Grays Ferry residents push data center moratorium in Philly

The Grays Ferry neighborhood in Southwest Philadelphia carries a specific history: it grew up next to what was then the East Coast's largest oil refinery. That refinery processed up to 335,000 barrels of crude oil daily before shutting down after a 2019 explosion. Residents say the health toll lingers—Philly Thrive board president Sonya Sanders lost her husband to a rare bone cancer in 2020 and believes refinery emissions caused his illness. When city officials identified Grays Ferry as one of two potential data center sites, the proposal landed in a community that had already spent years organizing around industrial pollution.

The pushback in Philadelphia mirrors a broader pattern the article describes across the United States. Data center moratoriums have been approved in Denver, Indianapolis, Asheville, Charlotte, and Reno, often to give officials time to study potential impacts. In New York, Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order temporarily preventing the state from approving new permits for large projects, saying data centers should only be built in places that want them. The article notes that more than 100 people attended the kick-off rally for the No Data Centers in Philly campaign on Monday, chanting in hopes that city council members would hear them.

The tension hinges on whether the pollution and resource arguments that worked in other cities will persuade Philadelphia officials to block construction, and whether the data center industry's promised jobs and economic growth can overcome that resistance. For residents like Shawmar Pitts, the question is whether a new industrial facility should be placed in a neighborhood still living with the consequences of the last one. The article reports no formal construction proposals have been made yet, leaving the outcome—and the two identified sites—undecided.