Waterford ― The Connecticut Siting Council decided Thursday not to hold a public hearing on a controversial petition from Millstone owner Dominion Energy Nuclear Connecticut that would modify the boundaries of the Millstone property for use by proposed data center.

During the virtual meeting, council members voted 3-2 to deny the seven requests for a public hearing.

After making a motion to deny the hearing, Councilor Robert Silvestri said his understanding of the petition from Dominion is that it is seeking to adjust its boundaries by removing about 55 acres from what was previously the power station’s 546 acres.

Approval of the construction of the data center would instead be up to the town, he said.

“I appreciate the comments and requests that we have seen from the public, but from what I have determined, (the requests) are really focused on a data center and a switch yard.”

In February, the town agreed to a deal with NE Edge LLC that signaled it was open to the idea of hosting two 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 from Millstone.

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

Councilor John Morissette also voted to deny the requests for a public hearing, agreeing with Silvestri that the data center and switch yard were not related to the boundary change request.

But he did raise questions about the boundary change.

“Does it impact security? Why was the original 55 acres included in the original site as certificated? Was there a thought back then that the site would be used for another generator?” he asked.

He said those concerns could be answered through additional questions posed to Dominion by the siting council.

“I don’t think a hearing would help, primarily because I think it would get bogged down with the data center,“ Morissette said, adding that a hearing, if held, would have to be limited to discussion of the boundary request and ”the data center would be off limits.“

Council members set a deadline for a decision on the boundary request for Jan. 24, 2024.

d.drainville@theday.com