[Military Environmental Forum] Building a data center on "Former Army Dump" at Ft. Gillem, GA

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

WHAT LIES BENEATH: THE DEVELOPER BUILDING A DATA CENTER ON A FORMER ARMY DUMP LACED WITH MUNITIONS AND CARCINOGENS


By Till Daldrup & Jenny Ahn
Hunterbrook
October 18, 2026

Digital Realty ($DLR), the giant real estate investment fund, paid $120 million for parcels of land that include a former Army dump near Atlanta, Georgia, used as an “indiscriminate burial” site that contains carcinogens like trichloroethylene and military ordnance. In December 2025, crews unearthed white phosphorus that began smoking and had to call in a bomb squad. And there may be more surprises lurking underground that could endanger workers and nearby residents.

In 2025, Digital Realty spent $120 million to purchase a 97-acre parcel of land that was once part of Fort Gillem, a former United States Army post in Forest Park, Georgia. The company, one of the world’s largest real estate investment trusts, is constructing a massive data center complex on the site, returning valuable land to a “productive, tax-generating use,” as its executives put it.

But the land came with a historical burden. From 1941 until around 1980 the Army dumped everything from gas masks and medical waste to solvents and sewage sludge on this parcel in the northwest corner of the former army base that now houses a maze of warehouses, including a Kroger distribution center and an Amazon delivery station.

…

For the entire article, see
https://hntrbrk.com/investigations/digital-realty


—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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