Tensions Flare At Falls Twp. Town Hall Over Amazon Data Center

Hundreds of residents packed the auditorium at Pennsbury High School’s East Campus on Wednesday for a town hall meeting about the multibillion-dollar Amazon Web Services (AWS) data center under construction in Falls Township.

The town hall was to brief the community on the 250-acre technology campus at the Keystone Trade Center and answer questions.

The project was first made public in 2024 when LevittownNow.com broke the news and it was approved by the Falls Township Board of Supervisors in 2025 after sparsely attended public meetings. The project made national news in June 2025 when Amazon’s involvement was announced. By early 2026 as a national backlash to data centers grew, thousands of residents had signed a petition opposing the hyperscale data center.

Tensions flared early during the nearly four-hour-long meeting as community members expressed frustration over the data center and its potential negative impacts.

Amazon officials took time to meet with residents ahead of the meeting and make their pitch that the campus is a positive for the region.

Roger Wehner, vice president of economic development at AWS, said the facility’s power will be sourced from PECO, adding that the campus is using some of the legacy infrastructure left behind by the former U.S. Steel mill.

Additional required infrastructure upgrades will be funded entirely by AWS as part of the agreement with PECO, Wehner said.

The regional energy impact drew criticism from residents already dealing with increasing power bills due to the growing demand, the war in Iran, rising inflation, tariffs, labor costs, and other issues cited by utility companies.

New Jersey Assemblyman Balvir Singh, a Democrat from Burlington County, expressed concern that adding significant demand to the PJM grid, which serves Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and other states, would drive up energy prices for consumers.

Singh argued that Amazon may pay the same rate as other industrial customers, the increased demand would raise costs for all ratepayers. He added that he believed it would effectively force the community to subsidize the data center’s power bill.

Glenn Murphy, who works on PECO’s economic development team, said that data centers require high-voltage delivery ranging from 69,000 to 500,000 volts. To safeguard grid reliability, both PECO and regional grid operator PJM conducted independent “double contingency peak load studies” simulating simultaneous component failures on the hottest days of the year.

No reliability issues are anticipated for Falls Township or the wider area, Murphy confirmed.

The PECO manager added that Amazon’s “take-or-pay” contract requires the company to pay for its contracted power allocation whether it is used or not.

While large commercial customers pay a lower rate than residential customers for power from PECO, they are responsible for transforming high voltage for their systems, which PECO handles for residential homes.

The initial phase connecting PECO lines to the data center site was energized in June.

Maggie Wallen, a representative for energy and pipeline company Williams, told the crowd that the company is constructing a new natural gas meter station adjacent to existing infrastructure near the data center at the Keystone Trade Center.

The metering station will regulate and direct natural gas from pipelines to fuel the data center’s backup generators, which will be tested regularly and only used for prolonged periods during PECO outages. There will be 280 natural gas-fired generators and three diesel-fired generators.

Jillian Gallagher, the air quality environmental program manager for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Southeast Region, shared the project’s two permitting phases.

Phase 1, which was finalized in July 2025 and modified in November 2025, authorized diesel-fired emergency backup engines and smaller engines.

Physical installation began in September 2025, and operations commenced in April.

Because Phase 1 is fully finalized, Gallagher said, it is not subject to further public review.

Phase 2 for additional generators is currently under technical review by the DEP.

Amazon has committed to operating as a “synthetic minor source,” using add-on controls and fuel limits to cap its volatile organic compounds (VOC) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions below 25 tons per year, Gallagher said.

Gallagher explained that the facility’s projected annual emissions are comparable to those of local hospitals, universities, or snack food manufacturing plants

The DEP plans to publish its notice of intent to issue the Phase 2 approval on Saturday, July 18, in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, which will set off a mandatory 30-day public comment period through August.

Gallagher reminded attendees that the DEP’s authority is strictly limited to environmental permitting, while matters concerning local noise, zoning, traffic, and aesthetics remain under Falls Township’s jurisdiction.

One resident pointed out that Bucks County currently ranks as the second worst in Pennsylvania for ozone pollution and holds a failing grade from the American Lung Association. They added that they worried the data center would worsen conditions.

An Amazon representative’s claim that a study showed air quality actually improved around one of its Virginia data centers was met with boos from the skeptical audience.

Noise pollution was another major point of contention.

A local resident who identified himself as an acoustical engineer with nearly a decade of experience in environmental review raised concerns about the planned natural gas generators. He noted that a typical generator produces approximately 73 decibels at 23 feet. If all units operated simultaneously during an extended power outage, noise levels within roughly half a mile of the data center could reach 65 decibels, a level that interferes with normal speech.

An Amazon representative countered that the company’s acoustic modeling was based on emergency operations and noted that the closest residence is more than 5,000 feet from the campus, indicating no negative sound impact.

