New legislation in Ohio could create a nonpartisan council to examine the growing footprint of data centers. If the bill is passed, the subsequent council would review data centers’ environmental impact, electricity and water use, light and noise pollution and local economic effects.
Data centers are large facilities that store computing equipment and power much of today’s digital infrastructure. As artificial intelligence becomes more prominent, the role of data centers is expanding and so are the resources they consume. The facilities require significant amounts of electricity and water, often driving up local utility costs and raising concerns about pollution.
State Reps. Gary Click (R‑88) and Kellie Deeter (D‑54) introduced House Bill 646 as the number of data centers continues to rise. Ohio is home to 194 data centers, 113 of them in central Ohio, according to Data Center Map. The rapid expansion prompted hesitancy in some communities; municipalities including Washington Township, the Village of Ashville and Jerome Township have enacted temporary pauses on data‑center development over local concerns, and others are considering similar measures.
“We have heard the concerns of our communities and taken time to speak with those in the industry,” Click said in a press release announcing the bill. “We feel that this is the best approach to ensure that every voice is heard.”
Deeter said residents in her rural district have raised alarms about greenfield development and the loss of productive farmland. She said the commission could help Ohio take a more thoughtful approach that prioritizes redeveloping brownfields and existing industrial sites before expanding into rural green space.
“The proliferation of data centers is necessary and inevitable, but the growth should be smart, balanced and respectful of local communities,” Deeter said in a press release.
Randi Pokladnik, who has a Ph.D. in environmental studies and serves on the board of Ohio Valley Environmental Activists, said many Ohioans share concerns about the energy demands and environmental impacts of data centers.
“I'm on a lot of Facebook pages of people that have had to form their own little groups to push back,” Pokladnik said. “They want to know, what is the use for this? How is it going to help us in these local communities that are being forced, in most cases, to be the host for these data centers?”
Ohio residents saw electric supply prices rise 10-35% in June 2025, according to the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel. Connecting data centers to the grid often requires upgraded transmission infrastructure, which can increase costs for consumers.
Pokladnik said many permits indicate data centers will rely on fracked gas. As a resident of Harrison County, one of the most heavily fracked counties in Ohio, she feels communities are already feeling the environmental strain.
“People do not want their parks fracked,” Pokladnik said. “You can see it, you can smell it. They still take the water out of the streams and the rivers and the lake.”
Pokladnik also said data center companies often use greenwashing tactics to win public support. Greenwashing refers to corporations using misleading claims or selective statistics to appear environmentally responsible. Pokladnik pointed to carbon capture as an example; although often marketed as a climate solution, a 2021 study found the process produced a 3.5% methane emission rate and had a greenhouse gas footprint 20% higher than burning natural gas or coal.
Stephan Scanlan, a professor of sociology and chair of sociology and anthropology at Ohio University, wrote extensively on greenwashing, environmental justice and sustainability. He said companies often highlight the benefits of data centers while downplaying or omitting their environmental costs.
“Oftentimes there's little or no mention of things like the water impact, land use or the negative impacts related to the environment,” Scanlan said. “If they do mention that, they may make claims that are either outright lies or cannot be justified, or they don't have data for or can't account for the energy and other issues.”
Scanlan said renewable energy could offset some impacts, but the physical footprint of data centers, including large buildings, paved surfaces and dense computer infrastructure, presents its own sustainability challenges.
“We can't greenwash our way into saying this is sustainable,” Scanlan said. “It has to be true and factual.”
He added community pushback might be lower if data centers were placed on hazardous or unused industrial sites, such as the Ironton data center under construction at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. A recent press release about that project drew dozens of Facebook comments from Portsmouth residents, many of whom questioned the facility’s 75% property tax abatement for 15 years.
Liam Syrvalin, a senior studying journalism, visited “data center alley” in Northern Virginia, the largest concentration of data centers in the U.S. He said residents there reported electric bills spiking by about 450%. He also noted that while data centers create construction jobs, they require only a small number of permanent workers once operational.
“They won't put it in their neighborhood,” Syrvalin said. “They'll put it in ours. That's the big thing. I hope that if they start building these data centers, they first look at Gov. (Mike) DeWine's neighborhood. Start there. Then you can start worrying about communities like ours, and worrying about communities where we make three times less on average than the person in Columbus.”
