LABRADOR CITY, N.L. — The Town of Labrador City made an error when issuing a stop work order to Great North Data in May. The order was sent to the wrong address, meaning Great North Data never got to see it, the mayor confirmed.
“It was sent to the wrong address,” said Mayor Fabian Benoit. “It was sent to the address we had on file for that company, but the address has since changed.”
The order was issued because of noise created by the data centre’s cooling fans. According to Benoit, the noise exceeds allowable decibel levels and has caused a disturbance for many residences.
In a previous Labrador Voice article Benoit claimed Great North Data was is non-compliance with the stop-work order, since it gave the company until July to reduce noise levels.
Now that it’s been revealed the order was sent to the wrong address, it will have to be reissued by the town.
Beniot told the Labrador Voice on Aug. 29 that a new stop-work order had been issued the previous day and the company has 30 days to comply with the regulations.
Great North Data CEO James Goodwin said he was surprised to read the mayor’s comments in the previous Labrador Voice article since he wasn’t aware of any kind of order until recently.
“The town failed to give us that stop work order. We were not aware of that; we were made aware of it last week,” said Goodwin.
“It’s like a speeding ticket – it doesn’t count unless they give it to you.”
Goodwin also says he found out about the order during a conversation with Labrador West MHA Jordan Brown.
By the time a new order is issued, the noise problem may be resolved. A contractor is currently replacing the low-frequency fans with high-frequency models, which is supposed to reduce the noise levels significantly.
“We’re doing this work of our volition, we didn’t know there was a stop work order,” said Goodwin.
Labrador City residents fed up with data centre noise
Editor's note:
A previous version of this story stated the mayor was not aware when a new order would be issued. The current story has been updated to reflect the new information.
