Why the Hudson Valley needs a moratorium on new data centers

Hyperscale data centers are quietly becoming the region's largest new consumers of electricity, water, and open land — and Orange County is squarely in developers' sights. A single campus can draw as much power as a small city, pull millions of gallons of water each day for cooling, and lock in decades of fossil-fuel demand on a grid already straining to meet New York's Climate Act targets. Diesel backup generators add a second, closer-to-home air-quality hit for neighbors already living with truck traffic and warehouse sprawl.

Local boards are being asked to approve projects with 20–30 year footprints using site plans and environmental reviews built for a very different era — before AI-scale loads, before PFAS-laden cooling chemistries, and before the cumulative impact of clustering multiple campuses along the same substations and aquifers was on anyone's radar.

Orange Environment is calling for a countywide moratorium on new data-center approvals until Orange County adopts: (1) a cumulative-impact study covering energy, water, noise, and emissions; (2) mandatory disclosure of power-purchase agreements and on-site generation; (3) enforceable limits on potable-water cooling and PFAS use; (4) real setbacks and noise standards for residential neighbors; and (5) host-community benefit requirements so the towns bearing the load are not left with the externalities.

A pause is not a ban — it is the responsible step that lets our zoning, our grid planning, and our climate commitments catch up with what is being proposed.