A controversial haunted house near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, taps into its dark history every fall to scare tens of thousands of visitors. In 1968, a local news station documented appalling conditions for disabled people in the red brick buildings on the banks of Schuylkill River. Residents were found naked and emaciated at what was then known as the Pennhurst state school and hospital. The institution shut its doors permanently in 1987 after a lawsuit over inhumane conditions.
By 2010, a Halloween attraction stood in its place, and Pennhurst asylum’s previous owner suggested during its early years that he wanted to spook guests by repurposing the hospital’s surgical lights and medical cabinets to use as props.
In 2026, fears more real than ghosts float above the property. The site’s owners have submitted a proposal to local officials to make way for a datacenter complex: three buildings, spread across nearly 2m sq ft, powered by methane gas.
The proposed facility has sparked local backlash in the township of East Vincent, especially because it would sit less than 600ft from a veterans’ home. Donald Hyman, a 62-year-old resident, is concerned that air pollution from an on-site power plant and backup generators could disrupt his recovery from congestive heart failure.
Hyman and four veterans living at the Southeastern Veterans’ Center told the Guardian they also worry that the noise could trigger residents with post-traumatic stress disorder and that the construction process could expose them to harmful contaminants in the soil and water.
“You’re trying to force something on us we don’t want,” Hyman says. “We don’t want it, period.”
The complicated politics of data centers
The developers, Pennhurst Holdings, hit a major roadblock in May, as local officials rejected their datacenter plan amid sweeping opposition from residents. But they plan to appeal the decision in court.
The proposed datacenter – and many similar projects planned across Pennsylvania – has embroiled state lawmakers trying to hit pause in a fight with Josh Shapiro, their Democratic governor and a presidential hopeful who wants to make Pennsylvania a leader in the nation’s fight for AI supremacy.
Pennsylvania’s datacenters have scrambled politics as usual: a liberal governor is pushing growth, as Donald Trump has, while the governor’s conservative challenger is aligning herself with a Democratic state senator’s proposal to restrict new business.
Katie Muth, a Democratic state senator whose district includes East Vincent, introduced a bipartisan moratorium bill on new construction for large datacenters on 29 May, whereas Shapiro is courting major out-of-state investment. Community pushback is so intense that Shapiro is taking note though, and on 27 May he unveiled new voluntary guidelines he says will address residents’…
Source link
Disclaimer
We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We blogs.grocliq.com want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It’s possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.
Website Upgradation is going on for any glitch kindly connect at [email protected]
