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pennsylvania
Data Center Giant Secures $14 Million Deal to Consume 40% of Pennsylvania Town's Excess Water
The data center will get access to 400,000 gallons of water per day—enough to serve over 2,300 homes.
Feb 16, 2026
An artificial intelligence data center development venture has signed a multimillion-dollar deal that will allow it to consume over 40% of a Pennsylvania town's excess water supply.
PennLive reported on Monday that Carlisle Development Partners, a joint venture created by developers Pennsylvania Data Center Partners and PowerHouse Data Centers, had signed a $14.1 million agreement that will let it tap into the public water and sewer systems of Middlesex Township, Pennsylvania.
According to PennLive, the deal will formalize the 18-building data center's right to access up to 400,000 gallons of water per day, which the publication notes is "equal to the consumption of 2,367 dwelling units."
Middlesex Township Supervisor Phil Neiderer said during a recent planning commission meeting that the big influx of revenue to the local government would more than make up for the massive amounts of water being consumed by the data center.
"What that’s going to do is it’s going to fund a lot of projects that have already been in the books that are completely unrelated to the data center," Neiderer said, according to PennLive.
In recent months, residents of Middlesex Township and Cumberland County have raised concerns about not only water use but also pollution and utility rates tied to the project.
AI data centers have become a major controversy throughout the US in recent months, as their massive energy needs have pushed up utility bills and put a strain on communities' water supplies.
A study published in the journal Nature Sustainability last year found that data centers could soon consume as much water as 10 million Americans and emit as much carbon dioxide as 10 million cars, or roughly the same amount of consumption as the entire state of New York.
CNBC reported last month PJM Interconnection, the largest US grid operator that serves over 65 million people across 13 states, projects that it will be a full six gigawatts short of its reliability requirements in 2027 thanks to the gargantuan power demands of data centers.
Joe Bowring, president of independent market monitor Monitoring Analytics, told CNBC that he’s never seen the grid under such projected strain.
“It’s at a crisis stage right now,” Bowring said. “PJM has never been this short.”
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The 'Primary Fetterman' Website Is Now Live
"People across Pennsylvania did not put time, money, and energy into supporting his campaign just to elect a Democrat who votes against our interests time and time again," said a campaigner for the Working Families Party.
Jan 16, 2026
The Pennsylvania Working Families Party rolled out an online "hub" on Friday to support a primary challenger to the state's US senator, John Fetterman.
The WFP, an independent party that often supports Democrats with a populist economic agenda, backed Fetterman's 2022 Senate bid when he ran in the general election as a champion of many progressive causes. But the group now says he "sold out working Pennsylvanians" after pivoting hard to the right on key issues.
It launched the campaign to oust him in November after he voted with Republicans to reopen the government without an extension of Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, which is expected to spike health insurance premiums for over 22 million Americans this year.
“While Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is supporting Trump’s use of American tax dollars to ‘run’ Venezuela or buy Greenland, 500,000 Pennsylvanians are about to see their healthcare premiums rise because of the Republican budget bill he supported,” said Nick Gavio, mid-Atlantic communications director for the Working Families Party and a former Fetterman staffer. “People across Pennsylvania did not put time, money, and energy into supporting his campaign just to elect a Democrat who votes against our interests time and time again. We need new leadership.”
The website provides past Fetterman donors who feel betrayed by the senator with a form letter to "request a refund" of past contributions from the campaign. It also contains a "Sell-out Tracker," which seeks to "track every bad position" he has taken.
In addition to his vote to reopen the government, the group notes that Fetterman has voted to confirm 50% of Trump's Cabinet picks. He was the only Democrat who voted to confirm Attorney General Pam Bondi and Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, and one of the very few to vote in favor of Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.
It also accuses him of "betraying vulnerable people" by supporting Republican legislation that eliminates due process for undocumented immigrants, cheering US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) amid its mass deportation crusade, and giving full-throated support to Israel's genocidal war in Gaza and Trump's strikes on Iran.
