The data center fight in Montour County, Pennsylvania
As of September 27, 2026, Montour County, Pennsylvania had a data center moratorium whose documented term has run out (action taken November 2025; it ended 2026-04-30).
Status is derived, not stored — a pause with a documented end date flips to Expired on its own — and the source is right next to the claim.
Status today
180-day moratorium on data center applications, permits, and rezonings; adopted Data Center Land Use Ordinance in April 2026.
SourceNews
read 2026-09-11
An expiry date is the earliest a pause could have ended — extensions are common, so confirm with the clerk before citing it.
The project on the table
Talen Energy Montour Data Center — Denied
Operator: Talen Energy · Acres: 800
County commissioners unanimously denied Talen Energy's request to rezone 800+ acres from agricultural to industrial for a data center plus power-plant expansion, after a grassroots group gathered ~3,000 petition signatures.
Next: Denied — watch for a re-filing or a scaled-down resubmission; ask the clerk to add you to the notification list.
Latest in the record
- 2026-08-18 — Governor Josh Shapiro signed an executive order restricting data center development in Pennsylvania, eliminating fast-tracked permitting and formalizing GRID Standards requiring community engagement, energy-affordability protections, and environmental standards for developers seeking state support. · source
- 2026-04-28 — Montour County commissioners unanimously approved amended data center ordinance provisions establishing new height and setback requirements for any future data center development. · source
- 2026-04-14 — Montour County held a public hearing on proposed amendments to its data center ordinance, including new height and setback distance requirements. · source
- 2026-03-30 — Civil Eats profiled the Montour County fight as a case study of a small farm county organizing successfully against a hyperscale data center and power-plant expansion. · source
- 2026-02-10 — Montour County's three commissioners voted unanimously to deny Talen Energy's rezoning request; Chair Rebecca Dressler said Talen had not met its burden of proving the project would benefit the community and that no evidence showed benefits outweighed foreseeable public harms. · source
- 2026-02-10 — Talen Energy responded saying it remains committed to pursuing a data center in Montour County and would 'listen, incorporate feedback from the Commissioners, engage with the community, and refine our plans.' · source
Full dated timeline on the project tracker.
Recent news
Automated news aggregation, not human-verified — follow each link to the original outlet. Part of the story tracker, 1 headline archived.
Where the decision gets made
Board of Commissioners — Zoning and land use. Denied a data-center rezoning request; a real outcome, though short of a moratorium.
Meets: See the county's published meeting agendas.
Where: Montour County Administration Center, Conference Room B, 435 East Front Street, Danville, PA 17821
Public comment: See the county's published agenda for the public-comment process for a specific meeting.
570-271-3000 · website
Read from the official page on 2026-08-12. Meeting details change — confirm before you go.
What to do next
- Questions to ask at the hearing — force specific answers onto the record.
- Estimate the impact — electricity, water, and rate pressure for any facility size in Pennsylvania.
- Model CBA clauses — copy-paste language communities have actually won.
- Pennsylvania briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts, and every fight in the state.
Nearby in Pennsylvania
- Muncy Township (14 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-02-01
- Gregg Township (21 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-02-16
- Lycoming County (30 mi) — Enactedexpires 2026-12-15
- Hazle Township (35 mi) — Enactedexpires 2026-12-05
- Butler Township (35 mi) — Enactedexpires soon — 2026-11-08
- Pennsylvania (54 mi) — Proposedterm not documented
- Olyphant (63 mi) — Enactedfixed term, end date not recorded
- Warrington Township (70 mi) — Enactedno fixed end — runs until a condition is met
All 19 tracked actions in Pennsylvania are on the state page.
As of August 2026 · changes weekly — re-check before citing
Illustrative rather than exhaustive — dozens of localities churn weekly, and this tracks the ones we have read a source for. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to the ordinance, the enacting body's own page, or a datable report of the vote, and were read on that date. Rows marked *unverified* came from bulk compilation and have not been checked against a primary source — the locality, the year, and the status may all be off. Verify one of those with the town clerk before citing it as precedent. **Expiry is derived, not asserted.** A row with a documented end date flips to *Expired* on its own once that date passes. A time-limited moratorium whose start date was never documented keeps showing as enacted — that is a known gap, not a claim that it is still in force. Moratoriums are also routinely extended, so an expiry date is the earliest it could have ended, not proof that it did.
Part of the U.S. data center moratorium tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0.