical things that you are looking at

on the Conodoguinet, on downstream properties, downwind properties, and something that is so close to the Appalachian Trail, one of your most precious resources in the municipality, that the Appalachian Trail Conservancy has come out tonight and told you they are opposed to this because the responses that they have gotten are not sufficient to meet their concerns. I can tell you that those questions, those issues in and of themselves are enough to give you a basis to pause the project while those questions get answered. There is language in your ordinance that says regardless of the source of water or combination of withdrawal sources of water, there still must be an approval and a review from SRBC.

There is no exemption if it is coming from the municipal authority. It's shadow language. It does not carve out any reference for being within the permitting authority of the water company. When I'm standing here before you tonight, I've reviewed minutes from the meetings in November of two thousand twenty-four forward up to May twenty twenty-five and September twenty twenty-five. There is an exigency that the developer put to you. We need the zoning change to reserve the power capacity from PPL. That's done. Now, this review is the last chance that you really get to have an impact on it. And quite frankly, I'm going to be asking your zoning hearing board to undo it entirely.

Whether they agree or not, in the interim, don't give them that foot in the door wider. When these questions are

outstanding, when you have a room that is standing room only, how many times have you stood or sat in those chairs to an empty room or to three people because they had something on the agenda? This matters, and time is critical to the people in opposition, and it's critical to the applicant, but it's just about money to them. They need to keep rolling because they need to keep moving on that schedule that they published. Right now, there are elements of what has been raised to you this evening that cannot be undone. It's a development that cannot be unwound. So don't give them those approvals tonight.

Table it sixty days. Request. Tell them, "There are enough questions here that if you don't give us the extension, the answer's no." It's that simple, and that's a basis to do it. Thank you.

Viola Byerly, Country Club Road. Can you guys hear me now?

So mine's pretty simple. I'm just going to bring us back to the beginning, because I've sat in many of these meetings. You guys have seen me a lot. And prior to this as well, when you guys were talking about the developments that you were putting across the street from my home, and we attended those meetings, and we gave comment on those as well. We lived in our home for twenty-five years, and my husband attended that meeting when Supervisor Geistwhite and Goodhart flipped the vote. They flipped our land from a mixed zone, which was agricultural, residential, to industrial. The PAX-1 project is not an established industrial area.

It is surrounded by farmlands and homes. It's surrounded by my home. My home. I'm one of the ten that you have kept, and you don't care about... You guys have jested at us during these meetings. You have laughed at us. You have made snarky comments later on during the conversations. This is not okay. The lack of transparency to the Middlesex community on the PAX-1 project has been appalling. While the township has said it intends to provide more accurate and timely

information going forward, that does not address what has already occurred, and it does not rebuild trust on its own. Before there is any vote on Phase 1B, residents need direct answers to some basic questions we've raised previously. How does a hyperscale data center improve our quality of life? How does it benefit our community long-term beyond the community value schools? It is not my job to fund a public school that thinks they're private. We need concrete answers now. My request, of course, is not exhaustive, just what I can cover in the allotted time and from a very simple viewpoint. So: full accessible disclosure. Publish a special edition of the township newsletter with full disclosure of PAX-1, what is proposed, the timeline, and expected effects on the residents.

Not everyone uses the township website, and residents deserve direct, accessible information. Establish a resident advisory committee to represent residents and negotiate with the developer toward a binding community benefit agreement, which is called a CBA. I only have 32 seconds left, so I'm going to round this up real quick. The answers we have not gotten: what safeguards are put into place in writing to protect our wells? Our wells have diminished capacity or stopped producing altogether.

Who do we call? What's the response time, and how will we remedy it? Residents cannot be told we'll figure it out later. It's too late. We need to know now, beforehand. The septic system is the same. There's blasting and other activities that can cause damage. Who's responsible for that? And also radon as well. We've not discussed this previously, but I would like to note it, that many of us have radon mitigation systems in our basements, and we want to know if it has to be updated or repaired, who's responsible for that. I'll stop at this time, but I have more. I'm happy to come back to the podium.

Just before you go on, I wanted to respond to Ms. Byerly. Because she did bring up a lot of good questions. I don't feel like we've gotten a clear answer on the well issue. I know the foundations were addressed prior to blasting. I don't feel like we've gotten a clear answer. We've asked this question a number of times of the developer, and I don't feel like we've gotten a clear answer about what happens if a well goes dry. Is it okay for sure that the developer has to provide drinking water for X amount of time until, I guess, the well can be re-drilled or pumped, or whatever happens.

So is there anything that the developer can give us some guidance on, about what happens with the wells of the neighbors?

Yeah, so I think with respect to wells, there's lots of things that can be done. Obviously, if our project has an impact on a well, it becomes our responsibility.

But beyond that, I think what would often be done in projects like this, we could identify a certain area, and we would do some pre-well testing and post-well testing. So we go in now, test the wells, and then test the wells after a certain period of time, and when the project's complete.

And that has not been offered to the residents at this point.

Well, it's something that often comes up in these projects. And if it's something that the board would like us to do, we're happy to do that.

Remember, this is a preliminary plan. And so if that's something the board was looking at doing, a condition requiring that as part of a provision in a development agreement or an amendment to a development agreement would be typically what is done.

Yeah, I certainly would want to see that. I would think the other supervisors would want to see that as well.

You going to look into that and get it out?

Can you speak louder?

I'm sorry. I think it would just be identified as a condition, and we would wrap it up as part of the final plan.

So let me rephrase to see if I understood that. They're not going to assume any liability whatsoever, and we're just going to have to suck it up and wait till somebody figures out whose fault it is why we don't have water. Is that basically what this all amounts to?

No, that's not necessarily true.

That's what it sounds like. For those of us that live on this road, this is super important. This is my life.

Part of what has to be identified is pre versus post, right? So you can identify if there's an impact, right? That's number one. It's the same thing with respect to blasting, right? Having some pre and post, having blasting studies done pre-blasting is helpful to establish the baseline. And that would be done in

every type of project like this, or large scale residential project where you're moving a lot of earth. Secondly, what can be included is we can deal with remedies in that agreement. So if there is an impact to a well, and the well doesn't meet drinking water standards, that mitigation would be done to improve it. So those would all be things that would be typically done in a well testing agreement.

So you've already done the foundation analysis of potentially affected properties, correct?

We, by the way, have not gotten receipts on those. They were supposed to email residents, and that has not been done, of what they took, which was up in our homes.

So that's certainly something that you need to live up to. And I think you should take those same houses and evaluate their wells now. I mean, it shouldn't be contingent on any other approvals at this point.

So that's collapsing different levels of shale. Is there a study that shows us right now what all the pockets are underneath and where all the water's going? Because with blasting comes the collapsing of these levels and of these shafts. With that changes water flow. And can stop our wells altogether because they blasted through these, dropped down the shale levels, and then all of a sudden what I have tapped into no longer exists. So is there something that shows us inside the ground what is now and what happens after the blasting? I truly don't know. That's why I'm asking.

The blasting contractor is responsible to meet DEP blasting safety requirements. They have blast radiuses that they're monitoring, seismograph readings on every shot at the property line and throughout the project. So they have buffer zones, they have exceeded buffer zone requirements. So if they haven't contacted a resident, it's because they deem it to be well outside of any potential impact area. They have spoken with and met with residences that may be within the buffer area, and they've conducted testing and documentation of those homes, when they were permitted.

That's testing foundations, or of wells?

I'll defer. Pete, has there been any consideration of wells?

No. Not that I'm aware of. I don't know what testing. I can get back to the township in the next day or two.

Yeah, I mean, I think the DEP required blasting would typically be structural, right? It's typically not going to be a well. So this is something that would be in addition to that. I agree, perhaps using, I don't know what the area that's identified for the blasting is, but it probably makes sense to include a similar area and to do some well testing right now and then do well testing after the project's done.

So you're agreeing to that? By your contractor?

No, I'm not... It wouldn't be by your contractor. The testing would be done by a contractor that the developer hires. They would go in and do the testing in accordance with DEP regulations. We would need permission to come in and do it. So when we say we're willing to do this, it also requires cooperation from the property owners.

It does. It also requires full disclosure what that exactly means. Because the gentleman that came into my home did not explain that he'd be going into every single one of my nooks and crannies, taking pictures of, by the way, wearing his dirty shoes throughout my whole home. So I'm just being totally transparent. I don't know that I would be necessarily super excited about having a developer decide who's going to monitor my home and my well and do that. I think we have local contractors that have been here for many, many years that we'd like to give the business to. Thank you so much for respectfully answering my questions and taking them seriously, because this is my home.

So it would be a contractor going in and doing all the homes. I mean, you wouldn't have different contractors doing testing and having testing going in different places. That would be atypical.

Okay. Jocelyn Colyer. I live on Bernheisel Bridge Road. So first I want to acknowledge, thank you for the thousands of hours that you have put in researching this. I hear you say that all the time, and on one hand, I appreciate it, but I wish that time had been spent when the overlay got presented, because then we wouldn't be in this mess.

It's not you. It's the board for that decision. So I'm just pointing that out. And the other thing I'll point out, too, you guys frequently say, "Oh, there's only 10 or 12, 15 houses." And that is scary because first of all, it's very dismissive. Second of all, it's the whole environment. It's the whole community. These are your neighbors, and if you're that shortsighted, then maybe you shouldn't be making decisions. And then, given that you're unclear about if you need a permit from SRBC

given that there are a whole pocket of notes, the minutes and agenda that are missing, including that December 2025 meeting that have disappeared, and they're not on record. Given that there is a huge conflict of interest with Justin doing the environmental impact study, yet while working for the developer.

