An estimated 5,000 gallons of diesel fuel spilled from a storage tank at an Equinix data center in Secaucus, New Jersey, on the evening of Friday, September 11, 2026, and flowed into Anderson Creek, a tributary of the Hackensack River, according to CBS News New York, which cited the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. The facility, which is under construction and expansion, uses diesel tanks to power backup generators. Cleanup crews have used vacuum trucks to remove a mixture of fuel and water from the creek since the spill was detected.
Equinix said in a statement that it detected the fuel release Friday, stopped it, and immediately contacted relevant agencies. “We are working closely with those agencies, local officials, and community stakeholders to ensure a thorough remediation, while also conducting a full investigation to determine the root cause and prevent recurrence,” the company said, according to CBS News New York. Bill Sheehan of the environmental group Hackensack Riverkeeper told CBS he was informed a computer glitch triggered the spill.
The incident has renewed local debate over the rapid expansion of AI-driven data center capacity in the New Jersey Meadowlands, with advocacy groups using the episode to press for a statewide moratorium on new data center construction, citing the sector’s growing power and infrastructure footprint.
Why it matters
Backup-generator fuel systems are a routine part of data center resiliency design, but this incident is a reminder that the same infrastructure meant to protect uptime carries its own environmental and physical-security exposure that facility teams need to monitor, not just the IT floor.
Leave a Reply