(Credit for Photo: Photo Courtesy of Beaver County Radio’s Curtis Walsh)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Harrisburg, PA) Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro stated yesterday that he is instituting what he is calling the strictest data center guardrails in the country. 

Shapiro has now signed an executive order that he confirms will give more control and oversight to municipalities when it comes to development of data centers.  

This comes after plans from the data center company Switch to convert the 400-acre former Pittsburgh International Race Complex in Wampum into a 600,000-square-foot data center complex that will have three buildings. 

Switch is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, and their proposed development would span an area roughly equivalent to 300 football fields. 

The company held a meeting in Big Beaver Borough on June 2nd where residents asked questions and received information about the proposed project. 

However, neighbors in Big Beaver raised concerns about the project’s planned data center, and they addressed water usage, noise, pollution and whether their electric bills would increase. 

Shapiro’s executive order requires that companies need to pay for their own energy, minimize air pollution, noise and water usage, as well as hire local workers and give back to the communities in benefit agreements which are negotiated.