And given all of our input, I would strongly urge you guys to please do not move forward with this. But now I'm going to say what I want to say. I wanted to make you aware of a personal situation that is occurring. Since the blasting of the PPL substation has begun, I have realized how this daily unpredictable booming can impact our veterans. I have lived in my home for 10 years, enjoying the outdoors, which is why I moved here in the first place. My children love spending time outside playing baseball, basketball, swimming, hiking, and just enjoying nature. Since the blasting has started, I realize how greatly this has impacted a family member of mine.

I'm not going to cry. The loud, unpredictable, forceful nature of the blasts have left this family member jittery, anxious, nervous, irritable, and them now choosing not to be as present. This has significantly impacted the quality of their life, which in turn has greatly impacted my children.

This is precious time. These are precious memories that are being impacted. Has the township, developer or DEP, even, which I'm going to file a complaint when I get home, considered how this violent, unpredictable blasting has and will impact our veterans? And the cost. The current blasting is for the PPL substation, not even the blasting for the rest of the site. I believe I saw there will be four hundred and twenty-seven drilled holes for blasting. Could be wrong. And obviously this could last who knows how long. Does the township and developer think that it is okay to impact the quality of life for our veterans in this manner?

The developer has courted Monroe Township saying what a good neighbor they have been to us in Middlesex thus far. This is not being a good neighbor, to come into a residential area and subject veterans to PTSD-triggering blasts. This is a PR nightmare. I am sure that my family is not the only one impacted by this. There are many veterans in this area. This sounds like a cause for litigation. Is the township or developer prepared to address and pay for any veterans care that may occur due to this blasting? And it's not even that. It's the memories and precious time taken away from my children. This is not the developer being a good neighbor or a township protecting their residents.

I'm done. We got here by a lack of transparency, and I'm asking you to take a long view. Your neighbors, the people sitting before you, elected you, and you have the opportunity and responsibility to uphold and protect our quality of life. In 50 years, will what you are doing be admired, or is there a chance, even just a chance, that everyone will wonder why you did this? Water is a finite resource, along with the air quality. We can't make more, just like land, wildlife, and the trust of your constituents. Our Constitution guards life, liberty, and property. What legacy are you leaving? Why are you trading air and water for tech that's outdated the minute it's installed?

It's cheap for the developer to build here, but it's costing us. Will Middlesex continue to choose profit over people? Will the developer continue to act, putting residents' health, well-being, and quality of life at risk?

Gentlemen, thank you for your time. Ma'am, your time also is very valuable, I realize it. And to your point, sir, Tom Wolf signed into legislation in two thousand twenty-one, Act Twenty-Five, House Bill Nine fifty-two, that exempts large scale... Let me read it exactly. "Exempt large scale data center development." So to your point, sir, there is a tax advantage, okay? My other question about taxes is I want to know what taxes are going to be, revenues coming into Middlesex Township. I want to know at what cost our schools are going to be graded by influx of employees, temporary and permanent. If it's a five or seven-year project, somebody's got to go to school somewhere.

What are we going to do about it? Ed spoke earlier about fire and the chief of police. Those are things that are also concerns specifically for us because, you know, who's going to pay for that dry chem, right? Where is it going to be stored? How is it going to be taken care of? But most specifically, who's going to pay for it? Okay. Is there anything that will allow us, and it's my understanding from that Act Twenty-Five bill that that tax exemption is only good for fifteen years. At the end of fifteen years, what's going to stop the end user from saying, "Hey, no more tax break for out here"?

I mean, I understand it. Oh, it's never going to happen. But it's happened with a number of other very large corporations that have built buildings, built whatevers, and when their tax exemption ran out, they picked that building up and moved it to another location pretty close to where it was originally built. I guess my biggest concern is, again, heat. When you talk about generators, and you talk about having a hood over the top of a generator that are going to be between buildings, that's going to generate a considerable amount of heat from the generators running. In the Virginia study that I read, they said within a three-mile radius, the temperature in the area can be raised as much as sixteen degrees.

Now, in Pennsylvania winters, I'm sure everybody in this room is going to say, "Yeah, sixteen degrees, we got that." But in the summertime, when those sixteen degrees hit and air conditioners will be challenged, and the grid's being challenged for the amount of energy that's going to be needed to sustain us, then what? Everybody that's on the well should have, again, that same comprehensive plan that she talked about, Viola talked about, about the wells, because it's a bigger concern. In northern Pennsylvania, where they did fracking, they did the same thing. They sent people specifically, and I was one of them, they sent it to my house up in McKort and tested my well.

And after the whole project was done, they went back and tested it again and drilled me a fresh well because they contaminated my well. They paid for it, but it was written in, it was binding. We have nothing binding for these guys so far, especially when it's time to pull out. We have nothing that says we're going to pay X number of dollars for those buildings to be torn down and pray that the ground can be restored to usable terrain. So my time is up, I realize it, but my biggest concern is the comprehensive plan review. You guys said it a number of times, "We're going to set up a committee with local residents to help us review the comprehensive plan." Where's it at?

I haven't seen it. Thank you.

So Mr. Manza, kudos for actually coming up to the mic without being asked. So that's good. You normally just yell from the back of the room. I'll give you a break tonight.

But so there's a couple things. The sales and use tax exemption, as you mentioned, is just for the sales and use tax on equipment that goes into the building. It has nothing to do with the property tax. And it's a twenty-year exemption, not a fifteen-year exemption. They actually had that in the state of Virginia. They repealed it, so now they're getting sales and use tax. And the data centers are still being built there. There's I think thirty now in development in northern Virginia, so they're still coming even though it's a sales and use tax.

In terms of decommissioning, which has been a topic that's been brought up a number of times, I'm not aware that we have any requirements for decommissioning of anything in the township. If someone builds the Wawa, there's not a decommissioning clause if that's turned into something else.

But why not?

If someone builds a warehouse, there's not a decommissioning clause. And those are good questions, but those things don't exist in our zoning ordinance at this time, and I don't think they exist in very many municipalities at this time.

A solar farm is a different animal. It is a completely different animal. And you're right, I believe, Mark, if I'm correct, that's the only thing that has decommissioning. Cell towers. Right. And in terms of the comprehensive plan, just communicated with Zach this week, we're setting up interviews from the request for proposals. We have three people, I've read through all their proposals. We're going to meet with them and select a vendor, and then they will reach out to get community input from all the residents, and as well as get a group of residents at the table to discuss the process of moving that forward.

So that's coming. My plan was always to get that done within a year of first announcing it, and I still think that's a viable timeline.

Yeah, we did apply for two grants, one through the state, through DCED, it's a municipal assistance grant. That grant won't be announced until probably September, beginning of October, but we can actually begin work, we're actually verifying this, but as early as July. And still, if that grant gets approved, we can get paid for any bills that would generate in July. And then we have a grant through the county that has been approved, so we are working through there, but probably will not be able to do anything with billable hours until July.

Good evening. My name is Earl Beam. I'm Country Club Road. Most of you probably don't like me, but... Well, being one of the residents of the twelve houses along Country Club Road, this is basically to the developer here. I'd like to know if we can be compensated in any way for the project. Let's think about this. The whole of our life is being taken away. Our view's been taken away. Our property value's been diminished. And I mean, it's a pretty decent piece of property worth a little bit of money. I've gone to two realtors already to find out about my depreciation, my value of my property.

You all agreed it has been, which really kind of upsets me. I bought the property to live there. I've been there thirty-five years.

One thing I thought, you know, maybe they should take care of our property taxes for living along that street, or maybe our property tax should be decreased due to the fact that our values of our properties are diminished. I don't know how I have to go about that, but let's think about it. If your property is decreased, wouldn't you want to pay less taxes? Thank you for the ability to check, going to check the wells. We did have our foundations checked. My biggest thought on that is if our wells go dry. That's the biggest thing. Testing the water is great. Thank you very much for that, but I'm really concerned about the water, our wells going dry.

One of the questions I have, I think I've missed this maybe. Did you say the fence is going to be taken down along Country Club Road once the berm's put in, the twelve-foot berm?

After construction.

After construction. Okay, thank you.

So that's five years out, right? So at least that's something.

Okay. You showed us a little small substation for electricity off of Country Club Road. How far is that off the road? It's hard to tell your scale when you have a little picture up there.

I did check that this afternoon. I'll check it now.

Okay, thank you. And when you said you're putting a berm up to the trees, the height of the trees, are they going to be little six-inch thing by 12-foot trees, or am I going to be dead? There's actually no protection.

So the trees are all like three and a half inch caliber, which is really a six to eight-foot tree. We had looked at larger caliber, larger height, but the amount of trees on the property really aren't available in the market. So it comes down to a supply and demand availability.

So one last question here. At planning commission meeting it had been brought up about when the water gets back to the sewer plant, it's supposed to come out of the sewer plant as clean as it could be. We talked about whether or not they would recycle that water instead of going back to the creek or whatever, back to your facility. Has any action been taken about that?

We are still investigating that.

