Perry Co. residents get delay in Watts Township data center ordinance

• Jordan Wilkie/WITF
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  As the democracy reporter for WITF, I will cover any kind of story that has to do with how we govern ourselves. That will include doing a lot of election coverage about how to access the ballot, how public officials administer elections, the technology used to run and secure elections, and the laws that govern it all.
  
  My work will also include accountability coverage for elected officials that use their positions to then undermine democratic institutions, like the legislators that voted against the certification of the presidential election results on January 6, 2021. If that weren’t enough, I foresee covering some local government decisions, fights over public records and transparency, and some candidate coverage around the major elections. As seen in my coverage of immigrant of LGBTQ+ communities, I also report on the consequences of elections for minority groups.

 Jordan Wilkie / WITF

An overflow crowd caused the Watts Township supervisor meeting to be moved outside of the Watts-Buffalo Community Center on April 1, 2026.

Watts Township’s website says public comment is always welcome during their meetings, and they got it. On Wednesday night, the rural Perry County township nestled in the crook of the Susquehanna held its own small part of the national debate over the construction of data centers. 

More than 125 people attended the township supervisor’s meeting, filling the community center past capacity. To allow everyone to attend, they moved the meeting outside. 

The crowd’s vocal majority was there to oppose new zoning ordinances that would allow data center construction. In the face of public outcry, the supervisors delayed a full hearing on zoning ordinances for the centers until May, and promised to post the date as soon as they secure a larger venue. 

Susan Fulmer was one of a dozen people who made a public comment. She said she moved to the township in 2020 to build her retirement home. Now, Fulmer said she’s afraid the data center will hurt her property value, raise electricity bill costs, create noise and light pollution, and pollute the Susquehanna river. 

“A data center would affect our physical health and our happiness in so many ways that I couldn’t even list them all here,” she said. “Now it seems like everything we spent our entire lives working for to achieve is going to be taken.” 

Many of the speakers described construction of data centers as an existential threat to their way of life. 

Josh Gerber said he moved to the township a year ago after he “fled” Lancaster County. The industrial developments there, Gerber said, drove up costs, increased population, and took the county from solidly Republican to being a “purple county.” 

Like Gerber, several speakers touted their conservative politics and values. 

The leader of Perry County’s Republican Party, Donald McClure, was at the meeting and told WITF he supports the data centers. When a speaker pointed him out during public comment, McClure was met with jeers, with several people in the audience expressing feelings of betrayal. 

Kevin Bissonnette, a volunteer fire chief in Watts-New Buffalo, was one of the few supporters of the data centers. He said they’ll bring much needed tax revenue to support emergency services. Bissonnette said without new revenue sources, fire departments like his will struggle to provide services. 

“Beyond funding, these developments bring critical infrastructure improvements, enhance electrical capacity, upgrade roadways and utility expansion,” Bissonnette said. “These are not abstract benefits. They directly improve emergency response times, operational readiness and overall public safety.”

Nate Chadsey is a vice president at MRP Industrial, the developer seeking to build the data centers. Chadsey said he is also part owner of the proposed site of the data centers. In his public comment, he said the property had “significant visual buffering and distance from residents” and said the data centers would create jobs and support the tax base. 

Daniel Welliver lives just outside Watts Township’s boundary line and has led opposition to this and other industrial projects by MRP in the area. His goal, he said, was not to prevent all development, but to encourage the supervisors to pass stricter ordinances to protect the people that already live there.

Jordan Wilkie / WITF

Daniel Welliver, part of a group of local residents opposing data center development in Watts Township without strict ordinances in place, stands by his truck at the Watts-Buffalo Community Center on April 1, 2026.

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