The site also highlights Fetterman's tendency to neglect the basic duties of his job as a senator, which he has admitted he skips to spend more time with his family and because he finds them “overwhelmingly procedural.”
Fetterman has one of the worst attendance records in the Senate, having missed over 100 votes since April 2024 and skipped 44 out of 45 meetings for committees he was assigned to between January and May 2025.
He has also said he hosts very few town halls in order to avoid protesters, who have shown up to voice their discontent with his support for Israel, among other controversial positions.
As the site points out, while some other Democrats fought tooth and nail in a losing effort to stop Republicans from passing massive safety-net cuts in this summer's budget reconciliation package, Fetterman told Politico, "I just want to go home" and complained that he'd missed his family's trip to the beach.
So far, no prominent Pennsylvania Democrats have offered themselves up as potential primary challengers for Fetterman, who comes up for reelection in 2028.
Top names, including former Rep. Conor Lamb, who ran against Fetterman in the 2022 Democratic primary, and Philadelphia area Rep. Madeleine Dean have said they would not challenge Fetterman if he ran for another term.
Meanwhile, Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), who called Fetterman "Trump's favorite Democrat" last year, told NOTUS he'd be open to running against him.
The Pennsylvania Working Families Party said it is collecting donations that it will use to help "identify, recruit, and elect a real working class champion to replace Fetterman in the US Senate."
The group told NBC News that it has already amassed more than 425 people interested in either running against Fetterman themselves or volunteering their time or donating to help the effort to unseat him.
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Deluzio Gets Bomb Threats After Trump Said Hang Him for Warning Troops About Illegal Orders
"We stand with Rep. Deluzio and every patriot holding the line," said one veteran group. "We reject violence. We reject intimidation. And we will never apologize for defending the oath."
Nov 21, 2025
Just a day after President Donald Trump suggested that six congressional Democrats should be hanged for reminding members of the US military and intelligence community of their duty not to obey illegal orders, one of those lawmakers was the target of multiple bomb threats.
A spokesperson for US Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) said Friday afternoon that his "district offices in Carnegie and Beaver County were both the targets of bomb threats this afternoon. The congressman and congressional staff are safe, and thank law enforcement for swiftly responding. Political violence and threats like this are unacceptable."
On Tuesday, the former US Navy officer had joined Democratic Reps. Jason Crow (Colo.), Maggie Goodlander (NH), and Chrissy Houlahan (Pa.), along with Sens. Mark Kelly (Ariz.) and Elissa Slotkin (Mich.), for the 90-second video.
Trump—who notably incited the deadly January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol while trying to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential contest—lashed out at the six veterans of the military and intelligence agencies on his Truth Social platform Thursday, accusing them of "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!" and reposting a call to "HANG THEM."
Deluzio and the others have doubled down on their message that, as he says in the video, "you must refuse illegal orders."
In a joint statement responding to Trump's remarks, the six Democrats reiterated their commitment to upholding the oaths they took "to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," urged every American to "unite and condemn the president's calls for our murder and political violence," and stressed that "we will continue to lead and will not be intimidated."
Deluzio also addressed Trump's comments on CNN, denouncing his "outrageous call for political violence."
Other lawmakers, veterans, and political observers have also condemned Trump's comments—and the grassroots vet group Common Defense pointed to them on social media Friday, after Deluzio's staff confirmed the bomb threats.
"First: Common Defense unequivocally condemns political violence in all shapes, forms, and from any party. Violence has no place in our democracy. We believe in the rule of law. But we cannot ignore the cause and effect here," the organization said.
"The response to quoting the Constitution was a call for execution," the group continued. "Now, Rep. Deluzio, an Iraq War veteran, is facing actual bomb threats. When leaders normalize violence against political opponents, this or worse is the inevitable result."
"We stand with Rep. Deluzio and every patriot holding the line," Common Defense added. "We reject violence. We reject intimidation. And we will never apologize for defending the oath."
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