Save Ohio Parks testimony for Select Committee on Data Centers

Testimony by Cathy Cowan Becker
Board President, Save Ohio Parks
June 1, 2026

Co-Chair Holmes, Co-Chair Chavez, and members of the Select Committee on Data Centers,

Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony regarding data centers in Ohio. My name is Cathy Becker, and I am board president of Save Ohio Parks, a citizens group concerned about fracking of Ohio’s state parks and public lands. I have a decade of experience leading environmental organizations, with a dual master’s in public administration and environment and natural resources from The Ohio State University.

We appreciate the committee’s mission to study the economic and environmental impacts of Ohio’s rapidly growing data center industry amid citizen concerns about utility costs, economic impact, and environmental impacts of energy generation and water use.

Save Ohio Parks is closely monitoring the expansion of data centers across Ohio because this is directly impacting our efforts to protect public lands from oil and gas extraction as well as bringing large gas projects into the local communities we call home.

How data centers impact fracking Ohio public land

For the past three years, Save Ohio Parks has helped Ohioans file more than 10,800 public comments opposed to fracking Ohio’s beloved state parks and wildlife areas. The comments on these nominations run 98% to 100% opposed. Ohioans love their state parks and wildlife areas as some of the only natural spaces in a highly industrialized state.

Unfortunately, since House Bill 15 was passed last year allowing data centers to get fast-track approval for gas plants to provide power behind the meter, we have seen a major uptick in nominations and approvals to frack public land.

• In all of 2023, 2024, and 2025, 6,049 acres of our state parks and wildlife areas were approved for fracking.
• Just in the first quarter of 2026, 15,319 acres of our state parks and wildlife areas were approved for fracking, with another 8,367 acres nominated.

Ohio public lands approved for fracking include 6,110 acres of Salt Fork State Park, as well as Valley Run Wildlife Area (all 302 acres), Zepernick Wildlife Area (65 acres including its lake), Keen Wildlife Area (all 85 acres), Leesville Wildlife Area (171 acres), Jockey Hollow Wildlife Area (383 acres), and Egypt Valley Wildlife Area (9,645 acres).

If the last 8,367 acres of Egypt Valley Wildlife Area nominated are approved, that means in the first part of 2026 — almost four times as much of our public land will be leased for fracking as in the previous three years, combined. Yet Ohioans have filed 10,861 public comments making it clear they want these lands to be protected.

Harms of fracking to communities

Fracking for gas to power data centers carries enormous costs to communities:

• Health: Studies find that people living near fracking operations are up to four times more likely to suffer from respiratory illness, and children are three times more likely to develop leukemia.
  
• Climate: Gas releases methane at every stage of the process, a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide. This exacerbates the already worsening effects of climate change.
  
• Accidents: Public records show that oil and gas operations in Ohio experience an accident or incident every 1.5 days, including explosions, spills, leaks, fires, and transportation rollovers. The 2018 explosion at a well in Powhatan Point, Belmont County, created the largest methane release in U.S. history, visible from space.
  
• Water: Each fracking well takes 40 million to 60 million gallons of fresh water from Ohio streams and lakes, mixes it with toxic chemicals, and injects it deep into the ground to free oil and gas. When the mixture comes back up, it brings radioactive elements. This toxic radioactive waste can never enter the water cycle again.
  
• Waste: Widespread fracking creates trillions of gallons of toxic radioactive waste that must be disposed of. It is injected into cavities deep underground. There are multiple documented instances of frack waste migrating out of injection wells and into orphan wells and production wells, and threatening drinking water.

When the fracking industry moved into Ohio in 2011, it promised economic development and jobs to the region. However, a study by the Ohio River Valley Institute found that from 2008 to 2023, the most fracked counties in Ohio lost up to 15% of their jobs and up to 8.5% of their population. Although they showed gains in GDP, most of that money did not stay in these counties. It went to fracking companies based out of state.

That’s who is gaining from fracking Ohio state parks and public lands for gas to power data centers. Companies that have been issued the most permits to frack public land include:

• EOG Resources, based in Houston
  
• Gulfport Energy, based in Oklahoma City
  
• Infinity Natural Resources, based in Morgantown, West Virginia

No public notification or consultation for gas plants to power data centers

While Ohio’s public lands in Appalachia are being extracted for gas to power data centers, major gas plants are now being fast-tracked into communities where data centers are, with little to no public notification or community consultation, thanks to House Bill 15.

During the HB 15 hearings last year, I testified several times that the way the bill was written would end up with major gas utilities sited next to residential areas without community consultation – and that’s exactly what happened in my town of Hilliard.