Okay. And Mr. Beam, from my understanding, the Wastewater Treatment Authority is regulated by DEP to put a certain amount of water back into the Conodoguinet because American Water takes water from the Conodoguinet for the West Shore, so they have to put a certain amount back in. So that's a sticking point with that plan. In terms of if you want to get your property reassessed, I think it's the Cumberland County Assessment Office. You could go to them and file to get your property reassessed.

And I think they would look at that. Currently, the county hasn't done a reassessment since 2010, so your property's currently valued at 2010 values. What I don't know is if it gets revalued, does that reset the valuation to today's numbers, or is everything dialed back to 2010? I don't know. The assessor might know that.

Yeah, but the point I'm bringing up, we're going to get an evaluation of our property due to this. They should be able to subsidize us somehow on this. You might live... I don't care. You're not being affected by this. Us 12 residents on that street are the ones being affected. We're not the ones getting anything out of it. The township and the developer's what's getting it. We're the ones taking it. So we should be protected somehow for the value of our properties and what happens to our properties due to this.

But it doesn't seem like anybody really cares. Thank you for doing the testing of the wells, and thank you for doing the pre-inspection for our basements and stuff. But besides that, what's good for us 12 people that have houses on Country Club Road?

Well, and you specifically asked for them to buy your house. And I've been advocating to the developer, they're probably sick of me asking. I've advocated almost every time I'm with them, just that these people, those 12 homes who are... Everyone's impacted. I understand that. But the homes that are adjacent, within 100 yards of the property line, just offer to buy those people out.

And they are considering it.

Buy their homes out from under them? What about the mobile home park?

So that is something that you had asked for them to do. And I keep advocating for that. And they haven't said yes or no. But I know it's something they're considering.

Mr. Beam, the substation fence closest to your residence is 900 feet.

900 feet?

Yes, sir.

Well, that's going to be lit. Is that going to come under their lighting heights or what the township requires for light?

That would be under the dark sky compliance.

I just, super short question. I saw the Titan XL 1000 G was what your guys are using. And when I looked that up, and obviously don't know, maybe you can explain it to me, that's industrial, not residential explosive, designed for open-pit mining and quarries. So should we be concerned that these people live that close and you're using that sort of dynamite? Anyone?

So I'm not a blasting expert. Again, it's regulated by DEP. It is commonly used in the construction industry. I don't know the differences in...

Could we maybe just, if you could check in for the residents?

So I think that's certainly something we can take back for the local community.

I mean, when I typed it in, it was like, ooh, and I worried for the people closest.

And I think one of the other possibilities, I guess, instead of blasting, I think it'd be worse, is having the hydraulic rock hammers. If you go by on Claremont Road across from the United Telephone building where they're putting the RV storage plan, there's three of them now, and I've pulled over and listened to them, and I can't imagine if they would have 30 or 40 of those. And they're going to run for six or eight hours a day. It would be nonstop rock hammering. I know the blasting is obviously distressing and has a lot of negative consequences.

The township really doesn't have any control over that. Again, the developer can go back and ask the blasting company about, can they change something? But I think the other option would be to have hydraulic rock hammers, which would be going from 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM on a daily basis.

I'm George Ginfield, Goldenrod Drive. I will be deferring my three minutes to Viola.

And a great big smile, that's how I paid for it. I'm going to just back up because, again, I have very, very simple things that we're just going to go back to the beginning on, so we can hopefully get some answers. So, Mr. Beam talked a little bit about the quality of life and property concerns. So I'll go back to that question again, and I don't know that we got a nice answer on it, but the compensation, mitigation or tax relief, can any of that be offered to the residents on Country Club Road?

Our property values are being diminished. I follow this all the time, and I've watched them drop. I didn't ask for this, but I want out. This is not what I planned for the next five years. I saved and scrimped, my husband and I scrimped, to buy that property. Nine months we rented it before we could afford it. This is not what I asked for, and I want out. And if not, I want my taxes abated, and somebody in this room has the authority to do so or figure it out, so should everybody else on that street. Am I angry? I am a little bit upset, yep.

So also, the day-to-day things that I have to put up with, the blasting. PTSD is a real thing. My husband's a vet. We're having problems, too, and he's not the only one. This is a serious issue. I've expressed it before. I work from home on a daily basis. Some days, I can't even stand to be in my home because I literally want to crawl out of my skin. Whatever they're using with the low hum frequency drives me literally insane, and it is affecting our quality of life, yet I'm supposed to sit here and be okay because somebody voted this in without asking the residents here what they wanted.

It's not okay. When I looked at the document that's online that talks about the build-out, I am concerned in the fact that it's a five-plus potential build-out plan. We're supposed to be okay with approximately five hundred trucks and approximately thirteen hundred people working across the street from my home day in and day out. What hours will they be permitted to work, and what days? We've addressed this before. It is not okay to give me an answer of whenever, or daylight to dusk. Not okay. Six thirty to six thirty Monday through Saturday, not okay. I should not have to deal with this. I did not ask for it.

They get amendments, I want an amendment. Monday through Friday, 8:00 to 5:00, no holidays, no overtime. That's the agreement. I don't understand why, as residents, we do not have input on that. I want to loop around to 1C. This is the first time I've seen any information on that. I do believe they've addressed a little bit of that in the past. That is the section of land on the other side of the road from the seven hundred acres. That has wetlands and a steep hill on it. It's my understanding at one of the meetings they mentioned using that as a staging area.

What do they plan on doing, filling in the wetlands and blasting the hill there as well? I'd like to know. It does impact me. I understand I'm almost finished. Somebody else can concede if they'd like.

Moving forward, the relationship between the residents and the township administration needs to be repaired. It has to be repaired through consistency, through transparency, timely responsiveness, and a clear follow-through in writing, and not waiting to post minutes days and weeks later. We really should know immediately. This project should not be fast-tracked. Slow it down. Understand the potential impacts. I appreciate the hours you guys have put into it. We have, too. It impacts all of us, regardless of whether you voted for it, two supervisors still up there, or not. It impacts all of us. So we're asking for you to please slow down, not to proceed on phase 1B right now.

Wait. Get the right answers. Help your residents. Advocate for them. That is your role. Why are you sitting on your hands?

Just a comment about the tax relief. I'm fairly certain that a solicitor can confirm that we can't have different tax rates for different residents within the township. Again, I think the hope would be that the developers offer to, if you're willing to sell, not everyone wants to sell, but if you're willing to sell, for them to offer you fair market value to what it was maybe before the construction started.

And again, I keep advocating for that. But in terms of a tax abatement, that's just not legally permissible.

Do they get a tax abatement?

They don't get any abatement from Middlesex Township at all.

I'm asking the question.

They get a sales and use tax exemption from the State of Pennsylvania for the equipment they buy within the building. I think that's wrong. I've advocated to our members of the General Assembly that they can repeal that. So it's costing, probably in twenty twenty-six, will be over a hundred million dollars. As you know, there's more and more data centers planned in Pennsylvania. That number will increase, and I think that revenue should be put to good use on a statewide basis. But you have to talk to your people in the General Assembly about trying to repeal that sales and use tax.

I would kindly ask, though, that you do answer the other questions and maybe not here. You're welcome to call me, email me, whatever that looks like. But there are other questions that I did ask that are not answered here. And I understand this may not be you right now, but please, I ask that you do that. Thank you.

Well, I've answered, I think, everyone that's emailed me. My email's on the township website. You can feel free to email me. Not every question, unfortunately, has an answer. I will answer to the best of my abilities.

And the answer will be tonight during 1C?

That'll be at the next planning commission meeting. We plan to have that on May 11th. There'll be two plans, a data center, 1C and phase two.

Okay, thank you.

Jody Shivell, Teaberry Drive. I live in the Meadows. And I also have been spending a lot of hours, like many people, since January, trying to get the word out. Recently, we've done it by foot, letters in mailboxes, talking to the people, knocking on doors. That's why you see so many people here tonight. Not just me, several of us, because the communication is so poor. We went to Cumberland Preserve, and we knocked on every door, Viola and I, and we talked to these people. They had very little information. They're familiar, some of them, with the data center.

But to be knowledgeable, and for what they're telling us that they thought it would be, there's no communication. And I've stood up here maybe four times, and I didn't find out till probably late November, early December, and at that time, it's the holidays, I'm just learning about it, and in January, I started hitting the meetings. I stood up and I said, "We don't have the communication." And we know that because if we have the sign-in records from last year, you will see a difference from then until tonight, and we didn't have the time to get that notification out. I asked, the most important thing, we've lived here 33 years, the most important thing that we could have done was send an individual letter out to every resident in the township.

Because these people do not go on Facebook, a lot of them. The elderly, they don't even know how to work it. So I know you've said you're trying to improve it, and you have done more things on the township website, though that's a little hard to follow. I'm having to hop around and maybe ask for a little help on that actually. But so I'm upset. I think if I was going to add in legal things, it would probably be communication, because I think if we look back, yes, you may have done what was legally required, two little signs or four on land that you would actually have to stop to look at, to read, to understand.

