SOUTH HADLEY — A push for a data center moratorium has stalled for now as town officials weigh how such facilities could affect local utilities and economic development.
South Hadley began considering legal language for a data center moratorium or ban after Gov. Maura Healey signed an executive order Sept. 8 that requires local approval for data center development. The order also outlines state permit requirements and regulatory restrictions for any data center with peak electric demand above 25 megawatts.
A potential moratorium or bylaw would have gone to the Nov. 9 special Town Meeting. But after the Select Board voiced hesitancy about passing a moratorium without further research, the item was removed from the warrant.
“We have people here expressing concern regarding budgets and development and things of that nature,” Select Board Chair Jeff Cyr said during the board’s Oct. 6 meeting. “Not saying data centers are the cure-all, but … I think we need to keep our options open.”
Despite no further movement on data center regulations, the Planning Board held its Oct. 28 public listening session to discuss its preferred permitting process for large facilities. Members stressed the importance of open communication with local utilities, including the South Hadley Electric Light Department (SHELD) and water districts, which would bear the brunt of a data center’s load.
Planning Board Chair Diane Supczak-Mulvaney said the water districts’ response has been that they have no capacity shortages for new growth.
“I think they need to think about that statement because it’s not taking into consideration if something really huge would come here,” she said.
Right now, any applicant can build a data center “by right” in the following zoning districts: Industrial A, Industrial B and Garden. The districts stretch up River Road, next to Ledges Golf Course and sections of South Hadley Falls.
“The town has very little discretionary ability to deny an application now,” Planning Board member Brad Hutchison said. “If that is something that’s troubling to people, then it seems like it’s something we should take up soon.”
Ultimately, the Planning Board bounced the data center issue back to the Select Board, noting that the moratorium was a policy decision before zoning discussion.
The Select Board agenda for Oct. 6 included nine emails from residents opposed to large data center development in town. The residents noted water usage, electricity consumption and fan noise associated with such facilities.
“South Hadley urgently needs economic development to grow our tax base. However, data centers are not the answer,” resident Melissa Taylor wrote. “They consume enormous resources and generate very little local benefit. They require massive amounts of electricity, water and land and bring environmental risks. But they ultimately produce almost no jobs.”
A couple of emails did not approve of a complete ban on data centers because South Hadley has the water, electricity and empty factory buildings to support their development. Cyr and Select Board member Kevin Hennessey echo this point.
Select Board Vice Chair Carol Constant, however, supports a one-year moratorium to study the impacts of data centers because it “allays people’s concerns that a data center could come in and sneak in, then giving us an opportunity to actually have a thoughtful process for the permitting.”
The Planning Board largely agreed with Constant’s approach. Member John Mullin noted that the town should also reach out to the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission for help in completing a regional study on other communities experiencing challenges with data centers, and investigate ways those issues could carry over into the Pioneer Valley.
If the town adopts new regulations for large data centers, the Planning Board agreed they should require a special permit rather than being allowed by right. That would let board members consult with local utilities before granting approval.
Conservation and Planning Director Anne Capra noted that utilities like SHELD, as well as Town Hall and the Police Department, all have “microdata centers” to run daily municipal operations.
“I think it’s clear that there does need to be a carveout for public utilities and institutional facilities,” Capra said. “Data centers are part of the normal operation of these types of facilities, so we need to be careful about that.”
SHELD General Manager Sean Fitzgerald told the Gazette that the utility has two “fiber huts” in town for its broadband internet service, Fiberspring. Each hut has a peak electricity usage of less than 20 kilowatts and no water cooling system. Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley’s Information Technology Department and other local institutions also have their own small data centers.
“The large-scale data centers would have to connect to the bulk power system or build their own power plant to accommodate their needs from an electricity perspective,” Fitzgerald said.
Any entity with a project 3 megawatts or greater would need to study the electric impact on Fiberspring’s network, Fitzgerald said. The study establishes a threshold, and exceeding the limit would result in fines.
The water districts do not have a policy on data center development and evaluates water needs on a case-by-case basis, Capra said. South Hadley resident Barry McPhee said the special permit could require any data center to include a “closed-loop system,” which recycles water for cooling the computers and network equipment.
There is no firm count of large data centers in Massachusetts. The U.S. Data Center Map reports 56 operational facilities, while Data Center Map accounts for 40 online centers. The closest data center is the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center in Holyoke, a data storage and supercomputer academic research facility for several universities.
Other communities in the Valley are discussing data centers, with Holyoke and Shutesbury banning them in their communities. Meanwhile, Easthampton, Greenfield and Westfield have approved moratoriums on such developments.
