Northeastern Pennsylvania, PA, United States: Residents fear negative impacts on water resources as data centers are proposed across Northeast Pa.
When a local bottled water company drew down its well in 2014 near the Barton Brothers Property in Covington and Clifton townships, Round Swamp went dry, Wendy Bolognesi remembered.
“This whole swamp was like the water had just been sucked out of it. I had never seen anything like it,” said Bolognesi. Her family has owned the 772-acre property since the early 1900s.
The swamp is saturated again. A natural spring bubbles up through sand from the ground. Canteen cups hang from a nearby tree. Bolognesi and relatives, Thatcher and Walter Barton, filled the cups and drank the water straight from the earth.
The family worries the swamps could run dry again if a data center campus is built on adjacent sites that border the property on three sides in both townships.
![‘[Drink] it straight out of the tap’., Researchers alarmed after finding 'higher than anticipated' contaminations in bottled water: ' it straight ou](https://blue-community.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/water-414x224.jpg "'[Drink] it straight out of the tap'. 4")