Water consumption, a top concern among residents who feared the facility would constantly drain the Delaware River, was also addressed.

Project officials explained that the data center will use an evaporative cooling system rather than a closed-loop water system.

For approximately 94 percent of the year, the facility will rely entirely on ambient outside air to cool its equipment.

Water will only be used during the hottest periods of the year, accounting for about 6 percent of annual hours, and cooling will not be required at night even during those warm periods.

Amazon will not have cooling towers in use for the data center.

John Warenda Jr., executive director of the Morrisville Municipal Authority (MMA), outlined the site’s utility systems: potable water, service water, domestic sanitary sewer, and industrial wastewater.

Warenda said that the data center’s potable water demand will be roughly 19,000 gallons per day, which is the equivalent to about 70 residential homes. He noted it fits easily within the MMA’s rated capacity of 6 million gallons per day, which currently averages 2.5 million to 3 million gallons.

Cooling water for the data center will instead draw from a separate service (raw) water system originally built for U.S. Steel. The system has an approved allocation of 243 million gallons per day but currently draws only 5.5 million.

The AWS facility is projected to have a peak demand of 4.4 million gallons per day, with an average annual flow of 135,000 gallons per day.

Approximately 40 percent of that water will be returned to the industrial wastewater treatment plant, which uses a settling process with concrete-lined lagoons without chemical or biological treatments before discharging back into the Delaware River.

Warenda said work is underway to replace intake pumps and screens to prevent fish impingement by slowing water withdrawal velocity below half a foot per second. The upgrades are slated for completion by spring.

The MMA will serve as the DEP-appointed control authority responsible for monitoring wastewater compliance.

In response to concerns raised by longtime Falls Township resident Seema Kazmi about a past case in Georgia where a data center used unaccounted-for water, an MMA representative reiterated that the water used in the data center will be kept separate from the residential supply.

Addressing safety concerns, an Amazon representative stated that all facilities are equipped with fire suppression systems and that the company works with local municipalities to train emergency responders as construction progresses. The site will have an emergency response plan in place.

Falls Township real estate agent Anthony Paul Pinto asked Amazon representatives about Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs). Pinto noted that Falls Township currently has no signed CBA with Amazon, leaving the community with no legally binding guarantees regarding emissions, noise mitigation, or utility rates. Amazon representatives did not provide an answer.

Falls Township Manager John Shepherd answered questions and explained that the project was approved by the Board of Supervisors under the standard land development process.

Under Pennsylvania law, Shepherd noted, municipalities are barred from banning a specific land use and must permit it where it is deemed most reasonable.

Mayor Stephanie Lagos of Bordentown, New Jersey, and Mayor Kristan Marter of Florence Township, New Jersey, which are communities located across the Delaware River from the site, both spoke in opposition to the development.

When fully built, the AWS campus is projected to span nearly 3 million square feet over several buildings. It will be leased by NorthPoint Development with approximately 10 new buildings constructed by the time work is done.

Jeremy Michael, an executive vice president at NorthPoint Development, said Amazon has worked with them throughout the development process.

According to Becky Ford, who works on the AWS Economic Development Team, AWS had already invested more than $827 million in capital at the site as of December.

Amazon has projected the site will eventually support 1,550 full-time jobs.

Wehner, an AWS executive, said the campus expects to employ between 400 and 500 permanent day-to-day workers within the next two years.

That figure excludes the construction workforce, which is estimated to number in the thousands. Some members of the steamfitters union, which is working on the project, attended the meeting.

The AWS campus, according to Wehner, is being constructed incrementally based on customer demand.

The initial 1 million-square-foot building is currently under construction, with the first sections expected to go operational by the fourth quarter of 2026.

Additional facilities will be built as demand dictates, which will stretch the construction over several years, Wehner said.

Wehner attributed the growing demand for data centers to the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence.

Wehner explained that AI acts as a tool that lowers the barrier to entry for businesses, allowing regular employees to independently build applications and tools, driving a broader need for raw compute and storage capacity across the company’s global customer base.

After several questions, Ford explained that AWS would not disclose its customers.

Some speakers raised concerns that AWS is working with surveillance companies and agencies taking part in the federal government’s immigration crackdown.

The tense meeting was filled with shouts about the project and several middle fingers directed at AWS officials.

Staff from the offices of local Democratic and Republican lawmakers were in attendance. The project received backing from members of both parties last year when Amazon announced it was the tenant for the site as part of a $20 billion investment in Pennsylvania.

State Rep. Jim Prokopiak, a Democrat whose district is home to the data center, said it was important for residents to hear from Amazon and get to ask questions.

Falls Township and the Pennsylvania State Police were on hand for the meeting, but no problems were reported.