New Jersey fined a Vineland data center a record $1.07 million for 62 unpermitted backup generators; in Secaucus, diesel at a data center spilled into a creek above the Superfund-listed Hackensack River. Legislation signed over the summer moves to count and bill data center power.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection on Tuesday fined the DataOne data center in Vineland $1.07 million for building and operating 62 natural-gas generators without air permits. DEP called the penalty a record and ordered the company to "immediately apply for and obtain the required permits or cease operations."

The first units appear to have been turned on in October 2025, according to maintenance logs obtained by Floodlight News; how long they have run is unclear. The AI company Nebius is set to be the site's tenant. The city had approved a four-phase buildout of 2,647,628 square feet there in 2024, according to planning records. A data intelligence company captured thermal drone footage in late June that appears to show 25 units running. When DEP inspectors visited on July 29, they found generators operating without permits, according to DEP's September 22 release.

Vineland issued its first stop-work order on August 6, over a liquefied natural gas tank installed without permits, according to documents obtained by WHYY. A second order came on August 10, covering the Bloom Energy units. The second order cited "no prior approvals, plans or permits," according to the WHYY documents. The orders carried $2,000-a-day penalties, appealable to the Construction Board of Appeals of Cumberland County. DataOne described the halted work as "limited to equipment placement work under the approved site plan" and said it did not expect "this temporary pause to affect our construction and delivery timeline."

The Vineland Planning Board voted 8-1 on August 17 to approve the project's next phase, WHYY reported.

Vineland's City Council tabled a $6.2 million revolving-loan resolution in December 2025, according to the Cape May County Herald, and adopted a five-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement on January 27, according to the Courier Post. The council later approved the loan, but DataOne canceled the agreement amid public opposition, according to the Pinelands Alliance.

Earlier this year, DataOne pursued a permit for more than 30 engines in an application DEP returned with deficiency notices; the company withdrew it in May. No application was ever filed for the 62 interim units that powered the site the whole time, according to DEP. Also in May, Nebius signed a master fuel-cell agreement with Bloom Energy that could generate up to $2.6 billion in service fees over three 10-year phases, with a first project of 328 megawatts slated to go live this year, the companies announced. Nebius describes the fuel cells on its project site as "clean, quiet, and efficient" and promises "zero impact on area ratepayers."

Federal and state law required DataOne "to have a final permit before bringing those generators onsite, and certainly before firing them up," said Bruce Buckheit, who formerly led air-enforcement at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In a statement Tuesday, the company said it disagrees with "the state's determination that the ... temporary generators are operating in violation of the law" but will apply for the permits and is in communication with the department about the fuel cell transition.

The generators share the site with Bloom Energy equipment and a liquefied natural gas tank; counted together as a single source, the site could need a stricter federal permit, Rutgers professor Steve Gold told WHYY.

In Secaucus, a Spill and a Dispute Over Who Governs

On the evening of Friday, September 11, Equinix — a global data-center operator — detected "a fuel release from a storage tank outside our NY2 facility in Secaucus, NJ," according to the company's statement. The diesel tanks power generators at the expanding Hartz Way campus while construction continues, according to Patch.

DEP put the release at roughly 5,000 gallons; Bill Sheehan of Hackensack Riverkeeper, a watershed advocacy group, who toured the area on September 13, put the total at 5,500.

The diesel ran from the tank into Anderson Creek, which runs through a 52-acre tidal wetland. DEP said at the time that the spill was contained in the creek and never reached the Hackensack River, which the federal government listed as a Superfund site in 2022.

Per the company's statement, the Secaucus Fire Department answered Equinix's call and alerted DEP and the Hudson Regional Health Commission, and the company said it engaged Clean Harbors, a cleanup contractor. The DEP and the U.S. Coast Guard monitored the Hackensack River, with protective booms at the mouth of the creek; the agency also reported no drinking-water intakes in the area and no wildlife impacts. Cleanup crews had pulled roughly 3,500 gallons from the creek by Monday, according to WPST.

Mayor Michael Gonnelli said on site that a computer glitch was to blame, according to News 12. Sheehan told CBS he had been told the same glitch was at work: "the computer was calling for oil." Equinix later attributed the release to two failed valves in the system that filters the fuel, according to Fortune. "We regret that this occurred and the concern it has caused the community," the company said in the same statement.

As of September 21, the state had announced no fine or enforcement action over the spill, according to WPST.

On September 16, Secaucus Mayor Michael Gonnelli wrote to Jill Hirsch, president of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, the regional zoning agency for the Meadowlands district. Gonnelli wrote that the township "would like to pause additional applications for data centers to allow time for further discussion and analysis." In August, before the spill, the township newsletter told residents "Whether we like it or not, data centers are here to stay," according to Patch. Equinix, for its part, notes it "has been operating in Secaucus for more than two decades."

