New Brunswick·NewProponents of a data centre for the Spruce Lake Industrial Park held an open house to answer questions about the project. The co-founders of the two companies, VoltaGrid and Beacon AI Centres, instead were faced with a crowd of residents challenging them on the impacts of the project. Residents came with questions, asked for commitments from companiesNipun Tiwari · CBC News · Posted: Nov 06, 2025 7:23 AM EST | Last Updated: 7 minutes agoListen to this articleEstimated 6 minutesNathan Ough and Joseph Shovlin, (pictured on the right, with Ough closer) VoltaGrid and Beacon AI’s respective co-founders, held an information session Wednesday night, intending an informal open house but were instead questioned by community members. (Nipun Tiwari/CBC)Residents of a rural Saint John community grilled two company co-founders proposing a data centre for a recently expanded industrial park near their neighbourhood. The proposal comes from Calgary-based Beacon AI Centers and Volta Grid, based in Texas, who plan to build the data centre on a 120-hectare parcel in the Spruce Lake Industrial Park, approved for expansion in July despite significant pushback from the community. Spruce Lake vote delayed again after opponents wrap up concerns about expansion planOverflow crowd pours out worries to Saint John council about Spruce Lake planData centres are facilities with massive computer servers that store and process vast amounts of data for companies, governments and cloud platforms. They power much of the internet — running websites, apps and AI systems like Google’s Gemini and ChatGPT. Nathan Ough and Joseph Shovlin, VoltaGrid and Beacon AI’s respective co-founders, held an information session Wednesday night. It was intended to be an informal open house to allow Lorneville residents to ask questions at their local community centre. An hour into the session, residents set up rows of chairs, turning it into a two-hour “townhall.” The two co-founders fielded questions from a room packed with over 100 people — nearly all of whom don’t want the project move forward. The Spruce Lake Industrial Park expansion will make hundreds of hectares in the area ‘pad ready’ for industrial development to attract large businesses operations to the city. (Roger Cosman/CBC)Residents asked about how much water the project will use, the size of the building, noise and what contingency plans are in place should anything happen to residential drinking wells. The company heads were not able to answer some of the posed questions. Ian MacKinnon, Saint John Industrial Park’s director, attended the session, as did Green Party Leader David Coon. No city councillors were present. Unanswered questions about promised ‘economic driver’Ough spoke to reporters and to the community about common criticisms about data centres, including their drain on power grids and that they don’t meaningfully provide long-term, permanent jobs beyond construction. He said the project will be a “gargantuan economic driver” that would bring over 200 permanent, full-time jobs. It will be fueled by an on-site, natural-gas generating system. This, according to Ough, “will generate about half of the power consumption of the data centre, really mitigating any grid disruption risks.” He also said the facility will consume nearly zero water. Residents said this doesn’t square with the promise that came with expansion: that it would only be open to non-emitting projects. Ough said the plant would use what he called a “reactive catalyst” that would essentially eliminate pollutants. “We’re committing to 98 per cent emissions abatement on the site, which would be the cleanest burning natural gas power plant in Canada,” he said. Lorneville residents questioned the two company co-founders about impacts to resources and community benefits. They also asked for commitments. (Nipun Tiwari/CBC)Residents don’t believe the data centre can operate without consuming a large amount of water. Community leader Leah Alexander challenged MacKinnon on emissions. “Ian, can you speak to how many times we were promised ‘no smokestacks’ by city staff and council,” Alexander asked. MacKinnon said he could not speak to the question. Ough and Shovlin said the data centre will use what’s called a “closed-loop system” — a cooling system that needs liquid, which would manage the heat caused by equipment in the data centre. Neither could say how much water this loop would use, but said they would provide the information as part of the environmental impact assessment process. Many asked: what’s in this for Lorneville? Community benefits were discussed during the public hearing process before council, but there are currently no clear ideas on what these will be. Ough said he would like to give something back. “We’re going to be the best possible citizens for this project,” he said. Community members brought up various potential benefits. Some mentioned compensation to the community. Many attendees said that any benefit should go specifically to Lorneville and its residents. Leah Alexander, one of the leaders of the community opposition against the industrial park expansion, says there’s still a lot the community doesn’t know. (Nipun Tiwari/CBC)Shovlin asked what residents consider fair community compensation. The two were not given a figure, with some saying the best compensation would be for the project to not go forward. “I think the fair amount is our wetland intact and our ancient 400-year-old trees left standing,” Alexander said to applause. “You can’t replace these. You can’t replace our quality of life. You can’t replace the use of hiking trails and quiet oceanside community. You will not replace that.”Community will fight ‘every step’ of the process The expansion’s Environmental Impact Assessment was approved in August, giving it the full green light. The industrial parks group said at the time that it would be forming a new liaison committee to engage with the community. The group met once in August but have not had a meeting since. MacKinnon said this is because he couldn’t reveal details of any coming projects in that time. Community members asked for other commitments as well, including a 30-day community review of the EIA, so the community can have independent experts review the results and give them time to respond, Alexander said. Shovlin said the companies will “work within the statutory parameters, whatever they are.” He also said he’s “not saying no” and would revisit the issue. Alexander also asked if the proponents would commit to a 30-metre buffer between the development and wetlands and watercourse. The regulations for the site only mandate a 15-metre buffer and permits for anything closer.Nathan Ough said he is committed to giving back to the community and that the companies want to be the best citizens for the project. (Nipun Tiwari/CBC)Ough said he would not just “make commitments.” “That’s not how I work,” he said. “What I promised myself when I came up here was not to feed you bullshit and to give the truth of what I can and cannot do. What I can’t do is say yes or no right now.” But Ough said the two companies would interact with Lorneville residents through the process. “We should also be honest. We’re going to fight you every step of this process,” Alexander said. Ough said there are no plans to expand the data centre in the future. Alexander, speaking with reporters after the session, said she was happy that Ough and Shovlin were open to answering questions. “We still feel like there’s a lot of details that we’re missing, just like basic answers to questions like the size of the footprint of the project, how many buildings are in the project,” she said. “Those things that we thought would be kind of simple answers that there’s still no definitive numbers on — just a lot of questions that are still unanswered at this point.” Ough said he felt positive about the outcome, calling it “time well spent.” ABOUT THE AUTHORNipun Tiwari is a reporter assigned to community engagement and based in Saint John, New Brunswick. He can be reached at nipun.tiwari@cbc.ca.
Saint John residents turn data centre open house into town hall to question proponents
