Cherry Hill New Jersey prohibits large-scale data centers

Cherry Hill Mayor David Fleisher said the township “wanted to be proactive and make sure that we eliminated a problem before it became one.”

 

By Lacey Latch, Philadelphia Inquirer

Cherry Hill just became the latest municipality in New Jersey to formally ban the development of large-scale data centers.

The township council unanimously passed an ordinance Monday night that lists data centers as a non-permitted land use within the township’s borders.

“We don’t think that Cherry Hill should be a guinea pig,” Cherry Hill Mayor David Fleisher said after the council meeting. “So while the technology is evolving, we wanted to be proactive and make sure that we eliminated a problem before it became one.”

The ordinance also clarifies the difference between the now-forbidden data centers used for artificial intelligence or cloud storage and the small server rooms used by standalone businesses for file storage, which will still be permitted.

The move is consistent with the goals outlined in Cherry Hill’s master plan, said Christopher Dochney, a certified city planner who worked with the township on the ordinance.

This includes “maintaining Cherry Hill as a garden suburb, maintaining a desirable visual environment and attractive community, and wanting to preserve natural resources,” he said.

It also aligns with the economic development portion of the plan, he said, which prioritizes job creation, job retention, and “providing an economic boon to the residents of Cherry Hill.”

“[Data centers] consume a lot of land, they use a lot of water, they take up a lot of energy, and they also tend to be very big, ugly buildings,” Dochney said. “Things that are all directly inconsistent and contradictory to the stated goals of your master plan.”

For a data center to be built in the future, a developer would need a land-use variance from the township’s zoning board — generally the most difficult land-use approval to obtain, he said.

Up to this point, no data center developers have approached the township, “and we wanted to keep it that way,” Fleisher said.

The full story here.

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France orders 4,000 more evacuated as fires displaces hundreds of thousands across southwest Europe

By  THOMAS ADAMSON, MARK CARLSON and EMMA DA SILVA, AP

Updated 12:49 PM EDT, July 28, 2026

LEGE-CAP FERRET, France (AP) — French authorities ordered 4,000 more people evacuated from Atlantic coast tourist sites Tuesday, widening what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation as returning heat threatened firefighters’ fragile hold on a vast wildfire west of Bordeaux.

Fire crews held the blaze in the Gironde region in check through a calm night, bringing flare-ups near coastal dunes under control and keeping the burned area unchanged at 420 square kilometers (162 square miles). Authorities called the fire stabilized, but not contained, and said it was still capable of breaking loose as temperatures rose and humidity fell.

Fresh flames erupted later Tuesday near Grand Crohot, a popular Atlantic beach on the Lège-Cap-Ferret peninsula, local authorities said. A fleet of 23 planes and helicopters — up from 18 — dropped water and fire retardant as crews fought to keep the renewed flames from spreading.

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New Jersey Urged to Enforce Horseshoe Crab Harvest Moratorium

RSHorseshoe-crabs-Gregory-Breese-USFWS-FPWC

CAPE MAY, N.J.— The Center for Biological Diversity and allies today petitioned a New Jersey agency to issue a declaratory ruling on a biomedical company’s persistent violation of the state’s moratorium on harvesting, killing and injuring horseshoe crabs.

“On paper, New Jersey is one of the best state protectors of horseshoe crabs, but look under the hood, and you’ll find it’s actually allowing a company to kill and injure horseshoe crabs in huge numbers,” said Danny Waltz, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “New Jersey must act quickly to fulfill the promise of its own laws and protect these highly imperiled animals and the endangered birds who depend on healthy crab populations.”

Through records requests made to the state, the conservation groups recently uncovered reports showing that Limuli Laboratories, a Cape May County biomedical company, annually injures thousands of horseshoe crabs as part of its collection of crabs to harvest their blood. Hundreds of these horseshoe crabs die. Limuli’s owner also publicly acknowledged that her company picks up horseshoe crabs by their telsons (tails), despite the scientific understanding that lifting crabs by their telsons can cause life-threatening harm.