Maybe a few times on TV, I guess you're required to do. I saw them later. So when we could have been working on this together and learning and helping, because we all did, we would have been doing that in last May. So it's upsetting. It's really upsetting. And these people are here because they care and they want to speak now. So if we slow this down and really look at it, that would certainly be a good thing. And the other thing I want to say is I border the property from

1B point of view. I'm at the end of it, the northeast end. Thank God, because that'll be a little more wetlands and things going on. But the retention pond will be up there, and I think I'm about 1,900 feet from the actual first building that I would be connected with. Okay? So how... It's just totally unbelievable. I'm a veteran. My husband is a veteran, 20 years. I ran ICU units. I was sent to the Gulf War. This is more upsetting to me than when I was at the Gulf War managing four intensive care units and a bunch of soldiers. This is stressful. I retired here

because I love Carlisle. Absolutely love it. We were married here. We met, we married, and we've been traveling, Korea, all over. I've been exposed. I've had to take anthrax shots. I've had a lot of things. So what I'm saying is we love it here. We care. There's a lot of veterans, and I don't want to be subjected to a data center. This is where I plan to live my life quietly, or at least reasonably, and not, again, be risking my life or anybody else's or my family's. This is my future. And I'm 70, so picking up and moving is not really my plan, and my children live down the street, and it was my plan for them to move up into my home.

So there's a lot of other people. Country Club Road's absolutely awful. Beyond awful. But it's coming. It's coming to me and the trailer court and anyone back there along Teaberry, and it's going to spread out a little further. Because I do feel the shakes already and have reported to DEP. So that's my thought. Communication, I had that in with the lawyers. I'm really frustrated with it. So that's my spiel.

I'm Stan, Stan Shivell. I'm at Teaberry Drive, and that's my wife, Jody. Dr. Neiderer, you said you weren't on the board when they initially changed the zoning from agriculture to residential and then to what I called industrial, but, you know, I was told at the time it was commercial.

So when I addressed that problem during one of the meetings, Mr. Geistwhite said, "Well, that's just the way it is." I said, "How did it happen?"

He said... I asked, "How did it go from agriculture to residential and to industrial?" And then we got in a little argument about commercial or industrial. Anyway, I never got a good answer because he said it was voted on and approved. Who were the board members that voted on that?

Did you have three at that time?

That would have been you, me and Steve.

Okay. So you voted on it, but you never really gave an answer as to how it could be that it was approved already for residential, they had infrastructure in place, and then all of a sudden it turned into industrial. You weren't there, sir. You weren't there at the time that decision was made.

Okay.

I can't hear you.

Well, on May thirtieth, I was here at the public meeting where they approved the data center overlay. Was it advertised by the legal requirements? Is that enough? No, I don't think it really is enough, and we're trying to do better, and we have a long ways to go. But I agree. It would have been nice to have had this crowd a year ago.

It was also looked at by the Cumberland County Planning Department, who recommended approval. It was also unanimously voted on by the township planning commission. So there were three different sets of votes essentially on that whole process.

Do you follow the process right for make that? The board make the processing right, advise the resident for each meeting correctly? No. Because before it start the process, the board have to advise correctly the resident. The resident have to know and notify what happened. I don't receive nothing. I don't receive any advice that that event exists in processing.

So Mr. Shivell has the floor right now, so please go ahead.

So down at the Cumberland Preserve, is that correct? I met a few fellows, and we were talking about the data center. Anyway, they said that when they got that property down there, they were assured, they were told, okay, that this residential area was going to go in, and that was evidenced by the construction for the residential area. And the Pantera sign. They told me that there were going to be shops, there was going to be a housing development, okay? Then all of a sudden it turned into this mess, okay? So they were totally clueless yesterday. They didn't know what was going on. Their property values, they're worried about, okay? They're wondering what the heck are all them trucks. Anyway, that's what ties into this whole communication thing. But the question, and I only have three seconds, but how did it go from agriculture to residential and then industrial? I mean, somebody had to press that button.

Is there any more public comment? It is getting late, Mr. Gleim.

Tracy Gleim, Sherwood Drive. For the developers, there's just a little bit of common sense on this well issue. Give you a little history. We had a family-run stone quarry in Silver Springs Township. It was run by the Brenneman family.

And they went along providing crushed stone and lime to the farmers in this county, and nobody was having any trouble with wells. Then a bigger family-run stone quarry that a lot of you are familiar with was Hempt's. They came in and took over, and it was like going from a wheelbarrow to a dump truck, the amount of stone they were removing. They built an aqueduct to pump the water out of the quarry, and they took a dry stream and turned it into

a year-round stream. So where I'm going with all this is when Hempt started and wells started going dry, there wasn't any pre-testing, there wasn't any after testing. If your well went dry, Hempt's put a well drill in your yard or your farm, and they drilled a well and got you water immediately. And I don't care if you live in a house on Country Club Road, you need water. He's got 16 head of cattle or 20, he needs water. There's two horse farms back the road. I have 85 head of cattle. My well goes dry, I got to start hauling water from somewhere. The point is, this is simple.

The amount of money that you've got behind you in this project, we don't need to dick around about a well that goes dry. You got five drills over there drilling right now, maybe six. So if somebody's well goes dry up in the immediate area, put a drill rig there and give them a well. That's all I have to say.

Before my time starts, could we get an answer to Mr. Shivell's question?

Somebody knows. Do y'all not know the question? Should we ask it again?

So why are they not answering Mr. Shivell's question? The question of how did it flip from agriculture to commercial. Zoning it.

We went with quite a few recommendations of staff, consultants, and it made sense. That simple.

Who were they?

For who?

They didn't ask the residents.

My name is Arlene Darlington. I live at Wortzville Road in the Township of Middlesex Township. If I could ask Justin a couple questions without getting under his skin, it kind of goes to my point. We've talked about the different number of generators. If we're at sixteen buildings now and twenty-four generators per building, is that roughly three hundred and eighty-four generators? Industrial size generators. Without doing the math.

That's not quite the correct math. There are backups. There are additional on site.

So I guess what I'm getting at is, so we don't know how many generators. Let's just say four hundred, give or take. Four hundred thirty-two. Okay.

That was on eighteen buildings. We're down to sixteen buildings last I know.

And the size of these buildings, please, we know that the parapet goes up eighty feet, but then what's the length and width of each of those sixteen buildings?

Yeah, height. I don't have it off the top of my head. They're about a hundred and fifteen, twenty thousand square feet.

How high?

Hundred and twenty-two. The height is sixty-five plus ten for parapet.

I know, but length and width.

I don't know that.

I think that matters. I think it matters. How big the buildings are.

Well, it matters in final land development. At this stage it doesn't really affect the decision process being made.

I got a minute. Remember about the testing of these generators, which we don't even know how many there are. So four hundred generators need to be tested every month. So thirty days of the month into four hundred, what's that? Eleven, twelve, something like that. So twelve generators need to be tested every day in order to get all four hundred tested in a month. Just appreciate that. And if there's twelve generators that need to be tested, and they each have to be tested for thirty to sixty minutes, that's most of the day, unless they're going to do all of them at the same time. I just want to kind of remind people, especially new folks, that they don't really know this.

We've been told multiple times that the cumulative noise will stay under forty-seven to fifty-five decibels.

My proposal to the board of supervisors: do we need to have this monstrous data center? Can't we downsize it? We still give them by right, you know, their by right to build. We satisfy the governor's demand that we have data centers in every township. It cuts down on the water demand, the noise, the pollution, the heat throw off, things that we're supposed to believe and, unfortunately, we're not all believers anymore. So I would just like to throw it out there. We've taken their plan and listened to their plan multiple times, and each time we get a little bit more detail.

But what if you considered a downsized data center rather than this big one that they're proposing? Thank you.

Matt Barrett, Hollowbrook Drive. I'd like to start just by asking, those of you who went on the tour that I've heard about a couple times, was that a hyperscale data center complex you guys were at?

I mean, based on the whole community, there's two hundred data centers in that community. So I don't know if any particular one, and he would be able to answer this, is a hyperscale. There's certainly one after another, after another. So it's certainly a much larger footprint than what is proposed here in Middlesex Township. But I don't know if any of those are considered hyperscale. I assume they are because they deal with the cloud and AI.

Some are. It was a driving tour through Ashburn, Virginia.

Some of them are hyperscale-owned data centers, some are different types, co-location type data centers, enterprise data centers owned by a particular company. So it's just that Ashburn has basically every different type, and the tour was driving through different neighborhoods just to show the different types.

Now, I've been to Ashburn, and I don't care to live in Ashburn, and I would suggest you're not going to find anywhere in Ashburn nearly as quiet as what we would typically have here, in trying to hear what the effects might be. So I guess going on with that, a couple concerns that I may have in just thinking through some of this. When I see and hear seventy-five feet height buildings, and we're talking about planting trees, unless we're going to bring in hundred and fifty year old trees and plants, I'm not certain what exactly we're doing with that. So again, moving on, part of what caught me by surprise, I heard we were having a data center, and I don't know that I initially had an issue with it, but when I heard a data center, I didn't know that entailed sixteen to eighteen buildings.

Honestly, amongst my major concerns, probably the biggest one is water. Phil, I appreciate much of your pushback on different things, or at least listening tonight. I'm not sure that I get that sentiment from everyone sitting there, so I appreciate that. And I know you said you're not concerned with the water personally. The water is probably my biggest concern among the concerns I have. The second one I would have myself, as somebody who has breathing issues already, would be the air quality and us having four hundred diesel generators. There are generators available that we could run that would be natural gas, which run cleaner.

