Ohio’s data centers will impact many Ohioans

By Randi Pokladnik

Ohio is witnessing the construction of an unprecedented amount of data centers in the state.

Columbus is ranked the 10th largest data center region in North America.

However, some communities are pushing back against these enormous facilities.

Jerome Township Trustees voted in September for a nine-month moratorium on “receipt, processing, issuance, or approval of any application for a zoning certificate” for data centers.

Some of the concerns expressed by communities located close to data centers include: the noise, water usage, acres of land transformed into industrial centers, exposure to air pollution from power generation, high voltage transmission lines cutting through communities and farmlands, and probable increases in their utility bills due to the increases in power consumption. 

Data centers require an enormous amount of water for cooling purposes.

“The Central Ohio Regional Water Study, an analysis of regional water needs by the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission and relevant state agencies, similarly showed water and wastewater demand will be on the rise in the coming decades due to the surging number of data centers,” a report from Gongwer noted.

Data centers can consume up to five million gallons per day; the equivalent of a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people.

Columbus is one of many major cities across the nation that has been sinking due to water withdraws. 

Additionally, these data enters also use large quantities of PFAS-gas or f-gas chemicals. 

The compounds have been linked to cancer, birth defects, decreased immunity, high cholesterol, kidney disease, and a range of other serious health problems.

They are dubbed “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down in the environment and they are also potent greenhouse gases.

The compounds are used in the cooling phase and also to manufacture some semiconductors. 

Currently the Trump administration is moving to “fast-track” data centers by “expedited chemical review” for compounds used at data centers. 

The communities in central Ohio will certainly be affected by the explosion of data centers in the region, however, communities in SE Ohio will also be affected.

Data centers require large amounts of electricity and 56 % of that energy will be from fossil fuels.

According to a report from the Ohio River Valley Institute, “A 100 MW data center, assuming it operates at 70% max capacity over a year, will use 613,200 MWh of electricity. Producing that much electricity from natural gas will consume over 4.4 billion cubic feet of gas. This would emit roughly 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide, which is equivalent to the annual emissions of nearly 60,000 typical passenger cars.” 

It is estimated that U.S. data centers produced 105 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions in the past year.

The natural gas (methane) needed to power these centers will come from fracked gas.

Appalachian counties will be facing more health and environmental impacts from fracking.

These include; air and water pollution, more Class II injection wells, and excessive surface water withdraws.

One fracked well can require from 2 to 16 million gallons of water depending on the length of the lateral drilled.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources keeps data on the amount of surface and groundwater used by fracking companies in Ohio.

Harrison County saw 853,000,000 gallons of surface water withdrawn for fracking in 2023. That represents seventy-eight percent of the total water usage in the county.

Carroll County saw seventy percent of its total water usage in 2023 go towards fracked wells, and Jefferson County had 421,000,000 gallons of surface water used for fracking in 2023.

Ironically these same counties experienced record-breaking droughts in 2024 as well as 2025.

Harrison County was in the exceptional drought range for most of the summer of 2024, yet we witnessed water being withdrawn from woodland streams and pumped to fracking well pads all across the county. 

More fracking means more radioactive brine wastes being produced and injected into Class II wells.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources oversees everything related to fracking including issuing permits for Class II wells. ODNR is being questioned about their ability to regulate the over 200 Class II radioactive brine injection wells, most of which are located in Washington, Athens, Meigs, and other Appalachian counties.

The wastes from these wells have been known to migrate into areas far beyond the injection site into oil production wells and groundwater. 

The 2022 passage of HB 507 during a lame duck session opened up state lands to fracking.

Ohioans have watched as their precious state parks are leased out to fracking companies.

These data centers will only encourage more fracking resulting in more destruction of our parks.

Wildlife sanctuaries like Jockey Hollow Wildlife Area and Salt Fork State Park will be sacrificed to power artificial intelligence.

Ohio’s Appalachian region is no longer a bucolic setting of small rural communities; it is an industrial zone littered with wells pads and fracking infrastructure.

Soon, communities in central Ohio will experience the same degradation as data centers transform their towns into industrial landscapes.

This commentary was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal on October 29, 2025.