Mayor Calls For Data Center Ban In North Shore City

SALEM, MA — Salem Mayor Dominick Pangallo compared building of AI data centers to the polluted legacy of tanneries, coal power plants and sewage treatment facilities in proposing a ban on data center construction in the Witch City.

Pangallo proposed the ban as a zoning ordinance to the City Council, citing the city's size, density and economic viability and desire to remain as affordable as possible for current residents and industry workers.

"The impacts of these types of facilities are well documented and clear," Pangallo said in a statement posted on social media. "They are not impacts we should voluntarily invite into our community.

"For centuries, Salem has borne the brunt of an industrial legacy handed down from generation to generation. Tanneries and grease works. Coal power plants and sewage treatment facilities. Gas tanks and switchyards. I do not believe we should volunteer ourselves or the generations of Salem residents who will follow us to continue that legacy."

Pangallo's proposal comes on the heels of Gov. Maura Healey's executive order forcing AI data center facilities to gain local approval and be energy self-sufficient before any state permits would be granted to allow construction.

• MA Governor's Order Makes Data Centers Subject To Local Approval

Pangallo said allowing data centers in the 8-square-mile city would invite "so many more negative impacts than positive ones" and could prove impossible to regulate once operational because of "litigation or legislation by those who stand to profit from them."

"We live with the inheritance of our industrial past every day here," he said. "That activity brought jobs, but it also left poison in its wake.

"It added enormously to the cost to build new homes on those sites today — in some places, it even made it impossible to build homes."

"There may be suitable places for AI data centers in our Commonwealth and in our country. Salem is not one of them."