A public hearing will be held Oct. 6 at 4 p.m. at the Tamaqua Municipal Building into the ordinance drafted by the Eastern Schuylkill Regional Planning group about data centers.

Then, at 7 p.m., each of the four member municipalities of the ESRP – the Borough of Tamaqua, and the townships of Rush, Schuylkill and Walker – will each hold separate meetings at the Tamaqua Borough Building to consider the new law.

The announcement of the hearing and the meetings was made by Chris Reidlinger, the township’s solicitor, who tried to answer questions Wednesday night from the audience but could not because he did not draft the ordinance.

While conceding each municipality must make a place for the data centers, one woman said each municipality must make the requirements stringent enough “they will go somewhere else” to build their data center.

Supervisor Gary Feathers said there is only one place in the township where a data center could be built, and the location is far away from homes.

The woman asked if the water that would serve the data centers would be self-contained. Reidlinger said the requirements would make it difficult if the water weren’t self-contained,

She asked about the decibel level. Reidlinger said he believed it was 75 decibels. The woman said that was too high.

“You have to protect the public from the water, noise, decommissioning, and other issues,” she said, “These data centers cannot damage our quality of life.”

The public hearing will give the public the opportunity to voice their opinions on the new ordinance, Reidlinger said.

In other business, the supervisors:

• Approved a $50,000 state Department of Community and Economic Development loan to purchase a new municipal plow truck.

• Voted to purchase three park benches from Highwood USA in Hometown for the Mary D ballfield. The benches will be made of all-weather composite material made by Highwood.

• Voted to enter into a contract with Berkheimer and Associates to collect the garbage collection fee. The supervisors had discontinued the previous contract with Pennsylvania Municipal Services because of difficulties.

• The supervisors voted to allow Mark Buccieri, the township road foreman, to create a list of potential workers he can call into work on a day-by-day basis.