Falls Twp. Residents Push Back Against Under Construction Data Center

A growing group of local residents is pushing back against a massive Amazon Web Services data center currently under construction.

At the Falls Township Board of Supervisors meeting Monday evening, residents voiced concerns over potential environmental and health impacts of the data center campus, which is being built at the Keystone Trade Center on the former U.S. Steel property.

A petition opposing the project has already gathered 900 signatures.

“I suddenly learned that our town officials have been exploring and constructing the creation of a data center just over six miles from my home in a neighborhood of hundreds of homes and approximately 12 schools,” said Amanda Westerman, a mother of three who has lived in the township for 13 years.

“If I was aware that this was a data center a year ago, I would have been here sooner,” she added.

Julia Resler, an eight-year resident of Falls Township and a mother, said the data center’s proximity to the Delaware River could also affect people across the state line in Bordentown, New Jersey.

“AI data centers on smaller scales than the Falls Township data center cause horrendous amounts of temperature increases, wildlife disruption, even noise pollution, including subaudible infrasound that can vibrate through buildings,” Resler said.

She added, “We, the people of Falls Township, do not want this data center completed.”

At a public meeting in March 2025, Falls Township officials approved a “digital infrastructure campus” made up of 10 structures ranging from 112,000 to 217,000 square feet. The center will total more than 2 million square feet. The project was identified as a data center in August 2024, as first reported by LevittownNow.com, and Amazon’s connection was revealed in June 2025 after the company worked to keep its involvement quiet for several months.

Residents said Monday that the community was not notified enough about the development.

One resident said letters were not mailed to households and that many residents do not use social media.

Supervisor Chairperson Jeff Dence said he understands the community’s frustration and noted it was a public issue.

“This isn’t something that was not advertised and there weren’t any public meetings about,” Dence said. “They came to the Planning Commission. They’ve been to the Zoning Hearing Board. They’ve been to the Environmental Advisory Council.”

The project was advertised at taxpayer-expense under the state’s public notice law, which requires notifications in print newspapers and does not allow them in well-read online outlets, like LevittownNow.com.

Dence told the residents Monday that the project cannot be halted by the township.

“It can’t be stopped. It’s not going to be stopped,” he said.

Township Manager John Shepherd explained local officials lack the legal authority to deny a project based on whether or not it is popular with the public.

“In Pennsylvania there’s no ability to do a moratorium on any sort of development,” Shepherd said. “(The Falls Township Board of Supervisors) don’t have the ability to say, ‘we don’t want a data center.’ The state of Pennsylvania preempts some of the regulatory decisions this board can make.”

The data center previously received high-profile, bipartisan backing. During an announcement at the site last summer, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and Republican U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick were in support for the project.

Shapiro came to Falls Township last summer to announce the state worked to cut red tape to streamline the permitting process for development and job development projects across the state.

On Monday evening, Dence said the township will look to arrange a town hall-style meeting to address community concerns directly.

“We will put together some sort of town hall meeting,” Dence said. “We’ll get someone from Amazon here and let them speak for themselves.”

Opponents of the tech campus said they plan to continue researching the potential impacts of data centers and gathering signatures for their petition.

A separate group held a protest in Falls Township several weeks ago to raise concerns about the data center.