Kelly Donia was seated in her Malvern Hunt home when she spotted dust plumes rising from construction vehicles combing the site of a planned data center complex in East Whiteland Township.
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She immediately drove to the site, across Swedesford Road from her development, to watch that day in June, anxious about the safety of building a 1.5 million-square-foot data center directly on top of a Superfund site in Chester County.
“No one seems to be concerned, but I mean, we live right here, we work right here, there are children — there’s a daycare,” Donia said. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand our officials, and I don’t understand the developer, and I don’t understand the general contractor.”
Donia is not alone in her fears. She and many of her neighbors, who had packed into East Whiteland meetings about the project for months, have continued to raise concerns about the safety of the building on the former 79-acre Cyprus Foote Mineral Co. property, which was contaminated over decades by a range of chemicals such as lithium, arsenic, and hexavalent chromium.
Not long after Donia saw those plumes, the township issued a stop-work order until it gathers more information on the environmental impact of construction.
While the developer says the site is safe, and the township has approved the plans, some residents believe that documents filed with the township and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show that the site is still contaminated from its years as an industrial site, and they worry about what impact the construction will have on their community.
Here is what The Inquirer knows about the Foote Superfund site.
What is proposed?
Green Fig LLC and Sentinel Data Centers plan to build a 1.5 million-square-foot data center on the 79-acre former site of Cyprus Foote Mineral Co.
Green Fig LLC first proposed a data center in 2018 and secured early zoning board approvals. The plans were greenlit by the township’s supervisors in 2024, drawing little pushback from the community.
Residents have been more engaged since the plan came back before the township earlier this year, first with ambitions to scale it up, then with a proposal to shrink it to appease outraged residents.
What are residents concerned about?
Residents fear that construction work on the site will kick up pollution in the air and release contaminants into the drinking water. They worry that there has not been ongoing testing of the soil on the site, especially knowing that contamination exists below.
How did the site become polluted?
Pollution at the Foote Mineral Co. likely started as soon as 1941 when the company began crushing ores and minerals.
Foote closed in 1991 with two quarries, a pit where solvents were burned, a lined wastewater basin, and more than 50 buildings and processing areas. Three unlined lagoons were backfilled.
At the time, public and private wells within four miles of the site had supplied drinking water to approximately 42,300 people. Several private wells near the site were found to be contaminated and were closed. A public water-supply well one mile away was also shuttered.
Cleanup, led by the EPA, has included capping contaminated quarries, stabilizing waste areas, and maintaining a long-term monitoring program for an evolving groundwater plume. Pollutants included lithium, boron, and low-level radiation.
What is a Superfund site, and how did it become one?
A Superfund site is a contaminated location in the United States designated by the federal government as a severe health or environmental hazard. Foote was added to .
In a 2023 letter to East Whiteland Township officials, a contractor hired on behalf of the developers incorrectly said that the site had been removed from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Priorities List, an inventory of the nation’s most serious hazardous waste sites.
As of Friday, Foote Mineral Co. remained on the list posted on the EPA’s website. The EPA says because of the ongoing pollution, there is no proposal to remove the Foote site from the National Priorities List, nor any timeline for remediation to be complete.
What does the EPA recommend?
It’s complicated.
, the most recent environmental evaluation of the site, found concentrations of certain pollutants have decreased over time, but an excessive amount of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, remained. VOCs are gases that contain a variety of chemicals that may adversely affect human health. VOCs tend to be much more concentrated when contained indoors.
The EPA recommended updated land-use restrictions and further data collection to ensure the site remains safe during future redevelopment.
On its website, the EPA wrote that the “hazardous substances, pollutants or contaminants remain at the site above levels that allow for unlimited use and unrestricted exposure.”
Days before the 2024 findings were released, an EPA engineer filed a report known as a “Superfund Checklist for Retracting the Sitewide Ready for Anticipated Use Measure (SWRAU)” that said the site “no longer meets” standards for human exposure.
The EPA said in an emailed statement that SWRAU forms are only for guidance.
SWRAU “designations are not required for redevelopment,” the statement said. “So long as all land and groundwater use restrictions continue to be met and redevelopment does not interfere with EPA’s cleanup or future investigations, sites can be reused and redeveloped.”
“Based on a careful review of construction plans by EPA subject matter experts, the agency does not anticipate the development to impact the remedy at the Foote Mineral Co. Superfund site,” Mike Bastasch, an EPA spokesperson, said in June. The EPA “remains engaged and will continue monitoring redevelopment progress to ensure the remedy remains intact,” he said.
What do experts say?
If a site is properly cleaned up, there are “potential ways that a data center could be a better use, environmentally, of the land,” said Noah Kittner, associate professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health.
But that is contingent onhow it uses water, what kind of systems are in place, what types of energy and electricity are being used, and whether diesel generators are being used in the construction, development, and operation of the site, he said.
The documentation from the EPA showing remaining contamination “certainly raises some red flags” about redeveloping the site, he added. And whether the project does more harm than good is “highly dependent on plans for construction.”
“You could have a poorly executed project, and it causes a lot more problems for the community,” Kittner said. “Or you could have a really well-designed remediation project that builds in sustainability principles and other factors that could really transform that area from what was once highly polluting to something that is environmentally positive.”
Who decides?
The EPA said in a statement to The Inquirer that it does not “recommend, propose, or approve specific Superfund redevelopment plans.” The agency reviews proposed uses and checks if there are “any potential conflicts with the selected remedy (including cleanup standards) or any issues that could reduce protection of human health and the environment,” the statement said.
The EPA’s goal is that most Superfund sites will be cleaned enough for commercial or industrial use. However, in some cases, the EPA can impose near permanent, severe restrictions on potential uses. Most Superfund sites undergo evaluations every five years to make those determinations until a site is removed from the National Priorities List.
Beyond that, it falls to the township to make final decisions on what the project will ultimately look like, and whether it could be built. Municipal leaders have said previously that, due to state law, they feel their hands are tied to allow for uses such as data centers.
What’s next?
The project remains in limbo: The developers have returned to the township seeking to amend their plans and alter the final design for the project. Supervisors tabled their decision at their last meeting on July 8, saying they needed more information about proposed changes.
Residents remain concerned about long-term construction at the site.
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