The facility, located about 40 miles outside of Philadelphia, is expected to provide additional power for Microsoft’s artificial intelligence programs; it is being built as part of a $17 billion deal with Nebius, a Netherlands-based AI-infrastructure corporation.
The largest planned data center in New Jersey is now being accused of violating federal law after a “visual investigation” found the site running dozens of gas-powered generators.
According to The Guardian, thermal drone footage captured by the non-profit organization Floodlight shows that the partly-completed DataOne facility in Vineland, New Jersey, was operating at least 45 of the site’s 62 gas-powered generators at the time of the fly-over.
The data center, notes The Guardian, has been a flashpoint since breaking ground in 2025. Residents have complained of relentless noise, unpermitted construction, and a confusing—and at times, contentious—zoning process.
The facility, located about 40 miles outside of Philadelphia, is expected to provide additional power for Microsoft’s artificial intelligence programs; it is being built as part of a $17 billion deal with Nebius, a Netherlands-based AI-infrastructure corporation.
The Guardian reports that the DateOne center, located about a mile from two schools, uses a series of tractor-trailer-sized generators, associated with harmful air pollution and tentatively linked to conditions including asthma, heart attacks, and premature death.
Critically, reportage indicates that none of the gas-powered generators currently on-site at DataOne have permits—and are therefore operating illegally.
Bruce Bukcheit, a former EPA air enforcement official, told Floodlight that both state and federal law require DataOne “to have a final permit before bringing those generators on site, and certainly before firing them up.” He also said that, based on his interpretation of events, the company must stop operating the generators immediately and should be fined for “illegal emissions.”
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has since clarified that the agency “has issued no permits, nor are any permit applications under review for power generators at the DataOne facility in Vineland.” A spokesperson for the department said that agency officials observed the presence of generators during a 29 July site inspection but has yet to make a “full compliance determination.”
“That one,” Buckheit said, “might be seeing administrative enforcement action.”
Despite Floodlight’s footage and the state’s observations, DataOne said that it “remains committed to meeting all applicable environmental and permitting requirements.”
Local residents, for their party, say that the noise is intolerable.
“It’s just constant,” said Andrew and Stevi Groetsch, who live less than a mile from the site. “It never goes away.”
“If you don’t follow one rule,” Stevi told The Guardian, “What makes us have any reason to believe that you would then follow others? It’s so upsetting.”
Sources
‘It’s all you can hear’: New Jersey lawsuit takes on datacenter’s noise pollution
One of east coast’s largest datacenters accused of ‘violating federal law’
Vineland residents await data center response in noise lawsuit
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