Residents of Falls Township, Bucks County already live with the legacy of heavy industrial use at the former U.S. Steel mill site where Amazon is now building a 250-acre data center complex. Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection plans to make it worse.

DEP officials announced Tuesday that they intend to approve 280 natural gas-fired generators and 3 diesel generators at the site, on top of 76 diesel generators Amazon has already installed. That is 359 fossil fuel generators at a single location in an area residents describe as already pollution-stressed.

Amazon, a company worth over $2 trillion, could power its backup systems with battery storage or other clean alternatives. It chose gas. Under DEP's proposed approval, the site would qualify as a "synthetic minor" source of emissions by keeping annual output just below a regulatory threshold, a classification that lets the company avoid the stricter review required for larger polluters.

The costs do not stop at the fence line. As New Jersey Assemblyman Balvir Singh warned, the data center's enormous electricity demand will drive up bidding on the regional grid, raising supply costs for ratepayers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey alike. Governor Josh Shapiro fast-tracked Amazon's environmental permits and unlocked state and local tax abatements for the project. He originally proposed requiring clean energy commitments in exchange for those benefits. The state budget he signed last week dropped them.

DEP's air quality plan approval will be open for public comment for 30 days after it is published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, estimated for July 18. That window is closing fast.

Sign to demand DEP reject this air quality permit unless Amazon commits to clean backup power alternatives, and to demand Governor Shapiro reinstate the clean energy conditions he originally proposed before any further permits or tax benefits are approved.