A fire erupted in early June at the unfinished Lake Mariner data center in Somerset, New York, revealing significant gaps in local emergency preparedness and highlighting the intricate corporate structure behind the $3.2 billion project. The New York Times reports that when firefighters arrived, they encountered no working alarms, no active suppression system, and three dead hydrants. According to Chief Steve Matisz of the Barker Fire Department, critical safety documents that first responders are legally entitled to review were apparently destroyed in the blaze.
Matisz described the response as challenging, noting that crews entered the building largely without knowledge of the specific chemical hazards involved due to the absence of readable safety sheets. The incident has drawn scrutiny to the facility’s safety protocols and operational transparency.
The data center is situated on a former coal mine site along the Lake Ontario shoreline. The project involves a complex web of stakeholders: TeraWulf owns and operates the facility on land leased from a company controlled by its own CEO. Fluidstack, a British AI company, is set to run the center, while Google holds warrants for a future 14 percent equity stake and has agreed to guarantee lease payments. Anthropic is also among the AI firms that will utilize the facility’s computing power.
As a resident nearby, this scares me. They need to answer for the missing hydrants and the opaque corporate ownership structure.
It’s wild that safety documents were destroyed before anyone could even read them. Why are we rushing these builds so carelessly?
I had no idea Google was involved here! Leasing from the CEO’s own company sounds like a major conflict of interest.
No working alarms? Three dead hydrants? This is negligence, plain and simple. Who approved construction without basic fire safety?