One of Leah Alexander’s earliest memories is of driving around Lorneville, N.B., in a van with her mother and neighbours, handing out flyers in an effort to stop a landfill from being built in their community.

“I was her age,” Alexander says, gesturing to daughter Wrenna, 2. 

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Nearly 30 years later, Alexander spent her maternity leave doing much the same thing. With Wrenna strapped to her chest, she and her then-two-year-old son distributed flyers protesting a proposal to build a hyperscale data centre in Lorneville. 

“I was just like, ‘We’re doing this again,’” she says, tears welling in her eyes.

The proposal, from Alberta-based Beacon Data Centers and Texas-based VoltaGrid, calls for a 400-megawatt data centre occupying 120 hectares of land. According to a recent environmental impact assessment (EIA), the project would account for 6.6 percent of the province’s greenhouse gas emissions. 

The companies have promoted the development as an economic boost that would create jobs. Residents acknowledge there would be construction work, but argue that most of those jobs would disappear once the facility was complete — along with sensitive wetland and old-growth forest habitat. 

Speaking to Broadview during a protest of 150 people outside the New Brunswick legislature in Fredericton in June, Alexander said the proposed........

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