The reason those aren't happening here is because it costs more. So we hear a group of folks that have plenty of money to do whatever, but we're going to save costs and pump the diesel into the air. Going back, and somebody else just mentioned it, when it comes to the testing, they had mentioned thirty minutes and four hundred generators. It comes out to thirteen a day. It's going to be nonstop. That's if you count the weekends. Otherwise, it'll be more than that. It's certainly not going to be quiet, and I suppose I'll leave you as my time goes out. The last one, with everyone else, I'm on this side of the creek from it, and so I can certainly feel for those of you who are on Country Club Road.

But frankly, I'm concerned what this is going to do to my property value as well. I'm by air probably four-tenths of a mile, so certainly further than most of you, but I feel you, I hear you, and I have much the same feelings.

Mr. Barrett, in terms of the water, I would encourage you to set up an appointment with Rory Morrison, who's in charge of the MTMA. He's been doing this for thirty years. He has a wealth of knowledge about where water comes from. Sixty percent of our water comes from South Middleton. Forty percent comes from a well that's much closer to my house than anybody near the data center that's proposed. But he's a wealth of knowledge, and I'm sure he'd be happy to sit down with him and Scott Coleman, and listen to you and answer your questions. And it certainly gave me a lot more comfort to talk to them, people who understand and know.

And feel free to call our SRBC representative. They'll talk to you on the phone as well, and I have a contact number for you to talk to them as well.

My current well is only put outside my house, and I will happily talk. But my biggest piece with that is why we wouldn't look at some of the direct cooling like was mentioned earlier. It's my belief that you're not going to install stuff and then anytime in the near future reinvest and do it. Do it right. Do it the first time. Save the water.

Yeah, I think my understanding is the technology is not quite ready for prime time. And that's why they're using water. Right now they've been given the allotment of water that the SRBC and the DEP and the MTMA have said that we have plenty of water, and that's why they're doing the water cooling system, because the other system's just not quite ready for prime time.

Hi, I'm Sheila DeNevers with Fields End Drive.

Grab the mic.

So I just wanted to point out the data center...

Turn the mic on.

I got it. Thank you. I just wanted to point out that the data center industry ranks number two behind airlines for emissions. And I guess I was just wondering, with all these diesel generators, we live in a valley that has a very high amount of particulate matter due to all the warehouses, trucking, highways, and mountains that trap the pollution. Is there a good chance that when these generators are running, especially when it's hot and the temps are high, if they don't pass permitting, what happens then? And I recall when Justin, in fact, shared that they had to reorient a few of the buildings so the fumes wouldn't go into the other buildings' exhaust, and I remember that didn't sit very well with me because I thought, "Okay, you don't want those fumes sucked into your building to damage your equipment, but it's okay for residents to breathe in."

So I was just looking for more information because I do think permitting, I would be concerned about that and the particulate matter, and I wonder then what happens.

And the other thing I'll ask for, did the developer ever share a list of chemicals that would be used to treat the water?

I think my understanding of the exhaust, if the generators are running, even for testing purposes, you can't have that going into a building where there's people working, in a building that's somewhat enclosed. It's a lot different than going into the environment. Not that there's... PM 2.5 is a real thing. Again, I would encourage everyone to look at purpleair.com. There's some really interesting data on there. And you will be able to track the DEP permit, which will be issued, potentially down the road. They monitor this.

It has to be monitored at the property line, and they're monitoring on a quarterly basis, and they're giving data back to the developer and back to the township.

Especially with all the hot spots along 81, which we are very close to. I mean, I have it right here. So if it doesn't pass permitting, I guess I'm truly asking because I don't know what happens then.

And then they just keep doing it until it passes? Like, are you going to do it at night, are you going to wait till it's a cold day and do it then? I'm just curious.

Right. And I don't have any experience with DEP and what they do if they're in violation. Mark, I don't know. Have you had any experience with that, anybody in the township? They're required to come into compliance.

So you keep doing it until it passes.

If you're exceeding the emissions on your air quality permit, you would have to remedy the equipment and repair it and then test it later, yes. You'd have to mitigate it. You'd have to repair the equipment.

We have other industries in Middlesex Township that have air quality permits. We used to have the veterinarian on Shady Lane, they had one

for a crematory for dogs. They had an air quality permit. Lane Metals has an air quality permit. They have to do the testing. They have to meet the standard, and they have to remedy it. But I really don't... I'm not the one to speak. I don't know as much about it, like Phil was saying. There's a guy that lives at The Meadows that worked for DEP Air Quality. I'm friendly with him. I've talked to him about it some. He's not with air quality anymore, but I don't know the whole procedure. But yeah, they're required to comply with their permit, or they would have to repair the equipment to come back into compliance. That's as I understand it.

And just to let you know, I did get a contact from South Central DEP today from Senator Robbin's office because I want to meet with them to ask a lot of these questions as well to educate myself.

Can I ask one question? Quick. Probably the most important one. I'll try to be respectful. But one thing that I picked up and one that I really didn't understand earlier, and I apologize I missed this when I was here asking about the hyperscale center. Earlier, I had heard that we would try to run the water once, and then for efficiency, this is a hybrid cooled system, and they would try to run it a second time, and then it was said it would be discharged back to the sewer for wastewater treatment. I guess my real question, maybe I missed it, I'm a simple guy sometimes, if we're not adding anything to water and it's simply heating up to cool equipment, how and why is it becoming wastewater?

What is happening that we're needing to treat water?

So essentially, as you recirculate and evaporate, you condense the mineral content within the water. So if you think of it, you're basically boiling off...

So you're distilling it.

Yes. Essentially. So you get to a concentrate standpoint where it's a concentrate, and so you can't surface water discharge. We've heard plenty of times we don't want surface water discharge. So the alternative is to go to the sewer system.

Where is it stored?

What's stored? So there's no chemicals that need to be treated out of it. It's just water when it gets blended. But if you throw water in the system, then it rejuvenates and it gets discharged.

Correct. Mark just recalled, so there are industrial process water discharge limits that the authority has, and we talked about testing wells at the property line. There are standards that we are required to meet for what is discharged. So if it's at a level that the authority can't take it, and it compromises their system in some way, that would need to be treated on site before it could be removed.

Steve Cadwallader, Hollowbrook Drive. So I sit back tonight and listened to everything, and early on, when I found out about this, which would have been probably October of last year, I tried to make all the meetings. And it became apparent that there's a lot of smart people here.

And for the life of me, and I build a data center for NASA. For the life of me, I don't understand why the three people that voted this thing in didn't say, "You know what? We ought to have some community meetings."

Let me also bring up something. It is blatantly apparent that this environmental study that was done by Livic should be thrown in the trash can. I told this board in October, and I'll bet you if I ask the people in this room, they'll raise their hand and say, "Yeah, he brought that up."

And you're sitting there saying I never did it, so you're calling me a liar.

I didn't say that.

You said you never told me that.

I never called you anything.

Okay. To your face or behind it, no. The other thing is making it apparent that we need an environmental study. This is blowdown. Again, very familiar with evaporative cooling. This blowdown, has anyone ever heard of Legionella? Started about 30 years ago. It killed a bunch of veterans. Well, there's a lot of biocides that they have to put in those towers. There's also nitrates. There's also, gosh, the word... not a chlorine, but the least type of... So this becomes a hazardous waste. So wherever they're sending that, I'm assuming it's the treatment plant here on Middlesex Road.

They have to be set up for that. I don't remember seeing any, maybe one or two cooling towers in their zone. So that's a question that I have. Again, the environmental study will address that, I guess. The other thing is, that gentleman right there, Andrew, I believe his name is, he keeps saying these retention ponds will empty out in 72 hours. I personally read the geological report, which is over 70 or 80 pages. You know what it says? That entire site over there, between four and nine feet is impervious rock. We can see it because they're blowing up 427 shots

in that limestone. Water does not go through limestone. So when those ponds

fill up from stormwater, what's going to happen? It'll flood. It's going to go into that creek. Where's the plan for that?

So there's all kinds of gray areas in this whole process, and this thing speeds along like a bullet train. There's a lot of people here that could help. I'm not against data center. I use data all day long, but not in a town.

Also, great idea. Make it a third the size. What a great idea. I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out, but three guys who have no idea what they have a hold of said, "Let's build one here."

I have to give you accolades. Months ago, I said to Mark, "Mark, these are pretty smart people, and I'm not afraid to fall on a Christmas tree, but I kind of did this like 30 years ago for kind of a big company called NASA. Why don't you get people like us that know some stuff to just sit in?" "Well, you know, we're thinking about that." It took you to make it happen. Thank you.

Yeah, I'm not looking for accolades.

I wouldn't tell you that if it wasn't the truth. I went to Mark 10 months ago and said, "Why don't we get the steering committee? There's some smart people here." It's like, "Go away." That's all I have.

Just in terms of the wastewater, the wastewater treatment authority, that's actually run by Carlisle Borough, is beholden to DEP regulations. They have to issue a permit for any project. And they will test manhole covers and make sure that the water that goes back into the water treatment plant is eventually able to be treated and discharged back into the Conodoguinet where it currently discharges now, and then people drink the water a few miles downstream.

My name is Brianne Serrano. I live at Mimosa Lane. I am the little set of barns really close to that first building that was on that paper. I'm actually towards the closest end of the park to the creek. We can see the creek from our house. We're at the top of the hill. Everything comes straight across.

