Brookhaven Supervisor Dan Panico calls for 18-month moratorium on AI data centers, denounces flyer

Brookhaven Supervisor Dan Panico plans to ask town officials to approve an 18-month moratorium on AI data centers, even as he denounced as false and misleading a flyer claiming the town plans to rezone an unidentified residential area for a data complex.

Panico, in a phone interview Wednesday, said his call for a moratorium was prompted by concerns about the amount of electricity AI centers could draw from the Long Island power grid. The moratorium would buy time for Brookhaven to work with state and Suffolk County officials and other towns to develop guidelines for the emerging AI industry, he said.

A Manhattan company, WF Industrial XII, also known as Wildflower Ltd., filed plans last year for a proposed Yaphank data center with the New York Independent System Operator, which manages the state power grid, Newsday previously reported. Brookhaven has not received a formal application from the company for an AI center, Panico said.

Panico said he may ask the town board to vote on the moratorium at its meeting Thursday night.

“I want to work with the state" and the Long Island Power Authority, Panico said. "I want to look at the zoning and our code because ... our laws also need to keep up with that change and provide safeguards along the way.

“It’s not an individual town issue. It’s a regional issue. Our electric power rates are already way too high and people are paying too much.”

Panico's comments came in response to questions about a flyer circulated online this week by the grassroots Brookhaven Landfill Action and Remediation Group. The flyer calls on residents to attend Thursday's town board meeting and speak out against an AI data center project.

The flyer, featuring an image of a generic building labeled "Data Center," claims the town is considering rezoning residential areas in an unnamed community to make way for an AI center.  

But Panico said no such rezoning plan was on the town board agenda for Thursday. He called the flyer "social media manipulation" that was riddled with errors and appeared to be AI-generated.

Monique Fitzgerald, of Bellport, a BLARG member, said the group put out the flyer to draw attention to the Yaphank data center. She said she plans to ask Brookhaven officials to take a stand against AI centers in general. She said the group is concerned about the impact of AI centers on the Long Island pine barrens.

“We’re fully aware that they’re not talking about it [Thursday]," Fitzgerald said Wednesday in a phone interview. "We’re just asking people to testify about it. ... [The town board] could easily pass a resolution to make sure data centers are not coming to our town.”

She said a volunteer may have used AI technology to create the flyer.

“Does it look like an AI flyer? Yes,” Fitzgerald said. “I would ask probably going forward, please don’t create a flyer using AI.”

The Yaphank data center would be located in a massive warehouse complex near Exit 66 of the Long Island Expressway that appears to lack tenants. 

Newsday previously reported the data center would require around half the energy capacity of the nearby Caithness power plant. 

Michael Bowden, director of development for Wildflower Ltd., noted in an email Wednesday the independent system operator has approved a study looking at the facility's potential impact on power and water systems. He declined to identify a tenant or say whether the company has any sort of power agreement with LIPA or PSEG.

Bowden added the building would not use water for cooling purposes, one of the common worries about data centers.

Newsday's Mark Harrington contributed to this story.