New Jersey fines data center $1.1M after drone pics expose 62 gas generators

This week, New Jersey ordered the operator of one of the East Coast’s largest planned data centers to pay a $1.1 million fine for secretly installing and operating gas generators in violation of the state’s Air Pollution Control Act.

DataOne got hit with the fine after an investigation by The Guardian and Floodlight News in August shared thermal drone footage showing that 45 of the 62 gas generators were operating. None of the generators had permits required for generators with 37-kilowatt capacity or higher, despite running at 1,982-kw capacities more than 50 times higher than the state limit.

States track gas generators like DataOne uses because they emit “carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and other combustion-related pollutants,” officials from New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) noted. Those pollutants can worsen asthma, trigger heart attacks, and cause early deaths.

Calling out the enforcement action as “by far the largest ever taken against a data center in New Jersey,” DEP Commissioner Ed Potosnak vowed that data centers would not be “constructed or operated with impunity in this state.”

However, while historic, the state’s solution doesn’t immediately relieve residents’ concerns. DataOne was given 45 days to apply for the permits or else cease operations, but they can continue operating the gas engines while seeking permits. Nichole Gardner, a co-chair of a local environmental nonprofit Sustain SJ, told Ars that “we believe it is insufficient, both in dollar amount and enforcement. The DataOne site should be made to discontinue operations during the 45-day period until the proper permits are issued.”

In a statement to The New York Times, the company seemed unfazed by the fine.

“We will apply for the air permits for the temporary generators,” a DataOne spokesperson said, while noting that DataOne “disagreed” with the fine. Eventually, the polluting gas generators will supposedly be phased out, as the data center is “transitioning to low-emission, quiet fuel cells,” the spokesperson noted.