Lowell Residents Win Stay Against Data Center
A coalition of residents of Lowell, Massachusetts represented by the Environmental Justice Law and Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School won a significant court victory in their lawsuit challenging the expansion of a 352,000 square foot data center in the city’s Sacred Heart and Back Central neighborhoods. On Aug. 10, the Massachusetts Superior Court issued an order staying further installations of industrial diesel generators relied on by the data center as a backup power source while the litigation proceeds.
“Markley has been in Lowell for 11 years and has had increasingly profound impacts on the community over the past decade,” said Lowell resident and plaintiff Jacob Fortes. “This ruling is a small victory in a long struggle but an important vindication for residents who have faced this injustice for so long.”
The order issued by Judge William C. Barrett grants the residents’ motion to stay enforcement of the latest air permit issued by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (“MassDEP”) to the data center owner and operator, Markley Group, LLC (“Markley”). In support of its decision, the Court found that the residents were likely to succeed in showing that MassDEP erred in denying seven of the plaintiffs’ legal standing to challenge the air permit through the department’s adjudicatory appeals process, and that MassDEP misconstrued its regulations in restricting the remaining resident to pursuing claims raised in his individual written comment letter. “The plaintiffs argue, and the court agrees, that these errors deprived the plaintiffs of a meaningful review of their claims,” Judge Barrett’s decision states.
“When the City of Lowell failed to take action to curtail Markley’s impact on the neighborhood, I believed the MassDEP would step in to help,” said Lowell resident and plaintiff Nancy Fortes. “Instead, MassDEP told me I had no standing to appeal this permit. A diesel engine that spews black smoke when firing and is 84 feet from my house is standing enough. How MassDEP could get it so wrong is beyond me.”
“Our clients are every day forced to endure air pollution and intense noise from Markley’s diesel generators and cooling towers yet have been denied a hearing on their challenges for over a year,” explained Asha Brundage-Moore, visiting clinic lecturer in law who co-teaches the clinic with Professor Stephanie Safdi ’13. “The Court’s recognition that our clients were improperly denied standing to challenge development taking place in their own backyards is an important reminder of the Commonwealth’s obligation to maintain access to justice for its residents.”
The Court’s decision also recognized that the “plaintiffs’ alleged harm is particularly concerning given that this community is an Environmental Justice population” per formal designation by the Commonwealth. The Court went on to explain that “[c]ommunities like this are often overlooked and left out of the administrative process,” which is why Massachusetts has adopted laws and policies intended to guarantee meaningful participation by members of Environmental Justice populations in government decisions that shape their communities. The Court recognized that based on the information before it on the residents’ motion, “it appears that the attempts to engage with the community were lacking.”
“For too long, our neighborhood has been locked out of decisions that directly impact our health and daily lives. MassDEP and Markley completely failed to engage residents with honesty or transparency, bypassing our rights and shutting us out of the process,” said Lowell resident and plaintiff Mary Wambui. “This ruling underscores why environmental justice protections aren't just bureaucratic boxes to check — they are a vital safeguard to ensure overburdened communities like Sacred Heart are finally seen, heard, and respected.”
“The Court’s ruling affirms the importance of transparency and public participation in the permitting process — particularly when it comes to communities like Sacred Heart that have long been overburdened by pollution and excluded from decision-making,” said Patrick Flynn, a summer legal fellow with the clinic. “In issuing this stay, the Court agreed that the state likely failed to meet its duty to give our clients a fair shake in their challenges to the ongoing expansion of the data center in their backyards.”
Data centers like Markley’s require immense electricity inputs to operate servers. It has become commonplace for data centers to install behind-the-meter industrial generators powered by diesel fuel to ensure uninterrupted access to power and ensure that servers stay online for the data center’s customers. “Although relatively cheap for the company, these generators are a serious concern for public health and the environment,” explained Augusto Colin, summer legal fellow with the clinic. “In addition to their greenhouse gas emissions, these polluting generators emit high levels of particulate matter and hazardous air pollutants that put the health of local residents at real risk. They also compound intense noise emitted by data center cooling systems, which disrupt the lives of residents like our clients and prevent them from enjoying their own neighborhood.”
The air permit challenged by the residents’ group Honest Future for Lowell would authorize Markley to install and operate 27 diesel generators, the majority of them immediately adjacent to the neighborhood park and ballfield and others within 100 feet of residents’ homes, along with 16 cooling towers to maintain temperatures for the facility servers. According to Honest Future for Lowell’s complaint, this is the third such air permit that Markley has obtained from MassDEP since November 2023, each seeking to incrementally expand the data center’s generation and cooling equipment as Markley has “expanded Data Center operations to capture market share for data storage and compute services spurred by the growth in artificial intelligence.”
Also at issue in the lawsuit is a side agreement, referred to as an “Administrative Consent Order,” signed by MassDEP and Markley in September 2025. According to the complaint, the consent order sidestepped laws that prevented Markley from installing additional diesel generators before it had final permit approval and while Honest Future for Lowell’s challenge to the air permit was pending. Monday’s decision by the Superior Court recognizes that Markley installed four diesel generators under the contested consent order.
“This isn’t just about four generators. It’s about a facility that has kept expanding piece by piece in an Environmental Justice community while residents have had to fight for a seat at the table,” said Adam Reynolds, environmental justice legal fellow at Conservation Law Foundation and co-counsel with the clinic in the litigation. “Environmental justice protections are supposed to give residents a real say before more air and noise pollution is approved, not after the next piece of an expansion is already in place.”
Lowell is no stranger to controversy involving data centers. In March, the city passed a temporary moratorium on new construction and expansion of data centers for one year to allow the city to study appropriate land use controls. Honest Future for Lowell championed the moratorium, adopted 10-0 by the City Council. The group has continued to advocate for policy changes at the local and state level that center the welfare and voices of residents and ensure that the Commonwealth’s commitments to environmental justice and greenhouse gas reductions are not subordinated in the race to build out artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the fight over Markley’s plan to expand its Lowell data center continues in the courts. “The issuance of this stay preserving the status quo is only the beginning of this litigation,” explained Brundage-Moore. “Our clients are invigorated by this early win and excited for the clinic’s student attorneys to pick up the reins as they return at the start of fall term.”
“This fight is about our neighborhood,” said Lowell resident and plaintiff Holly Flynn. “It has also shown me the incredible strength that can come from a community standing together.”
The Environmental Justice Law and Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School provides an opportunity for students to participate in full-service legal support of community-based organizations, Tribal Nations, and nonprofit coalitions seeking to advance environmental justice and related concerns such as tribal sovereignty, environmental protection, public health, civil rights, and participatory environmental governance.
Honest Future for Lowell is jointly represented in the ongoing appeal by the clinic, the Conservation Law Foundation, and Fitch Law Partners. Honest Future for Lowell is also supported by Slingshot, which provides training, resources, and organizing support for communities most impacted by environmental pollution.
