Keel Infrastructure Carbon Node East (Panther Creek) data center, Nesquehoning, Pennsylvania

Keel Infrastructure, formerly known as Bitfarms, is waiting on state water permits for Carbon Node East, a 350 megawatt data center it wants to build next to its Panther Creek power plant in Nesquehoning, Carbon County, Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection held a public meeting and hearing on the project on August 20, 2026, at Panther Valley High School, and is taking written comments on the permits through September 4, 2026. If the permits are granted, Keel expects construction on the four-building campus to start sometime in 2027 and take up to 20 months, using about 400 workers.

Keel says the finished data center would employ 297 people full time, in jobs including security, janitorial, administrative, manufacturing and operator roles, with no plan to cut that number over time; the company has also said construction alone would cost $7.5 billion before computers are installed. Keel promises a closed-loop cooling system, but holds a permit to discharge 18,600 gallons a day from equipment condensation and would draw about 7,500 gallons a day from the public water system for employees; filling the cooling loop the first time would take 700,000 gallons bought from the borough, or trucked in if that would hurt the residential supply. The group Save Carbon County calls the discharge permit a "bait-and-switch" by a company that promised a data center that would not consume water, and says the project threatens Nesquehoning Creek and the Lehigh River.

Nesquehoning's zoning board granted a special exception for the project in February 2026, the Carbon County Planning Commission recommended conditional rejection in April because the plan did not yet meet borough ordinances, and the borough planning commission voted for conditional preliminary approval in May, giving Keel a list of items to answer. Borough council voted 5-0 in June 2026 to approve the project's sewage facilities plan, projecting 18,662 gallons a day of wastewater to the borough treatment plant. Keel has said it will pay for the PPL power infrastructure the site needs and repair any roads damaged during construction, and that noise from the running campus will stay within the borough's 65 decibel daytime limit and 55 decibel evening limit. Nesquehoning Borough Council must give clean preliminary plan approval before Keel can begin site work, and the state must still decide the stormwater and stream encroachment permits after its September 4, 2026 comment deadline.