Safe Harbor County president warns of environmental risks from newly adopted data-center overlay near Pocono Plateau

Linda Chrisman, president of Safe Harbor County, told the Carbon County Open Space Advisory Board that an overlay zoning the Penn Forest supervisors recently adopted would allow a property owner to choose a data-center use in addition to existing residential zoning and that the site near the Pocono Plateau contains wetlands, springs and habitat for protected species.

“My name is Linda Chrisman, and I'm president of Safe Harbor County,” Chrisman said, then described the parcel as sitting on the edge of the Pocono Plateau, bordered by Lehigh and Water District land, with Bear Creek and Sawmill Run Creek traversing or near the property and with springs and extensive wetlands on site. She listed two federally listed bat species and said the variable sedge is included on Pennsylvania’s endangered species list; she also said northern flying squirrels and bog turtles might be present.

Chrisman summarized the overlay’s limits: it keeps the underlying R‑1 and R‑2 residential zoning in place while creating an optional data-center overlay that a property owner could use, and it imposes strict controls including hydrology studies, limits on water withdrawals, a robust noise ordinance and setbacks of roughly 1,000 feet (with a 300-foot setback where the Lignite Water Authority abuts the site).

She explained the timing and legal posture: the Penn Forest supervisors declared a curative amendment process and adopted the overlay within the six-month curative period. Chrisman said that, before the supervisors began that process, the Mealy brothers had filed a substantive validity challenge arguing the prior zoning was invalid because it lacked rules for data centers. “The substantive validity challenge has not been withdrawn,” she said; the zoning hearing board has delayed the hearing twice.

Chrisman told the board she believed a court would likely find the new overlay controls stand if no application has been filed and no one has been harmed by reliance on the new zoning, but she otherwise urged the group not to “borrow trouble” until a concrete application is submitted. She also said she doubts a data center will be developed there because the parcel relies on wells for water, is more than three miles from a high-power transmission transformer (which would make providing power expensive), and is surrounded by residential parcels. She said the landowner’s asking price is about $7,000,000.

Board members asked practical questions about access and parcel assembly; Chrisman responded that the Mealy brothers own the access to Route 903 and had assembled multiple parcels to secure roadway access for any future development.

The most immediate implications are procedural: the overlay is in place and a substantive validity challenge remains active before the zoning hearing board. The board did not take formal action on the matter during this meeting. The advisory board members and staff said they would watch for an application, engineering plans or a zoning hearing board decision before advocating additional positions.

Sources: presentation and Q&A by Linda Chrisman during the Carbon County Open Space Advisory Board meeting (transcript segments beginning SEG 032).