I was wondering if in all of the decibel counts, it was taken into account the way sound travels in that area. Because anybody that lives in that park knows that the sound does not travel like normal.

We have neighbors two houses down from us that open a car door, and we can hear it in our living room like it's in our driveway with a TV on. So all of the blasting, all of the noise from there

reverberates. When we get a blast, we don't just feel it once. We feel it twice, from the front of our house, and then the back of the house is actually part of it. When it started hitting the first time, we had every neighbor that I could see when I went outside. So in every direction was outside because it felt like one of the houses in the neighborhood exploded.

So I want to know if that was taken into account with how the valley is shaped, how that travels, and how much louder that's going to make it for us.

Because my husband records audiobooks in our house as a second income for us, and as much as they

wanted to blow it off that it's no louder than a UPS truck idling, he could pick up a UPS truck idling four blocks away on his microphones. So that could drastically affect my income, and also, I never signed up to live next to an idling UPS truck 24 hours a day. It's just not something I want to do, and it could be worse if the reverberation is different than what they calculated. Did anybody take that into account, or is it another maybe?

No, they had a non-Livic company that has sound engineers that did the study. They're mainly looking at the study at, my understanding is, the property line because that's what the zoning ordinance looks at. It's the 70 dBA at the property line. It's not what happens a half a mile away.

We are right across the street from...

So they're only beholden to the zoning ordinance, and that is 70 dBA at the property line. Well, that's the one thing we want to do, with Mr. Mantis said, let's get this comprehensive plan going, because I think there's a lot of room to tighten up some of the zoning ordinance, and noise is one of those.

It seems like that part is being left out a lot, and I know it's worse for the people in Country Club. But Country Manor West is the next closest property, and there's a lot of us in there.

And it doesn't, nobody has come into the park to talk to us. We weren't even informed when blasting was supposed to start. From what I've read, we were supposed to get letters that we never got. So we had no idea. And nobody has come into the park to talk to us.

We don't get letters. Our community is not existing in Middlesex Township.

They have it all mapped out.

They know every shot that's going to happen every hour and every day. It's in their report.

That's right. And so they're well under the limit from the state. Because you've looked at that, right?

I did.

And they're well below the limit that's allowed by state.

But why don't we tell the people when the blasting's going to happen, when the map's there, when the monthly calendar's there?

So you want them to blast the signal?

Well, they do one blast a day. I saw a report that they... So when they drill a hole and they put the dynamite in, obviously, I mean, you did construction for NASA. You know sometimes things don't go as planned.

And so they can't say, "Well, we're blasting at 3:00 today," and the one day they had to do it at 5:45 because they didn't detonate. And they can't leave the dynamite in there overnight. So it was a late blast. So there's no way to give people a schedule that's defined to what minute the blasts are going to go off every day. That's just not practical.

That is true. I'm not even saying it should happen every day. We weren't notified when it started. But that's reasonable. Like, people thought houses exploded.

You have to stop the project. That's it. Because that's horrible project, because that guy in that table don't live in our community. Probably they live in big house, beautiful area, and they don't care what we feel. Anybody understand that in that board? And the only one up there speaking is the middleman.

What a good name, the middleman.

Just one more thing, and you don't know what happened. If there's nothing we can hold them accountable for, because their responsibility ends at the property line apparently, the township should be in the neighborhoods to find out what we could do, what we can change, talking to people. There should be something more that could be done to hold them accountable past their property line, because it's affecting way more than just their property line. It's going well beyond that, for the houses, for everything, the animals, everything. And we have to hold them... they should have more answers before we move forward on an issue like this. Or any of it. Before they even started blasting, we should have had way more answers than a lot of the meetings that we're hearing at this point tonight, or the items we're hearing tonight.

Mrs. Colson, you're next.

Hi, I'm Susan Colson. I live in Middlesex Township. I am not near the Meadows or Country Club Road or Bernheisel Bridge Road. I'm about as far as you can get, but I really love this township. And I took a lot of notes, and I have so many pages of other meetings where I took so many notes, and that is just a testament to the rational thinking and experiences that you're having and you're sharing, and I wish this was happening in our past. I wish this happened May 30th of last year. But thank you, thank you for your time. Thank you for listening.

I hope that this data center...

But thank you for all the thought and all the time. I know it takes so much time, and the energy you put into your letters, your speeches, is so appreciated.

Thank you for trying so hard. I hope it is effective. Thank you, Appalachian Trail folks.

And thank you, all of you. I am so relieved that this is happening tonight, and I hope this happens at every single meeting and gets bigger. Tell your friends, tell your neighbors. I got to tell you, my neighborhood, which is Ironstone Ridge, we haven't had a sign up for decades. I've lived here almost 50 years, I think. But my neighbors don't know about this, and when I say it they're like, "Oh, really? That's terrible." I don't think they're here, but I hope they will be next time. And thank you so much.

We have to get together. We have to show that board that we live in Middlesex. We can't be quiet. We have to come to the meeting. We have to come so big that we have a voice.

Go over the timeline for the development, and what's the legal responsibility of the township for approvals. And because this is a legal process, and once the clock starts running, you have to either approve, deny, or they ask for an extension, or we request an extension from the developer. So where are we in the calendar with this timeline?

I could go over this quickly. The township has 90 days once they receive a plan and it comes to the first planning commission meeting. We have 90 days to act on a plan, to approve it or deny it. All three of these plans that we're looking at tonight: we have a final subdivision plan. We have a final phase 1A land development plan. That's for the PPL substation. We have a preliminary phase 1B land development plan for the first phase of the data center. All three of these plans have been extended until tonight. We as supervisors are required by law to take action tonight on this plan.

Nathan Wolf spoke earlier. They could request the developer, if the developer's willing to offer time extension for any reason, but if not, the vote has to be tonight. That, as I understand it. Keith can chime in if he wants.

Can't hear you.

Yes, it was extended until May 6th, 2026. This is the time to take action on these three plans. There will be more plans coming to the planning commission, two more at the next May 11th meeting. There's more plans after that.

Thank you. And I know that the county planning department, they were at the planning commission meeting. They had some questions about the subdivision, which you've answered. They had some questions about 1A, which you've answered. No one's stopping a public utility from putting in a substation. I don't care how many lawyers come in. I think the attorney knows, no one's stopping PPL from putting in a substation. It's just not going to happen. What I hope they don't do is I hope they don't make data centers utilities, because then they're going to go in anywhere, and that's almost what the state wants to do.

Your governor wants to fast-track data centers, and they want to take over the process of permitting and siting data centers. So that's what's maybe coming down the road. My recommendation would be that we approve the final major subdivision plan and 1A, because I don't think they're going to change anything. And I think they're happening, particularly the 1A is happening one way or the other. I would like to request that the developer give us a 30-day extension on the preliminary land development plan for phase 1B. I do think there is some legitimate concerns about the environmental impact assessment being done in-house.

I understand what Mr. Courtney has said. And you know, you're a professional engineer. Certainly respect your knowledge. I know that HRG spent a lot of time with it. The engineers have spent a lot of time with it, both at the conservation district for Cumberland County, and it's been looked at by the planning department. And that would be my request, if you would grant us a 30-day extension, which would hopefully give us time to at least consider whether or not we should do a different environmental impact assessment by a third party organization.

My personal feeling is it's probably not going to change anything. I'm just being honest with people, that I don't think it's going to change anything. But I think, given the concerns of the residents, I think that's a reasonable action by the board. But we have to ask you for the extension, otherwise we vote, and people will vote how they're going to vote.

So let me first address what's being called a conflict of interest. I mean, understand, there is no actual conflict of interest.

So you have Justin, who works for Livic. Livic is only being paid by one party, and that's the developer. And you have lots of engineers across the state that do work on their own projects, just like you have a lot of other professionals in real estate and otherwise that work on their own projects. So the fact that Justin has an interest in PA Data Center Partners doesn't in any way conflict him out from doing an analysis that's required for a project that that entity is doing. There is no conflict of interest there.

No, there's actually not.

And there is not even an appearance of a conflict. Am I speaking or are you speaking?

So the process that was followed here is the same process that was done for every other project. Land development plan is submitted, right? Zoning change. There's pre-application meetings, discussions. There's the plan that's submitted together with all the reports, including the environmental impact assessment, that was done by not just Livic, and not just Justin, but various other professionals inside and outside Livic. And they're all in the report. And that report was submitted, and it was...

Would you all mind being quiet so we can hear?

Thank you. I can't hear, I'm sorry.

That report was submitted, and it was accepted, and it was reviewed multiple times. That's the same thing that's done on every other project. So the qualified consultant, there's no question that Justin and every other person that was in that report or that authored any portion of that report is qualified. And they are approved. And frankly, the subject of Justin's role in Pennsylvania Data Center Partners came up in township meetings a long time ago. We've been at this for eight months. That report was submitted probably back in August, September, somewhere in that timeframe. We've had multiple reviews.

This is the same thing that's done for every project. And despite what the people behind me might think, there is no actual legal or other conflict of interest in having an engineer prepare a report for a project that he has an interest in. There is no conflict there. It's perceived as a gotcha when it was never hidden. It was never hidden in discussions with the township. It was never hidden in the information that's out there to identify his role at PA Data Centers and his role at Livic. All you have to do is get on

the website. None of that was ever hidden. There is no conflict. What's been done here has been done in every other project, and it's been reviewed and reviewed and reviewed. And so another 30 days isn't going to do anything. We're not going to have another environmental impact statement. We've prepared a qualified report by qualified experts in the field, and that's been reviewed and ultimately signed off on. That's the process.

