Residents Are Furious as Upper Burrell Leaders Silently Publish New Data Centers Ordinance

“We thought the situation in Upper Burrell was an example of true democracy at work; then, they pulled the rug out from underneath the residents they claim to protect.”

Upper Burrell residents crowd a Community Meeting hosted by Protect PT

For months, residents in Upper Burrell have pushed back on TECfusions’ proposed hyper-scale data center at the former Alcoa aluminum plant. Until recently, the Township’s municipal leaders have built trust with their community at large through transparency. But the cancellation of the August 18th Planning Commission Meeting and the silent appearance of a new draft ordinance, very different from an earlier version – which would require TECfusions to build a power plant to supply the data center’s planned consumption of 3 gigawatts of electricity – has shaken residents’ faith in Upper Burrell’s leadership.

When Florida-based developer TECfusions first proposed their plans to develop a hyper-scale data center in Upper Burrell, residents were quick to express concerns about the site’s environmental and public health impacts. Some echoed sentiments that folks across the U.S. have shared, with one noting that they were “... worried about the noise, worried about the air pollution, worried about affordability, and…the use of their water.”

Another spoke directly to the proximity that the TECfusions site has to the hyper-scale data center that’s been approved in nearby Springdale Borough. “One large-scale (data center) is devastating to an area, but I think two, together, are going to be very, very devastating to the entire valley. In New Kensington and Lower Burrell… we’re kind of caught right in the middle of that Venn diagram.”

At the time, residents’ fears were ignited by the Township’s lack of an ordinance for data centers – leaving residents’ health at the mercy of developer TECfusions’ verbal promises to act in good faith in the community. With great concern in the community, residents reached out to non-profit Protect PT for help. Since May, the group has held monthly community meetings, which united local residents and enabled them to be directly involved in Upper Burrell’s development of a data center ordinance. Residents provided written comment and input into various aspects of the township’s first draft ordinance.

Upper Burrell’s leadership was initially receptive to residents’ demands, declaring a moratorium on all data center applications and posting an initial ordinance draft that reflected resident-backed concerns ahead of their July 21st Planning Commission meeting. At that time, Upper Burrell’s Planning Commission voted to recommend the draft ordinance to the Supervisors for a vote.

In the time since the July 21st meeting, however, a new ordinance draft has silently appeared on the Township’s website. In this version, TECfusions would be required to build a power plant to provide the data center’s electricity – which the developers plan to scale up to 3 gigawatts of electricity over its lifetime. For comparison, in 2024, the City of Pittsburgh peaked at 2.7 gigawatts of power. It is clear that this new draft was not the recommended draft at the July 21st Planning Commission meeting because the Township’s website states that it was revised as of August 17th, 2026, after the July recommendation.

In the case of the latest draft, Upper Burrell residents will face additional challenges to securing adequate protections for their health, safety, and environmental rights. Protect PT’s Community Advocate, Jim Cirilano, said, “The requirement that any proposed data center must supply its own power is problematic because at this point, Upper Burrell does not have an ordinance regulating power plants. Power plants create enormous amounts of noise and air pollution, far greater than data centers, to say nothing of the two combined.”

Governor Shapiro’s latest Executive Order requires that data centers supply their own baseline energy needs. It also addressed the need for local municipalities to have time to develop protective data center ordinances. It does not address the related need for power generation ordinances, which many municipalities do not currently have. According to Simon Tusha, the founder of TECfusions, they already have plans to utilize fracked gas as the primary source of their power buildout; however, residents have not seen these plans since there has been no local zoning hearing on the issue. While this may lessen the blow that residents would feel to their power bills, it only compounds the environmental health harms that a hyper-scale data center can generate.

Because the township’s moratorium nears its expiration on November 2nd, and Upper Burrell’s municipal leaders have significantly altered the original draft ordinance, the community remains at risk. After hosting their latest community meeting, Protect PT’s Executive Director, Gillian Graber, may have put it best:

“We thought Upper Burrell Township was an example of true democracy at work; then they pulled the rug out from underneath the residents they claim to protect.”