Pennsylvania DEP put a number on the data center wave this week: about 25 projects are somewhere in the permitting pipeline, and not one developer has signed the consent order that would bind it to the Governor’s GRID standards. The count came out at a November 10 joint meeting of DEP’s Citizens Advisory Council and Environmental Justice Advisory Board, along with a list of water permits that reads like a map of our basin.
DEP told its citizen advisory boards on November 10 that roughly 25 data center projects are in some stage of permitting, with stormwater permits pending in Mercer, Beaver, Westmoreland, and Indiana counties and none of the developers yet signed onto the GRID standards from the August executive order. The Atlas A.I. complex’s water obstruction permit gets a public meeting and hearing on November 23.
Twenty five projects, zero signed agreements
Executive Deputy Secretary Ramez Ziadeh gave the advisory boards the tally, and DEP says it is negotiating consent orders with several developers. Under Executive Order 2026-05, signed August 18, any data center project over 25 megawatts that applied after that date has two paths: sign a consent order committing to the GRID standards and get rolling permit review, or line up every local approval before DEP will look at the application at all. The standards require developers to bring and pay for their own power, source a growing share from clean generation, accept first cutoff in a grid emergency, and file community outreach and benefit plans.
Three months in, the scoreboard shows negotiations but no signatures. That gap between announced policy and signed paper is the thing to watch through the winter.
Data center projects in some stage of DEP permitting as of November 10, with no GRID consent orders signed.
“We have about 25 data center projects that are in different phases of the permitting process.”
Ramez Ziadeh, Executive Deputy Secretary, Pennsylvania DEP
The water permits hiding in the stack
The projects reach water through several permit types. A major amendment to a water quality permit is pending for the Homer City data center and power plant complex in Indiana County. Amazon’s Berwick project needs a new water quality permit that has been open for comment. Chapter 105 water obstruction and encroachment permits are in review for Amazon’s Rosebud II project and for the Atlas A.I. complex, and several stormwater permits are pending, including projects in Mercer, Beaver, Westmoreland, and Indiana counties. Under the executive order, water withdrawal and discharge approvals from the river basin commissions have to come upfront rather than at the end.
November 23 in particular
The nearest date on the calendar is the public meeting and hearing on the Atlas Chapter 105 permit, set for November 23. Chapter 105 is the permit that governs what gets built in and over streams and wetlands, which makes it the proceeding where a watershed group’s monitoring data and local knowledge carry the most weight. Groups in the four counties with pending stormwater permits should also be filing right-to-know requests now, before the applications harden into drafts.
Our October reporting asked who was adding up the water these projects will use. DEP’s count of 25 does not answer that question, but it does tell us how many chances remain to ask it on the record.
Reporting from the PA Environment Digest coverage of the November 10, 2026 joint meeting of DEP’s Citizens Advisory Council and Environmental Justice Advisory Board. Current as of November 13, 2026.