And I understand this has not been hidden at all. It's been very clear, your role, and even your financial stake in this development. Again, I think it is a little bit of a bad look. But again, the 851-page report wasn't done by just you. I understand that. There's other engineers who have signed off on this. It's been looked at by the planning department for the county. They had comments. You've addressed them. The engineer for the conservation district for the county, Mike Lovinski, has looked at it.

Mike Hess, HRG, you've looked at it. You've made comments. Bud, you've looked at it. You've made comments. My understanding is they've been addressed to your satisfaction. Is that correct?

Yes. We did have a number of comments on the first version of the environmental impact assessment. I don't recall the exact number, but it was dozens, let's say. It wasn't hundreds, but it wasn't single digits. It was significant. We've received revisions as a result of those comments. We've addressed the comments. And I think regardless of who prepared the study, and I understand everyone's concern about the potential conflict or appearance of conflict, we would have reviewed it to the same standard, and the standard is pretty clear in the ordinance. That's what we review to. And we would review it to the same standard should another one be submitted.

It would be the same set of regulations. Just like the speed limit is the same regardless of who's driving, the same set of standards applies no matter who prepares it, and that's what we review to.

And do you think there's any chance that a second environmental impact assessment would yield different answers or different questions to any large extent?

Not to any large extent.

And I just want to add one other thing. So language was read from the environmental impact report, right? And it's this, "Oh, look at all these things that are happening." But what was being read was relating to a site that is actually being developed. So what do you think's going to happen to a site that's being developed? It doesn't matter whether this is a housing development or a data center or a shopping center, right? There is going to be an impact on the property, and so to simply say, "Well, look at what's being done to the property," well, that's development.

That's what happens in every project. And so what's done is you take an inventory of all the things and the wetlands and so forth and things that we're staying away from. So you can cherry-pick language and try to stir the emotion of a crowd to say, "Oh, look what's happening," but that's development. That happens on every project.

And it was honest. Right. We can say, "Oh, it was..." But it wasn't, right? It was, you know, the property is being developed.

Because it's not going to feel community.

Mike, how long do you think it takes to do an EIA? Like, do you find a qualified person, and you say, "Well, we want to move ahead." Is there any realistic possibility that that's done in 30 days?

No. I mean, if it were to start from scratch and not rely on any of the underlying reports or data, if it were a complete redo, I'm thinking that's 90 days, 120 days, something in that ballpark.

And I guess I have a question. I don't want to ask the solicitor to opine on it, but obviously, we have a lawyer here who's going to file some action. Can you explain what that action is?

I don't know what he's talking about. I think he mentioned spot zoning.

The job of the solicitor is to give legal advice to the supervisors. It's not to answer questions for the residents. That's well outlined in Pennsylvania law. So this is not really a great situation. The only thing I would say is that it's a preliminary land development plan. This is not final land development. Obviously, residents will have the opportunity to challenge this. But if we vote no, I can tell you what's going to happen. The developer's going to take us to court. He's going to take the township to court.

The developer will win. It'll cost probably hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight this.

So I think it's a lose-lose situation for the township, unfortunately.

Because the problem is it was permitted by right. It was not given conditional use approval. And if you start looking at the zoning ordinances for other townships, look at Middlesex. I'm sure you're all watching Middles- or, Monroe. Read their zoning ordinance. The setback is 300 feet. Actually the situation we have here that's proposed is certainly better than a lot of other zoning ordinances across the state. So again, I think it's a difficult situation. But I'm going to make a motion that we...

Where's the... This is the subdivision plan. Do we have the subdivision plan? Do we have 1A? We should have 1A. Okay, so the final major subdivision plan for PAX-1 Digital One.

Motion one. I move that regarding sewage facility planning for the final major subdivision plan for PAX-1, we accept this plan as a non-building lot subdivision and concur with the use of the PA DEP form requesting planning waiver and non-building declaration, subject to favorable review and approval by PA DEP.

Do I have a second?

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Motion two. I move that we approve a waiver of the following section of the Middlesex Township Subdivision and Land Development Ordinance number 8-2017, SALDO, for the final major subdivision plan for PAX-1, subject to providing written request and justification for each waiver, and listing the waivers on the cover sheet of the plan set. And that's number one, SALDO Section 501.A.2, plan scale not smaller than one inch to one hundred feet, modification to allow sheets SD-101 through SD-203 to be at one inch to fifty-foot scale due to project size, to allow comprehensive review and legibility.

Do I have a second?

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Motion three. I move we approve the final major subdivision plan for PAX-1, subject to the following conditions. That the applicant satisfies all comments and conditions of the township engineer, Bud Grove, PE, in written review of J. Michael Hess, PE, of HRG, dated 2/6/26, in a manner acceptable to the township engineer, subject to his final review. Number two, that the applicant satisfy all comments of the Cumberland County Planning Department in a written report dated 3/16/2026 for plan number P26-147, subject to final review by the township zoning officer. Number three, that when plans are released by Middlesex Township for recording at the Cumberland County Office of the Clerk of Deeds, the applicant records all plan sheets of the plan set and provides both a digital PDF file and at least one paper copy of the plan as recorded, with the Clerk of Deeds certification page, for township records.

Do I have a second?

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Do you agree with the conditions, Charles?

Yes.

Yeah, of course he does.

So we have two motions for 1A, and then we have one for 1B. We're going to do 1A. So this is for phase 1A, motion number one.

I move that we approve relief from the following sections of the Middlesex Township Subdivision and Land Development Ordinance number 8-2017, and the Middlesex Township Stormwater Management Ordinance number 6-2011, for the final land development plan for PAX-1, Phase 1A, subject to providing written request and justification for each relief sought, and listing the relief sought on the cover sheet of the plan set.

1. SALDO Section 501.A.2, modification of the requirement for plan scale not smaller than one inch to one hundred feet.

2. SALDO Section 501.A.6, modification of requirement for location map scale not smaller than one inch to one thousand feet.

3. SALDO Section 703.A.10, waiver of requirements for curbing and sidewalk along Country Club Road abutting the development property, with required note on plans. This waiver does not include requirements for roadway drainage facilities, including road pavement base drains along abutting portions of Country Club Road.

4. SALDO Section 703.I.4, waiver of requirement for depressed curb at driveway entrance openings along PA Data Drive.

5. SALDO Section 703.M and 703.M.2 read as "703.M and 703.M2", waiver of requirements for grading of street right-of-way areas to.2 feet beyond the right-of-way line, which is not part of the paved cartway or shoulder, along PA Data Drive.

Fifteen of these, folks.

6. SALDO Section 703.M.2, modification of requirements for grading of street right-of-way areas which are not part of the paved cartway or shoulder along Country Club Road.

7. SALDO Section 707, deferral of requirement for installation of sidewalks and pedestrian paths along both sides of PA Data Drive, which requires note on plan.

8. SALDO Section 703.C.1 and Table 703.1, modification of requirement for minimum street cartway and shoulder width for Country Club Road, which is classified as a collector road, to allow alternate street cartway and shoulder width.

9. SALDO Section 703.H.2, modification of requirements for minimum street horizontal curve centerline radius along the existing alignment of Country Club Road.

10. SALDO Sections 718.D.3.a, 718.D.4.a, 718.D.4.b, 718.D.4.c and 718.D.4.d, modification of requirements for minimum plan scale of not more than one inch to one hundred feet for required maps of physical resources within the environmental impact assessment report.

11. SALDO Section 718.D.3.b, deferral of requirements for submission of plans and elevations depicting the proposed size, square footage, height, number of stories of the building and/or other structures.

12. SWMO Section 303.J.3, modification of requirement for stormwater detention basin side slopes not to be steeper than four units horizontal to one unit vertical, and for stormwater detention basin bottom slope not to be less than two percent.

13. SWMO Section 303.K.9, modification of requirement for stormwater drainage swales at a minimum grade of two percent.

14. SWMO Section 303.H.17, modification of requirement for all stormwater infiltration practices to infiltrate the stored volume within forty-eight hours.

15. SWMO Section 303.B.2, modification of requirement for infiltration of surface water runoff at its source as a primary mechanism for stormwater management.

Do I have a second?

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

All right. Motion number two in regards to phase 1A.

I move that we approve the final land development plan for PAX-1, phase 1A, subject to the following conditions. That the applicant satisfies all comments and conditions of Township Engineer Bud Grove, PE, in written review of J. Michael Hess, PE, of HRG, dated 3/27/2026, in a manner acceptable to the township engineer, subject to his final review. That the applicant satisfies all comments of the Cumberland County Planning Department in written report dated 3/13/2025, for plan number P26-107, subject to final review by the township zoning officer.

**** That per Section 710.E.2.b of the Subdivision and Land Development Ordinance number 8-2017, as amended, the applicant pays to Middlesex Township the required fee in lieu of dedication of park and recreation areas for the subdivision of one thousand dollars per disturbed acre of development area prior to the final plans being signed by the township and released for recording. Number four, that the applicant enters into a developer's agreement with Middlesex Township regarding required public improvements and posts financial security for required public improvements, as-built plans and engineering inspection fees for those plans, with the township, in a form acceptable to the township engineer and form acceptable to the township solicitor, prior to the final plans being signed by the township and released for recording.

