No Bonds, No Data Center

Photo by İsmail Enes Ayhan on Unsplash

Before developers break ground, they should guarantee that taxpayers will never pay to tear the project down. Enough cash, held by the public, to tear the thing down, haul off the hazardous junk, and put the land back the way they found it. Not our money. Theirs. If a corporation is going to pocket the profit, it can fund the cleanup.

Here is why it matters right now. At a recent meeting in South Whitehall, the people pushing one of these projects got caught being honest. In texts that ended up photographed, they were calling the residents unbathed and toothless. That is how they talk about us when the mic is off. The same people at the same podium will promise to be wonderful community partners for 50 years. Forgive us if we want that promise in writing. And in escrow.

We are seeing history replay. Last time it was trains. A century ago, towns begged for railroads. They floated bonds, gave away land, threw money at anybody with a locomotive and a smile. So that was different than today because trains meant economic prosperity. Datacenters don't bring anything. They just bring risk to the community and money to the owners. Back with the railroads, the industry did what industries do. It overbuilt. It speculated. The whole thing tipped over, and after the Panic of 1893, about a quarter of the nation's rail mileage went bankrupt. When the Northeast's railroads finally collapsed, guess who paid to clean up the mess? Not the corporate barons. They were long gone and comfortable. The government spent billions in public money to sweep up what private companies left behind. Profit went one way. The people paid for the mess. A bond is just a polite way of saying "not this time."

And the risk is not hypothetical. A lot of these projects are pure speculation. No signed tenant. No end user. Nobody actually committed to running the place. Somebody wants approvals and a shovel, and if the AI gold rush cools, they flip the site or vanish. What they leave behind is a dark shell full of generators, batteries, diesel, and nobody's phone number. Picture that across from Parkland High School. Now, picture who gets the bill.

Without a bond, that bill is ours. The township has to secure it, gut it, knock it down. The developer is gone. The property owner is broke. The community gets two lovely options: let it rot, or pay to bury it. That is not a choice.

So what do we do? Up in Bradford, the county planning commission runs land development rules for 47 of its 51 towns. When they wanted a decommissioning standard, they amended one county ordinance, and it covered almost everyone at once. The county required financial security of at least 125 percent of the estimated teardown cost, priced by an independent expert, checked by the county engineer, updated every five years. They adopted it this month. Done.

We have no such button. In Lehigh County, zoning is handled by the townships and boroughs, one at a time. A developer can shop for the softest town and walk right through the gap. So close the gap. Pennsylvania law already lets our towns plan together. Under the Municipalities Planning Code and the Intergovernmental Cooperation Act, they can sign a compact to adopt a single, strong, identical bond standard across the region, and the county can provide them with the model. Two good things happen. Developers lose the weak link they were counting on. And the towns stand on firmer legal ground, because a shared regional standard would reduce regulatory shopping, give municipalities access to shared technical expertise, and prevent residents in one town from receiving weaker protections than residents next door.

Decommissioning is only one part of making data centers pay their way. Separate protections are needed for electricity, water, roads, and emergency services. But one of the rules should be: no company breaks ground until taxpayers are protected from the cost of its eventual departure.

The argument comes down to one question: Who carries the risk?

If the public carries the risk while the corporation keeps the reward, the deal has been written upside down. The people of Lehigh County are not an unpaid cleanup crew for one of the richest industries on Earth.

No bond. No data center. From the first shovel to the final demolition, they must pay their own way