Staff of the Data Centers is working through 200 questions submitted at an information session on Tuesday night. A release from the company said answers will be posted on its website when work is completed.
The session was held to outline plans for a data center that would operate “off the grid” with an attached natural gas-powered power plant. Critics of the project, have launched a website, Nonewarkpowerplant.org,as well as a Facebook page that suggests solar and other types of power could be used at the data center.
The proposed $1.1 billion center would be located on the University of Delaware STAR campus, the site of the former Chrysler Assembly plant. The plant, which at its peak employed 3,000 or more closed in 2008. The Data Centers is based in West Chester, Pa.
The center could employ upwards of 600 people and pay $10 million in property taxes. A portion of the power generated at the plant would be sold on the wholesale market.
The economic arguments have not swayed opponents concerned over everything from light pollution to train derailments and noise. Critics also cited “not in my backyard” concerns about locating the plant near residential areas.
The STAR site housed the auto and tank plant for more than a half a century.
Officials of The Data Center said a second meeting will be scheduled and will feature improvements to the format, which included a moderator who posed some of the submitted questions to company officials.
An overflow crowd that by some estimates totaled 400 attended the event with some listening to the presentation and questions from outside the George Wilson Community Center in Newark.
Many attending the event complained about the format and sought a town hall format with interchange between company officials, the city and the audience and the potential to introduce issues such as the use of gas extracted from “fracking” to power the project.
Despite the intense criticism, the plant did appear to have supporters at the meeting, based on applause for the company’s pledge to hire veterans and use union workers during construction. Opponents did shout out their views when company officials claimed the plant was primarily a data center.
However, opponents were pleased with the coverage by the News Journal, which ran a headline saying that the project had been “rebuffed” at the meeting.
Plans for the data center were first revealed last spring by DelawareBusinessDaily.com. However, opposition did not crop up until this summer when opponents made their views known at Newark City Council meetings and claimed the city was covering up discussions with the West Chester, Pa. company.
It is not clear that the city has any say over zoning for the project, since the site once housed the auto plant.