**** Number five... If people are having conversations, could you please take it outside Number five, that when plans are released by Middlesex Township for recording at the Cumberland County Office of the Recorder of Deeds, the applicant records all plan sheets of the plan set and provides both a digital PDF file and at least one paper copy of the plan as recorded, with the Recorder of Deeds certification page, for township records.

Do I have a second?

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

That's it, right?

Well, no, there's 1B.

Do you agree to the conditions, Charlie? 1A.

Yes, they're acceptable.

And again, this is preliminary land development plan, not final land development plan. I think we've discussed this in some detail. And I'll go with motion one.

I move that we approve relief from the following sections of the Middlesex Township Subdivision and Land Development Ordinance number 8-2017, and the Middlesex Township Stormwater Management Ordinance number 6-2011, for the preliminary land development plan for PAX-1, Phase 1B, subject to providing written request and justification for each relief sought and listing the relief sought on the cover sheet of the plan set.

1. SALDO Section 501.A.2, modification of requirement for plan scale not smaller than one inch to one hundred feet.

2. SALDO Section 501.A.6, modification of requirement for location map scale not smaller than one inch to one thousand feet.

3. SALDO Section 503.C.19, Sections 303.J.12 and 303.K.12, deferral until final plan of requirements for metes and bounds descriptions of easements.

4. SALDO Section 703.A.10, waiver of requirements for berming and sidewalk along Country Club Road and PA Data Drive abutting the development property, with required note on plan. The waiver does not include requirements for roadway drainage facilities, including road pavement base drains along abutting portions of Country Club Road and PA Data Drive.

5. SALDO Section 703.I.4, waiver of requirement for depressed curbs at driveway entrance openings along PA Data Drive.

6. SALDO Section 707, waiver of requirements for installation of sidewalks and pedestrian paths along both sides of new interior streets, with required notes on plan.

7. SALDO Sections 718.D.3.a, 718.D.4.a, 718.D.4.b, 718.D.4.c and 718.D.4.d, modification of requirements for minimum plan scale not more than one inch to one hundred feet for required maps of physical resources within the environmental impact assessment report.

8. SWMO Section 303.A.13, deferral until final plan of requirements to provide construction details for stormwater inlets.

9. SWMO Section 303.H.12, deferral until final plan of requirements to provide geotechnical engineer certification, stormwater managed release concept, or MRC, design.

10. SWMO Section 303.J.3, modification of requirement for stormwater detention basin side slopes not to be steeper than four units horizontal to one unit vertical, and for stormwater detention basin bottom slopes not to be less than two percent.

11. SWMO Section 303.H.17, modification of requirement for all stormwater infiltration practices to infiltrate the stored volume within 48 hours.

12. SWMO Section 303.B.2, modification of requirement for infiltration of surface water runoff at its source as a primary mechanism for stormwater management.

13. SWMO Sections 719.B.2 and 719.B.3, deferral until final plan of requirements to provide final landscaping plan.

Do I have a second?

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Motion number two, I move that we approve the preliminary...

Mr. Chair. Excuse me. Just a minute.

We believe that on the preliminary land development plan for Pennsylvania Digital, Inc., phase 1B, motion one, item number three would be the SALDO Section 501.C.19, Section 303.J.12 and Section 303.K.12. The 501.C.19, we believe you said 503.C. It should be 501 as written in the motion.

Do you want me to read it again?

No. Just amend that motion to include that change. Is that correct?

Oh, then we have to vote again.

Yeah. So, motion on the amendment on motion one, number three, the SALDO change from 503.C.19 to 501.C.19. That's correct. Do I have a second?

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

And the motion as a whole stands as amended. Correct. Okay. Because we had a vote.

Right. Yeah, we voted. Okay. Ready for another? Thanks a lot. I'll try and read as fast as I can.

Mike caught it.

I was testing Mike. Good job.

Motion number two. I move that we approve the preliminary land development plan for PAX-1, Phase 1B, subject to the following conditions, of which there are seven. That the applicant satisfies all comments and conditions of the township engineer, Bud Grove, PE, in written review letter number three of J. Michael Hess, PE, of HRG, Inc., dated 4/9/2026 and 4/10/2026, in a manner acceptable to the township engineer, subject to his final review. Number two, that the applicant satisfies all comments and conditions of the township engineer, Bud Grove, PE, in written sound study review letter number one of J. Michael Hess, PE, of HRG, Inc., dated 4/23/2026, in a manner acceptable to the township engineer, subject to his final review.

**** Number three, that the applicant satisfies all comments of the Cumberland County Planning Department in written report dated 1/2/2025.

And that's the correct date, Mark?

Let me make sure here. Cumberland County, yes. They reviewed it in January of twenty twenty-five. Yeah, you actually have the report right back here.

Just verifying the date.

For plan number C35-1134, subject to final review by the township zoning officer. Number four, that a restrictive covenant be added to the plan by note stating that no water well will be drilled on the property and that all existing water wells on the property will be properly abandoned and sealed in accordance with PA DEP regulations. Number five, that per Section 710.E.2.b of the Subdivision and Land Development Ordinance number 8-2017, as amended, the applicant pays Middlesex Township the required fee in lieu of dedication of park and recreation areas for the subdivision of one thousand dollars per disturbed acre of development area prior to the final plans being signed by the township and released for recording.

**** Number six, that the applicant enters into a developer's agreement with Middlesex Township regarding required public improvements and posts financial security for required public improvements, as-built plans, and engineering inspection fees for this plan, with the township, in an amount acceptable to the township engineer and form acceptable to the township solicitor, prior to the final plans being signed by the township and released for recording. Lastly, number seven, that when plans are released by Middlesex Township for recording at the Cumberland County Office of the Recorder of Deeds, the applicant records all plan sheets from the plan set and provides both the digital...

..., you could actually skip number seven. This is a preliminary plan. I didn't realize my writing was so poor. It's not going to be recorded.

So number seven doesn't apply. Well, then we'll strike number seven. So we'll vote on one through six on that motion. Do I have a second?

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Motion carries. Do we have the conditions? Yes, we do. Thank you. What else do we have on the agenda?

Oh, I'm sorry. We're retired, but what you do is extremely important.

It's okay.

We appreciate your work on behalf of the township.

And if you want to come and just present this, I think I understand what it is.

I got information from Zach earlier today, and have read all of the letters. From what I understand, they're nearly identical to what we've had before, okay?

That's, yeah, in general.

The meeting is still going on. Do you mind, silence?

These are for the fire companies to provide fire protection to the township, effective January 1st, 2026 to December 31st, 2026.

Just a point of explanation, the Carlisle Volunteer Firefighters Association is comprised of two of the Carlisle borough fire companies, the Union Fire Company and Carlisle Fire Rescue. So I'm asking for approval. Now, Counsel, is it okay to lump these four together for one motion? Okay.

Let me move this meeting approves, what do we want to call this, the fire protection agreement for Middlesex Township from Carlisle Volunteer Firefighters Association. Now we just do this one. Carlisle...

And New Kingston Fire Company, and

Shermansdale Fire Company, and Middlesex Township. Can I have a second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

I apologize for him being a little late. He's been having some problems connecting to the board.

And this is money that's distributed from the fire tax that's collected from the residents, correct? I mean, I think the fire companies that you and I have discussed a couple times are grossly underfunded. And I know that people in the room see zero benefit from the data center. I think there are benefits. This is one of them, that there will be tax revenue. Will it be as rosy as they project? We don't know until the county assessment office does the assessment. But my hope is that we step up to the plate and fund our first responders in a way that keeps the township residents safe.

Fire, EMS, police, I think we have a lot of room for improvement for how we're funding these people who put their lives on the line for us, and that's one of the benefits I see from this data center as proposed. If it goes through, we get that revenue.

Thanks, I appreciate that.

And just as an FYI, I have over this past two years mentioned the possibility of having paid firefighters, in original concept. As part of that plan, next year I'm going to be coming to you for an increase in the fire tax. So just a heads-up.

Is New Kingston doing all right?

Yes, I thought so, yes.

And of course, the problem is a couple of companies that are struggling. Right now there's a couple in the borough fire companies. The Union Fire Company and the New Kingston Fire Company are doing well as far as manpower. But I'm having problems with trying to keep up with the OSHA and NFPA standards on the amount of fire apparatus. And the importance of having this taken care of now is it affects the ISO rating, Insurance Services Organization rating, that the township gets. And we are probably going to be due for a review coming up probably in the next year.

That affects the insurance rates for everybody, the commercial and residential. So it's a big thing.

And I know, as you and I have discussed, just having paid firefighters isn't necessarily the answer, because as Dr. Perry knows, you could throw money at people in medicine, try to get doctors, try to get nurses, medical assistants. It doesn't matter how much you pay people, you have a hard time getting people to put themselves in harm's way. Just like Chief Fassler has two openings in the police department, it's hard to get people who want to put themselves in harm's way. So we certainly respect what Chief Fassler and his crew do, what your people do, and we're happy to make this motion, approve it, and hope that we can do more in the future for you folks.

Thank you, appreciate it. And let us know, one of us, whenever you need something.

Don't let us find it like we did a few years ago.

Right. Appreciate that. Thank you.

Let me move to adjourn. Second?

Second.

All in favor?

Thanks.

Nice speech.

Thank you.