Waterford ― Within the last two weeks, a group of residents met twice to share concerns over a proposed data center to be constructed on the Millstone Power Station property.

The 64 who attended the first meeting, and the 18 at the second, discussed their concerns about energy instability, environmental damage, noise and general lack of information during the initial planning phases of the project.

Additionally, a petition from Millstone owner Dominion to carve out space for the data center, is currently before the Connecticut Siting Council. Worried meeting attendees successfully petitioned the council to extend the deadline for public comment in order to allow more time for input.

“We were terrified of this petition,” meeting organizer Bryan Sayles said Wednesday.

That petition would give NE Edge, LLC, which is trying to develop its first data center, the opportunity to install the facility on the Millstone property.

“The entire site is an electric generating facility site, so we have jurisdiction over that area,” the council’s executive director, Melanie Bachman, said Wednesday.

If Dominion had not sought this ruling, the siting council would control the approval process for the proposed data center, instead of the town, Bachman added.

If the council approves Dominion’s request, state and local agencies, such as the local Planning and Zoning Commission and state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, will have the power to accept or reject the permits needed for the project.

She said she could not respond to concerns from residents, as they involved the data center, not the Millstone site.

A state law enacted in 2021 encouraged data centers to come to Connecticut by offering tax incentives to developers. As part of the program, the companies must sign agreements that outline how much money they’ll give to the towns they want to build in.

In February, the town began discussing an agreement with NE Edge. Per the agreement, NE Edge would pay the town $231 million over a 30-year period. The Board of Selectmen has approved the agreement, but is unknown if First Selectman Rob Brule has signed it.

Brule did not respond to multiple requests to discuss the status of the project over the past 10 days. NE Edge would not comment on the project this week.

Construction would include a pair of two-story data buildings, that would provide approximately 1.5 million square feet of storage for cloud and data servers. The centers would be supplied with energy directly from Millstone.

NE Edge would construct a third building, a switchyard, that would receive power from Millstone and distribute it to the data center.

Those who attended the meetings raised questions of whether the center would take valuable energy away from the electric grid and where that loss in clean energy would be made up, Sayles said.

“When you look at the scale for this project and the bill, you’re looking at an enormous amount of energy use that should be used to decarbonize our state and our region,“ Sayles said. ”If you look just at what the energy demand is, this data center is projected to use up to 300 megawatts of energy.“

Back in February, Millstone Site Vice President Michael O’Connor said the data center would stand to use 200 to 300 megawatts of the 2,100 megawatts that Millstone produces.

For example, Sayles said the power used by the data center would negate the 304 megawatts of energy that Connecticut’s first offshore wind farm, Revolution Wind, will eventually provide to the state.

“When you start taking away clean energy, then you’ve got to backfill using energy that’s produced with fossil fuels,” Sayles said.

Meanwhile, the chief concern since the project’s onset has been over noise pollution.

“There’s little in the way of information about noise control,” Sayles said.

The agreement with the town calls for a noise analysis conducted by NE Edge, Brule said back in February. It is unknown if that study has yet been done.

Sayles said his initial motivation for organizing the meetings was that he and other members had expressed frustration about their inability to access information about the project.

“This is something that is so impactful for the whole town, he needs to do a better job of providing information to the whole town,” Sayles said about Brule. “Why didn’t we know about it?”

“We’re asking them for transparency at this point,” he added.

Former Waterford First Selectman and Chief Executive of the Eastern Connecticut Chamber of Commerce Tony Sheridan said he thinks NE Edge has been transparent so so far.

“Any company that wants to develop in this day and age, has to have public meetings and explain what’s going on,” Sheridan said. “So far, from my perspective, I think the company has responded appropriately.”

d.drainville@theday.com