Vineland DataOne fine: what NJDEP's order requires

On September 22 the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection fined DataOne $1.07 million for installing and running 62 natural-gas generators at its Vineland data center without air permits. DEP Commissioner Ed Potosnak called it "by far the largest" enforcement action ever taken against a data center in New Jersey. More than twenty outlets carried the story within a day. Most of them ran the number and a line about "45 days or shut down."

DEP also published the order itself, a five-page Administrative Order and Notice of Civil Administrative Penalty Assessment. If you live near the South Lincoln Avenue site, that document matters more than any article about it. Here is what it says.

What the state found

The order is issued under New Jersey's Air Pollution Control Act. It rests on a single inspection, on July 29, 2026. Inspectors found sixty-two Caterpillar G3516H engines, each rated at 1,982 kilowatts and burning natural gas. That adds up to roughly 123 megawatts of unpermitted on-site generation. The order cites two violations:

Installing the engines without a preconstruction permit (N.J.A.C. 7:27-8.3(a)).
Operating them without an operating certificate (N.J.A.C. 7:27-8.3(b)).

In New Jersey those approvals apply to any generator of 37 kilowatts or more. Each of these engines is more than fifty times that size. DEP says the generators were not there at its previous inspection, in December 2025. So all 62 were installed and started up in the roughly seven months between two state visits.

The state was not the first to see them running. In August, the nonprofit newsroom Floodlight flew a thermal drone over the campus and counted at least 45 of the 62 generators running at once. Imagery from a data company appeared to show 25 running in late June. Floodlight also reported that DataOne had filed an air permit application for more than 30 gas engines of a different make, and withdrew it in May after DEP found multiple deficiencies. On August 28, a DEP spokesperson told WHYY that DataOne had no permit for power generators and had not applied for one.

What the order requires, and when

Paragraph 4 is the part residents should read closely. DataOne must submit permit and certificate applications within 45 days of receiving the order, and it must answer any DEP request for more information within 14 days. The order then says that if the applications are not submitted within 45 days, the company "must cease installation/operation" of the engines.

That trigger is narrower than "get a permit or shut down." Under the order's own wording, the shutdown turns on whether DataOne files on time. The order does not say the engines must stop while DEP reviews an application that was filed on time. That is why Floodlight ran its follow-up under the headline DEP is "letting them run for 45 more days".

The clock starts when DataOne receives the order, and that date is not public. The order was signed digitally on the morning of September 22. If DataOne received it the same day, the 45 days end on November 6.

The penalty, and how DataOne can contest it

The assessed penalty is $1,072,000. The order says DEP's reasoning for that figure is "set forth in the attachment." That attachment is not part of the five-page PDF DEP published. The order also reserves DEP's right to add, on top of the penalty, the economic benefit the company gained by not complying. It does not put a figure on that.

DataOne has 20 calendar days from receipt to request a hearing. If it does not ask, the order becomes final on day 21 and the penalty is due. If it does ask, payment waits until the hearing is resolved. However, the order states that requesting a hearing does not pause its terms, so the 45-day filing requirement runs either way.

The rest of the order recites the law, and residents should know it. The order covers only the violations it lists, and DEP says it keeps the right to take further action. The Air Pollution Control Act separately sets penalties of up to $10,000 for a first offense, $25,000 for a second and $50,000 for each one after that, and each day a violation continues counts as a separate offense. None of those per-day amounts has been assessed. They are what the statute allows, not what DEP has charged.

What DataOne says

A DataOne spokesperson, Naomi Race, said the company is moving to fuel cells for the site's permanent power and "will apply for the air permits for the temporary generators." She also said DataOne disagrees with "the temporary generator determination". She did not explain the disagreement, and the order itself does not use the word "temporary." It treats the 62 engines as significant sources that need permits. Reporting has not settled whether the company's objection is about the permits, the penalty, or both. The hearing-request deadline will show whether DataOne formally contests the order.

The fuel cells are a separate approval. On August 17 the Vineland Planning Board voted 8-1 for 300 MW of Bloom Energy fuel cells and a 1.5-million-gallon LNG storage tank on the site. WHYY reported that state permits were still required. Earlier that month the city had issued two stop-work orders, on August 6 and August 10, over work on that same equipment that had started without approvals. According to Floodlight, DataOne gave no timeline for when the fuel cells would replace the engines.

Is $1.07 million a lot?

It depends on what you compare it to, and people have compared it to different things.

DEP compares it to other data center cases in New Jersey, and by DEP's account it is the largest the state has issued. Critics compare it to the project's size. Nebius, the company that runs the site's computing, signed a five-year deal to supply Microsoft with GPU capacity from Vineland worth $17.4 billion. Matt Williams of the local group Sustain SJ told Floodlight that "$1M does not affect companies like DataOne" and that the engines should stop immediately. Bruce Buckheit, a former head of air enforcement at the U.S. EPA, told Floodlight in August that running the engines unpermitted violates federal law. After the order came out, he said he suspected the company was "breathing a sigh of relief" at being allowed to keep them running.

Those are opinions, and they are attributed to the people who hold them. The order is a fact: a large fine, a filing deadline, and no requirement to stop the engines while that deadline runs.

What a resident can do with this

Track the two deadlines. Twenty days to request a hearing and 45 days to file applications, both counted from a receipt date DEP has not published. You can ask DEP's Bureau of Air Compliance & Enforcement – Southern, in Camden, which the order names, when DataOne received the order and whether it filed a hearing request. The order's enforcement ID is PEA260001-75894. Use it in every request.

Request the missing attachment. The penalty rationale is part of the public enforcement record. An OPRA request for the attachment to PEA260001-75894 will show how DEP arrived at $1,072,000, and whether any economic-benefit amount was calculated.

Watch for the applications. Once DataOne files, the applications go to DEP's Bureau of Stationary Sources. Ask DEP directly whether the permit for 123 MW of gas engines will have a public notice and comment period, and get the answer in writing.

If you live somewhere else, notice the order of events here. The engines were running before any agency with authority over air emissions had approved them. A local site plan approval does not cover that. The separate state air permit is where a resident can see what a facility is actually allowed to burn.