Today’s petition asks the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to review Limuli’s activities under the state’s 2008 statutory moratorium on the harvesting of horseshoe crabs and issue a declaratory ruling as to whether Limuli is violating the law.

The moratorium generally prohibits all collection of horseshoe crabs, with an exception for capturing horseshoe crabs to harvest their blood for biomedical purposes. However, this exception requires the horseshoe crabs to be released “otherwise unharmed to the same waters from which they were collected.” The petition argues that the horseshoe crabs Limuli kills and injures are not released otherwise unharmed.

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International firm buys huge site in Pa. for hyperscale data center campus

An Old Forge neighborhood borders land north towards Ransom Township Thursday, July 23, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
An Old Forge neighborhood borders land north towards Ransom Township on Thursday, July 23, 2026.
By The Times-Tribune

A developer wants to build a hyperscale data center campus across hundreds of acres of conservation and agricultural land in Ransom Twp., Pa., near the border with Old Forge, bringing data centers and arrays of batteries to Bald Mountain.

Part of the land is included in a proposed pumped-storage hydroelectric project that would use water from the Old Forge Borehole to generate an estimated 184 megawatts of electricity for up to 10 hours a day. The project would span Lackawanna and Luzerne counties.

A site plan filed July 7 with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the "Old Forge Pumped Storage Project." The plan depicts infrastructure in Ransom Twp., Duryea and Old Forge. (SCREENSHOT VIA FERC FILING)
A site plan filed July 7 with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the “Old Forge Pumped Storage Project.” The plan depicts infrastructure in Ransom Twp., Duryea and Old Forge. (SCREENSHOT VIA FERC FILING)

Mudiita Land Venture LLC, a Carbon County-based firm with a parent company in New Jersey, spent $2.4 million on 528.6 acres south of Ransom Road and west of South Keyser Avenue, according to a deed dated July 14 and recorded with Lackawanna County on Monday. The company bought the land from KF Real Estate LLC. James G. Keisling signed the deed as a member of KF.

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Blazes grow in Europe, approaching Bordeaux

Smoke rises as a wildfire advances near Hoyo de Pinares, Madrid province, Spain, on Saturday.

 

By Mark Carlson, Emma Da Silva, and John Leicester (Associated Press)

 

LEGE-CAP FERRET, France — France sent a hulking military cargo plane to dump tons of flame retardants as it battled raging wildfires on Saturday and slashed the final stage of Tour de France to redeploy security personnel to the blazes that forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.

The giant A400M transporter swooped in low, its long plume of ochre-colored retardant trailing over drought-hit woodlands in the southwest as fire crews on the ground fought flames that authorities feared could spread toward the wine region city of Bordeaux.

Race organizers and the Paris police department announced a truncated 21st and final stage on Sunday for the three-week Tour, France’s most famous annual sporting event, reflecting the immense strain that two large fires in the southwest are causing for emergency services.

Tour riders will race Sunday inside Paris, rather than starting from Thoiry, west of the capital, on a circuit of 55 miles — down by a third from the 82.5-mile route that had been planned. Part of the race’s security detail will instead “reinforce the response efforts in the areas affected by the wildfires,” according to the statement announcing the ”exceptional measures made necessary by the situation.”

Including some 70,000 people evacuated in central Spain, wildfires in southern Europe this week have displaced more than 250,000 people.

Shifting winds raise concerns for Bordeaux

With winds expected to shift in a west-to-east direction on Saturday afternoon, potentially driving flames closer to Bordeaux, fire crews and authorities were digging trenches, using retardants, and taking other blaze-blocking steps, French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said, predicting a “long and very difficult” battle.

He said the fire was about 20 miles west of the city and lost some of its intensity overnight. The prefect of the Gironde region that includes Bordeaux said the blaze grew into “a firestorm” on Friday after igniting earlier this week and cautioned that it “remains dangerous” even though firefighters were making progress.

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