October 2026 Issue

October 2026 | EAST COAST EQUESTRIAN 20 “A huge part of the appeal of our farms and this area is how we have beautiful rural nature all around us. That’s somewhat of a rarity for New Jer- sey. This draws [equestrian] clients from NYC, Philadelphia and more metro areas of New Jersey.” The Centenary University marketing graduate is concerned over how data center construction could destroy local assets. “The change in scenery alone jeopardizes the peaceful quiet that acts as a marketing advantage for those of us with smaller farms adjacent to large metro areas.” Developers Peron, J.G. Petrucci and Talen Energy had proposed a data center campus at a 37-acre warehouse site in Belvidere and, in Pennsylvania, a 239-acre data center campus near existing Talen Energy power plants in Lower Mount Bethel Township plus a 754-acre data center campus in Upper Mount Bethel Township tied to River Pointe Commerce Park. When the three centers were proposed, they were among at least 50 such proposals for data centers and 20 calls for hyperscale (5,000+ servers on at least 10,000 square feet of physical space) data centers intro- duced in Pennsylvania. Nasty Weather “From a cost perspective, developers seem to be quite okay with us subsidizing the electric costs to run these massive data centers. Horse farms, especially lesson barns, already operate on ra- zor-thin margins, if they have a margin at all. A large increase in electric bills could bankrupt some farms,” the New Jersey horse owner fears and with good cause. Both Goldman Sachs and Carnegie Mellon University researchers project increases in national residential electricity bills within the next five years of 8% to as much as 25% in “hubs” where multiple data centers and network infrastructure are concentrated. Closer to her own barn, New Jersey and Pennsylvania share regional grid operator PJM International, tracked by Monitoring Analytics, which finds that data centers are driving an estimated 1.5% to 5% baseline annual increase in consumer electricity bills. Additionally, the New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer report data centers will add “billions in costs” to utility customers across 13 states and the District of Columbia: Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Caroli- na, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. “Now… as for the environmental concerns,” Bridget said. “If pollution oc- curs in the Delaware River, like it has in other rivers in the United States, it could kill entire crops of hay and the crops – corn, wheat, etc. – that make our grain. That would drive feed costs even higher than they already are.” For instance, in February 2026, a contractor for a Meta AI data center in Cheyenne, Wyoming was found to have polluted the local recycled water system with a rare soil bacterium, Cupriavidus gilardii, forcing the city to shut down public water re-use systems (like golf courses, parks and sports fields) while creating months of costly disinfection efforts. The contractor? Fined $10,000. Environmental concerns are not just casual observation. Almost a third of the land directly draining into the Delaware River watershed is used for agricultural production, according to PACD (Pennsylvania Association of Conservation Districts, Inc.), and agriculture in the Delaware River Basin is a $3.4 billion industry, relying on 60+ million gallons of fresh water per day for local irrigation and livestock. What also drives hundreds of millions of economic impact dollars? A horse industry supporting jobs, driving tax revenue and in need of clean water, too. A regional economic study by Delaware Valley University identi- fied 30,000-40,000 horses in the Pennsylvania portion of the watershed alone, and state agri- cultural tracking data compiled by East Coast Equestrian found roughly 13,000 equines in Delaware, including about 6,500 in the river basin. Multiply tens of thousands of horses by the 20 gallons of clean water that each one should, give or take, drink daily and… you get the point. “Returned water” euphemistically describes the discharge from AI data centers of millions of gallons of water used daily to absorb the heat generated by the electricity running servers and air chillers. How much heat? Glad you asked. The math says, at 1,500 BTU/hr or 440 Watts per horse, a 30-horse stable generates about 13,200Watts (13.2 kW) compared to the 5,500 kW (5 Megawatts) of continuous heat generated by the average data center. Or, to put that in equestrian terms, matching the heat output of one 5 Megawatt data center requires a mega-barn of 11,360 horses. The heat causes natural evaporation, condensing more minerals in less water. The remaining liquid not only has a higher saline (salt) percentage but also traces of heavy metals and corrosion-inhibiting chemicals that were lat- er added by the facility. While preferable to “raw dumps,” date center re- turned water could overwhelm municipal capacities. Is this water you or your horse would choose? Is there still a choice? In April 2026, the Sullivan County Democrat reported that water resourc- es scientist Amanda Khalil and the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) had identified 66 active and another 24 proposed data centers spanning Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. When the Water Runs Out Continued from page 19