Some Ohioans want a constitutional amendment limiting data center development

By Nick Keller/Kent State NewsLab

Artificial intelligence and software companies are focusing on Ohio for data center development. 

Google began construction on a 275,000-square-foot facility in New Albany in 2019. In July 2025, Meta announced the “Prometheus” project, which will be the world’s first one-gigawatt data campus. One gigawatt equals 1,000 megawatts, which could power 876,000 households for a year.  

Existing data centers, such as Cologix’s in the Columbus/Johnstown area, are beginning to adapt to the growing AI market by expanding their facilities and power usage.

But data centers like these are facing increasing pushback. Some residents have banded together to form Conserve Ohio, a volunteer organization dedicated to stopping data center development in Ohio. They hope Ohioans can vote on a constitutional amendment about data centers this fall. 

Conserve Ohio’s Portage County petition lead Jessica Winchell and her partner, Sam Schultz, are concerned about Ohio’s economy and farmland. 

“I grew up on a Portage County farm. So, I absolutely hate to see that sort of rural aesthetic be ruined by these enormous structures with really no return on your investment to the community,” Winchell said. “It would be one thing if there were a lot of jobs or economic gain to be had for trading that farmland for data center land, but that just does not seem to be the case.”

The Conserve Ohio amendment would prohibit the construction of data centers with peak loads exceeding 25 megawatts per month. 

To get the amendment on the ballot, the petition will need more than 413,000 signatures from at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties by July 1. 

If it is not passed, there could be detrimental consequences to Ohio’s environment, Conserve Ohio volunteers say. 

Holly Wenzinger, a county lead with Conserve Ohio who has a bachelor’s degree in environmental policy and analysis, says her biggest concern is that the Ohio EPA is considering a general wastewater use permit that would allow data centers to discharge untreated cooling water back into our rivers, lakes, and streams.

Data chips and servers require cooling with water. That water needs to include additives, usually salt, to increase conductivity.  

Wenzinger says that data centers produce glycols, and, specifically for closed-loop systems, anti-corrosion and biocide additives. When released into the wild, these can prevent algae growth and have other negative effects.

“You’re not only looking at fishing and anything else there, but you’re also looking at the microbiota [a community of microorganisms in a specific ecosystem] of that specific watershed. So, you know, that has ramifications across the entire food chain,” said Wenzinger. 

She also says that when a data center is built in a more rural area, it needs to rely on rivers, underground pipes, or aquifers. This could rapidly deplete the community’s water supply. But if a data center is built near a large body of water, like Lake Erie, then it can take water directly from it, leaving rural communities’ aquifers much safer. 

An example of this would be Aligned’s data campus, currently under construction in Sandusky.  

“If every single data center were like the same one that uses a lot of water at Lake Erie, that’s a way different effect on the community than in a rural area where you have a bunch of farmers depending on the same aquifers,” Wenzinger said. 

In another part of the state, Risa Sindel moderates the Anthony Wayne Area Community Response Awareness (AW-CRAP) Facebook Group. Sindel says building data centers in rural areas can create public health issues. 

Sindel spoke with a resident from the Bowling Green area who lives right near the construction site for Meta’s 715,000-square-foot data center campus, who claims that for the last four years, they have been living with light and noise pollution so severe that they can’t sleep at night.

During construction, Sindel says, the resident has had to live with the pollution created by torn-up roads and large trucks. They even have to deal with unplanned electrical outages. 

“So all of a sudden, the whole house goes dark, all their electricity is out,” Sindel says. “And she says this can happen multiple times a day and so many times a week.”

Now, the residents worry they won’t be able to sell their house, Sindel says. 

Meanwhile, many Ohio taxpayers are worried about rising electricity costs driven by the power consumption of data centers. 

“We need to ensure and are taking steps to ensure that big tech pays the bills to provide them with the enormous amounts of electricity they use. Otherwise, all consumers may pay for it even though they didn’t cause the need for it,” said Bill Michael, senior legal counsel for the Ohio Consumers Council. 

In mid-May, two Republican state lawmakers created a joint committee to hear citizen concerns and company responses. The group met for its first hearing on May 27.

“We are embarking on this fact-finding mission to understand the perceived and actual impacts of data centers and to share reliable information with local officials and concerned citizens,” wrote Sen. Brian Chavez (R-Marietta) in the announcement.

Volunteers organizing against data centers, however, say they don’t plan to back down.

“I cannot go to my grave without having fought like hell for this,” Sindel said.