Issues/Press

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Committee on Communications, Press and Publicity  |  NAACP Main Line Branch (Unit 2270)

naacpmlbranch@gmail.com | 610-813-2097

NAACP Main Line Branch Calls on Upper Merion Township to Block Proposed AI Data Center Campus

Branch cites EPA Superfund site risks, national NAACP policy, and Baltimore moratorium precedent in demanding full ordinance compliance and independent community impact study

KING OF PRUSSIA, PA (May 23, 2026) — The NAACP Main Line Branch (Unit 2270) today issued a formal statement of opposition to the proposed MLP Ventures AI data center campus in Upper Merion Township, calling on the Upper Merion Township Planning Commission, the Board of Supervisors, and all relevant township authorities to use every available power to block and prevent this development in its current form.

The proposal, submitted by developer Brian O'Neill of MLP Ventures, involves up to eight interconnected AI data center facilities totaling more than 4 million square feet in Renaissance Park. The largest cluster is proposed on an active EPA Superfund site at 2200 Renaissance Boulevard, where industrial coking waste contaminated four quarries from 1919 to 1981 and groundwater remediation continues to this day. Applications were submitted days before Upper Merion Township enacted a new Data Center Ordinance; the developer is now seeking a grandfathering exemption to avoid its protective standards.

"The NAACP Main Line Branch stands firmly against this proposal," said Brian Reese-Turner, President of the NAACP Main Line Branch. "What is being proposed in Upper Merion is precisely what the national NAACP's Stop Dirty Data Centers campaign was designed to confront: a massive industrial development on a contaminated Superfund site, submitted to outrun community-protective regulations, with no independent environmental review and no meaningful community input. We are calling on Upper Merion Township to block this development and to stand with its residents."

The branch's opposition is expressly grounded in the NAACP's 2026 Recommendations for Protecting Frontline Communities to Stop Dirty Data, released January 8, 2026 by NAACP President Derrick Johnson, which call for moratoriums when communities lack full environmental monitoring and transparency, explicitly prohibit data center construction on Superfund sites, and require cumulative impact analyses when multiple facilities are proposed in one region.

"What Baltimore did, Upper Merion can do," Reese-Turner continued. "The Baltimore City Council passed a one-year moratorium on May 11, 2026, to protect its residents, and the national NAACP applauded that decision. Upper Merion Township has that same authority, and we are calling on the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors to use it. At a minimum, no application on an active Superfund site should receive any approval until an independent community impact study is completed and publicly released."

The NAACP Main Line Branch is calling on Upper Merion Township to:

1. Deny all grandfathering exemption claims and require full compliance with the Data Center Ordinance.

2. Issue a moratorium on all applications involving the Renaissance Boulevard Superfund site pending an independent EPA Region 3 assessment.

3. Commission an independent community impact study before any application is approved.

4. Require public disclosure of all power generation, water usage, and grid infrastructure cost arrangements.

"The residents of Hughes Park, Copper Mill Station, and every neighborhood near this proposed development deserve to know what is being built in their backyard and to have their health and safety protected," Reese-Turner said. "The NAACP Main Line Branch will be at the Planning Commission on Wednesday, May 27. We will be on the record, and we will continue this fight for as long as it takes."

The NAACP Main Line Branch (Unit 2270) serves Montgomery County and the surrounding Main Line communities of southeastern Pennsylvania and is a unit of the NAACP Pennsylvania State Conference.

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