On August 24, the Sewickley Township Board of Supervisors enacted a new ordinance governing data centers, giving the Westmoreland County township local control over how these facilities can site and operate. It is a small piece of municipal lawmaking with implications that reach well beyond one township.
Data centers are arriving in the region fast, and they are thirsty. Sewickley Township wrote its own rules before a proposal landed, rather than negotiating after one did. That sequencing is the lesson for every municipality with a stream worth protecting.
The neighbor that prompted the question
The most visible example sits one county over. The former Homer City coal plant in Indiana County is being redeveloped into a 3,200 acre artificial intelligence data center campus, powered by what would be the largest natural gas power plant in the country.
What a township actually controls
State permitting decides what a plant may discharge. But zoning and land use ordinances are where townships still hold real cards: where a facility can be built, what setbacks and noise standards apply, what water and infrastructure commitments come with approval. Sewickley Township just wrote those cards into local law.
That timing matters. Municipalities that wait for an application are negotiating under deadline pressure with a well-lawyered applicant. Municipalities that adopt standards first set the terms of the conversation.
Why it matters for the rest of us
Most of our streams are one land use decision away from a new industrial neighbor, and the groups that show up at township meetings before the backhoes arrive tend to have more say about what happens to the creek. This is a model worth carrying to your own supervisors and councils. Mountain Watershed Association, which has tracked both the ordinance and the Homer City project, is a good first call for groups that want to understand what a protective ordinance can include.
Ordinance news from Mountain Watershed Association, August 24, 2026. Homer City discharge figures from MWA’s July 30, 2026 permit comment alert, reflecting reported permit figures.