The arrangement dates to the 1960s, when Secaucus joined what was then the Meadowlands Commission; today the authority controls zoning for 88 percent of the township, according to Patch. A spokeswoman for Hirsch answered that Secaucus left the authority's master plan in 2015, and local approvals have been the township's job since, according to Gothamist. The authority has invited Gonnelli to meet this week, according to NJ.com. The CoreSite application for 215 County Avenue — a tenth data center in a town with nine operating — is pending before the township, according to a Patch report on the application. Gonnelli calls the authority "totally responsible."

At the federal level, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed on July 7 to end mandatory public notice for minor-source air permits, the category that covers data-center backup generators. Comments on the proposal closed August 21. Close to 200 organizations spanning environmental, health and community groups urged the agency to withdraw it, as did a coalition of state attorneys general representing more than a dozen states. In Congress, the House passed the Ratepayer Protection Act 417-3 on September 16, according to Politico; the bill stalled in the Senate two days later, according to Roll Call.

New Jersey starts counting backup-power permits in November

A law signed by Governor Mikie Sherrill on August 27 requires every data center in New Jersey to report its backup-power systems and their permit information to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. The law carries no penalty for a center that fails to report; it runs for three years, after which the Board of Public Utilities decides whether to make the requirement permanent. Facilities operating at least a year file within three months; newer ones have six.

A second law, signed July 7, establishes a separate rate class for large data centers and requires them to cover the costs of their energy demand and related grid infrastructure rather than shifting those costs to other ratepayers.

The first reports — what is running behind each data center, and under what permit — are due November 27.

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Sources

• Carly Baldwin, Patch, "Data Center Spills 5,500 Gallons Of Diesel Into Secaucus Creek" (September 14, 2026)

• Christine Sloan, CBS New York, "Thousands of gallons of diesel spill from AI data center in Secaucus, N.J." (September 14, 2026)

• Floodlight News, "One of East Coast's largest data centers accused of 'violating federal law'" (August 27, 2026)

• Fortune, "Americans' data center fears are coming true — a New Jersey location just leaked 5,500 gallons of diesel" (September 17, 2026)

• Gothamist, "Data center company that spilled fuel into the Meadowlands plans another center next door" (September 18, 2026)

• Joe Smith, Courier Post, "Vineland data center town hall promises 'factual project details'" (January 16, 2026)

• Larry Higgs, NJ.com, "Diesel spill from NJ data center still being cleaned up after 5,000 gallons leaked into waterway" (September 15, 2026)

• Matt Cortina, NorthJersey.com/The Record, "Secaucus data center fuel leak spills into local creek" (September 13, 2026; updated September 15, 2026)

• Nebius, "Nebius and Bloom Energy partner to power AI infrastructure build-out" (May 20, 2026)

• Nebius, "Nebius x Vineland, New Jersey" project microsite (accessed September 23, 2026)

• New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, News Release 26/P44, "Sherrill Administration Issues Record $1 Million Fine to DataOne Data Center in Vineland for Building and Operating 62 Power Generators Without DEP Permits" (September 22, 2026)

• New Jersey Legislature, Data Center Fair Share Act, P.L.2026, c.32 (S-731/A-796) (July 7, 2026)

• New Jersey Legislature, P.L.2026, c.75 (S-3379/A-4096) (August 27, 2026)

• New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, "Who We Are" (accessed September 23, 2026)

• News 12 New Jersey, "Secaucus mayor says 'computer glitch' cause of thousands of gallons of diesel to spill from Secaucus data center" (September 14, 2026)

• NJ.com, "N.J.'s largest AI data center hit with a stunning $1M fine for pollution" (September 22, 2026; updated September 23, 2026)

• Paige Britt, NJ.com, "N.J. mayor called data centers 'as important as grocery stores.' Now he wants them paused." (September 22, 2026)

• Patch, "Secaucus Mayor Now Wants A 'Pause' On Data Centers" (September 16, 2026)

• Patch, follow-up on the Secaucus–NJSEA dispute, the CoreSite application and federal ratepayer legislation (September 19, 2026)

• Pinelands Alliance, "A Town Hall Too Late — Vineland Data Center" (February 11, 2026)

• Politico, "House overwhelmingly passes bill to shield ratepayers from data centers" (September 16, 2026)

• Roll Call, "Ratepayer bill aimed at data center buildout blocked in Senate" (September 17, 2026)

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "EPA Adds the Lower Hackensack River to the Superfund National Priorities List" (September 7, 2022)

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "Minor New Source Review Program Air Permitting Public Participation Requirements for State Implementation Plans," 91 FR 41591 (proposed July 7, 2026)

• Vince Conti, Cape May County Herald, "Vineland Tables $6M Loan for New Data Center" (January 4, 2026)

• Vineland Planning Board, Resolution No. 6652, App. No. PBA-24-00022 (2024)

• WHYY, "Vineland data center allegedly operates gas generators" (August 28, 2026)

• WHYY, "Vineland data center plan approved" (August 18, 2026)

• WHYY, "Vineland, N.J. issues stop-work order to parts of data center" (August 14, 2026)

• WPST, "NJ's largest data center spill ever, over a week later, still no fine" (September 21, 2026)

Illustration: NJBallot (AI-generated)