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Doing nature study or creative writing can prompt Anna Clement to hold class for her four kids in the backyard - the outdoors "brings them joy," she says - but now she worries about a potential threat to the peace and quiet.
The same worry is being felt just beyond the trees at the edge of the backyard, where there is a public school attended by thousands of children. It's Parkland, the fifth-largest high school in the state.
Superintendent Mark Madson wrote about the same concern that Clement feels as she home-schools her 10-year-old quadruplets: Will noise from a 1.5-million-square-foot data center proposed on 410 acres across the street disrupt children's education?
"There is a low humming that that you can't measure by decibels," said Clement, whose home is in South Whitehall Township, Lehigh County.
"Noise & vibration" was listed first in a slew of concerns about the data center -- dubbed "Project Atlas" -- that Madson put in a letter to the township in May.
"Low-frequency data center noise easily penetrates building walls and travels hundreds of feet," said the letter, which was obtained by a resident via a Right-to-Know request and shared with The Center Square.
As the data center boom continues unabated in Pennsylvania and the nation, noise levels have become a major point of friction. Lawsuits have been filed. And in South Whitehall, a township-funded "sound propagation study" recently was finished.
The study found that at night, predicted sound from the proposed data center exceeded the measured existing ambient sound levels by 30 decibels -- which "is generally perceived to be eight times louder."
Parkland's 3,200-plus student body is present when school is in session. But residents like Clement and her family will be near the data center 24/7.
Besides the noise, she is worried about traffic, as well as a seemingly abrupt proposal to install public water service in the area, now served by wells.