By KVIA ABC 7
DataOne, the Microsoft-linked New Jersey datacenter recently hit with a $1 million fine for running unpermitted generators, emitted large amounts of health-harming air pollution for nearly a year before state regulators stepped in, according to public records obtained by Floodlight.
The Vineland facility’s 62 gas-fired generators became public in August after a Floodlight/Guardian visual investigation found them operating without permits. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection fined the company over the fleet, but didn’t disclose how long the generators had been operating, nor how much air pollution they had released into the surrounding community over the past year.
Floodlight sent technical data about the generators — obtained through public records requests — to two experts to calculate the site’s emissions.
“Our best estimate is that the generators emitted about 140 tons of NOx,” said Xiaomeng Jin, an assistant professor at Rutgers Department of Environmental Sciences. Her analysis would rank DataOne in the state’s top five NOx polluters of 2025, per EPA data.
NOx is a dangerous group of smog-producing gases linked to asthma, heart attacks and even premature death. It’s “the most important air pollutant in the U.S. that affects most people,” Jin said.
Longtime Vineland resident Tiffany Leone-Vespa lives about a mile from the data center and said the noise from the generators sounds like an airplane in the back of her house.
“What health problems might I face in the future? Because I’ve been exposed to all of that. My kids have been exposed to it,” she said.
The site’s potential NOx emissions are even larger, according to Jin and Bruce Buckheit — a former EPA air enforcement division chief. Both concluded that at full use, DataOne’s fleet could emit more than 1,500 tons of NOx per year. That is nearly twice the amount that the Linden Cogeneration gas-fired power plant, New Jersey’s largest NOx emitter, is allowed to emit.
Operating the generators “results in very high levels of air pollution,” said Buckheit.
New Jersey labels any facility capable of emitting more than 25 tons of NOx per year a “major source” and DataOne’s potential emissions are “well over” that limit, Buckheit said. Obtaining a major source permit requires extensive environmental reviews, best available pollution controls and public comment periods — all before construction can even begin.
That didn’t happen at DataOne, despite the operation being capable of emitting more than half the NOx put out by New Jersey’s entire power sector.
“That is basically offsetting some of the air quality improvements [regulators] have achieved for decades,” Jin said.
DataOne did not respond to Floodlight’s emissions analysis. Instead, its spokesperson sent the same statement as they did in response to NJDEP’s decision to fine them, saying the company is “transitioning to low-emission, quiet fuel cells as part of the site’s permanent power solution and have the necessary approvals in place for this solution.”
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