The Center for Biological Diversity has filed a lawsuit against the city of Pittsburg, California, after it approved the development of a data center, which, according to the NGO, did not appropriately address environmental impacts.
Pittsburg Data Hub, a subsidiary of Avaio Digital Partners (ADP), proposed Project Pegasus in July 2022 after acquiring a defunct golf course in Pittsburg. The Pittsburg City Council formally approved the project unanimously this week.
“The city of Pittsburg and Pittsburg Power Company (PPC) have a long history of supporting innovative industrial uses, and we see these developments as the core of our workforce and economic development initiatives. The city and PPC are excited about the opportunity to continue to work with ADP to bring this data center online,” said City of Pittsburg Mayor Juan Antonio Banales.
The project is expected to cover approximately 100 acres in the city's southern portion. Its first phase would include a 99MW data center spanning 347,000 sq ft (32,237 square meters), 37 backup diesel generators housed in separate buildings, a commercial switching yard, a PG&E electrical substation with access to seven different 230 kV power lines, and other facilities.
Development is expected to begin in Q2 2025, and the project's initial phase is planned to come online in H1 2026.
"We thank the city of Pittsburg for their confidence in and shared vision for the development of the Pittsburg Technology Park. We are excited to begin construction on Perseus, which represents the cutting edge in sustainable hyperscale data centers," said Mark McComiskey of ADP.
In its petition to the Superior Court of the County of Contra Costa, the Center asserted that the project would have significant adverse environmental impacts on biological resources (including special status species), wildfire, community safety, GHG emissions, water quality, water supply, traffic, and noise.
The petition argues that the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) failed to disclose or adequately analyze these impacts, identify and adopt feasible mitigation measures to reduce them, and consider reasonable alternatives.
The project was initially approved on 4 November, eleven days after the end of the draft EIR process, when an expedited ERP was published.
“Data centers pretend to be unassuming, but in fact, they pose huge risks to the air quality and water supply of our communities,” said Meredith Stevenson, a staff attorney at the center.
Avaio declined to comment on ongoing litigation.
Several lawsuits have challenged the construction of data centers on environmental grounds. In March 2023, the environmental nonprofit Citizens for Fauquier County and ten local residents filed a lawsuit in the Fauquier Circuit Court to stop an Amazon data center in Warrenton, Northern Virginia.
The suit sought to overturn the Town Council’s decision to approve Amazon Data Services' request to build a 220,000 square feet (20,400 square meter) data center on its property using a special-use permit.