The largest fracked-gas fuel cell in North America was approved to power the Amazon data center on Scioto-Darby Creek Road with no public notice, no public information session, no public hearing, no consultation with local officials, not even a formal vote at the PUCO.

The project was approved and granted an air permit by the Ohio EPA before anyone knew what was happening. It will spew 1.5 million pounds of carbon dioxide per day – the equivalent of 66,000 gas cars parked onsite and running 24/7 – directly next to hundreds of homes, an elementary school, a park, and the county’s largest animal shelter.

This experience has been traumatizing to the people of Hilliard. Many residents of the Darby Glen neighborhood next to the data center are considering selling their homes. Others are installing air monitors. The gas fuel cell is unprecedented in North America. No one knows how that much CO2 will behave or what the health effects will be.

Hilliard is not the only community where this is happening. In Wood County, Meta obtained land for a data center and 350 MW gas turbine plant under a shell company with the code name “Project Accordion” and non-disclosure agreements with local officials. The plant was approved with no public notice, no public information session, and no public hearing.

Because this was done in secrecy on a fast track, residents did not find out what was happening until it was too late – and the few who submitted comments were ignored. It is difficult to call a series of events like this a procedure. It is nothing more than forcing polluting gas infrastructure on communities without their knowledge or consent.

Harms of gas plants to communities

Gas turbine plants emit a long list of toxic pollutants including sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, and fine particulate matter. The fine particulate matter is of great concern to human health, as it gets into the lungs, bloodstream, heart, and brain, leading to asthma, bronchitis, COPD, heart attacks, strokes, cardiovascular disease, neurological damage, and cancer.

A study by Dr. Michael Cork of Harvard School of Public Health estimated that gas turbine plants powering a Vantage Data Center in Loudon County, Virginia, would cause $53 million to $99 million in health care costs per year from the associated air pollution.

This is unconscionable. NDAs and shell companies should never be used to shield oil, gas, and tech companies from community transparency. Local residents should be notified of any major utility infrastructure proposed to go into their community, and should be given ample time to understand and provide input on the project – and their input should be listened to.

There are alternatives – if Ohio would allow them

Recently Save Ohio Parks released a report, “From Demand Drivers to Development Partners: Data Centers that Work for Ohioans.” We urge you to read it.

Among our top findings are that restrictions on wind and solar energy projects since 2014 have cost Ohio more than 5.3 GW of generation capacity in projects denied or withdrawn, plus years of missed development as energy companies left Ohio for more favorable markets.

These restrictions include the nation’s most draconian wind-turbine setback law, passed as part of the 2014 budget bill, which drove 3.3 GW of wind development out of state, and Senate Bill 52 of 2021, which so far has allowed 37 counties to ban wind and solar energy. Even where not banned, the OPSB has killed over 2,000 MW of solar projects outright.

Meanwhile, American Electric Power (AEP) has reported 5.6 GW of data center interconnection requests as of March 2026. This shows the data center energy crisis would not exist today had Ohio allowed renewable energy to reach its potential.

Save Ohio Parks has several recommendations for how to power data centers more sustainably and equitably:

• Place a moratorium on data center approvals until comprehensive federal and state AI regulations are adopted.
  
• Prohibit the use of non-disclosure agreements and require public consultation in siting decisions.
  
• Require data centers to meet or offset their energy demand with 100 percent solar, wind, and energy storage, either onsite or offsite, by investing in utility-scale, community, or residential energy resources.
  
• Pass laws allowing data centers to use off-site energy generation (virtual net metering), requiring energy efficiency, and scaling back use during peak hours (demand response).
  
• Ensure parity in state and local law among all sources of energy generation, with the same provisions for state control and local input for oil, gas, solar, wind, battery storage, geothermal, and biomass.
  
• Make tax benefits for data centers contingent upon community benefits such as energy and water efficiency measures; reporting publicly on energy and water use, including adherence to safe air emissions and water quality; or subsidizing residential energy efficiency upgrades, rooftop solar, and energy storage.
  
• Ensure large load users pay grid modernization costs to support grid reliability.

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. I am happy to answer any questions you may have, or find out the answers if I don’t know them.

Photo: The Darby Glen subdivision, including hundreds of homes, an elementary school, and a park, sits directly next to the Amazon data center on Scioto-Darby Creek Road in Hilliard, Ohio. This data center will be powered by the largest fracked-gas fuel cell in North America, releasing 1.5 million pounds of carbon dioxide per day, the equivalent of 66,000 gas cars parked onsite and running 24/7. The gas fuel cell was approved with no public notice, no public information session, no public hearing, no consultation with local officials, and no formal vote by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. (Save Ohio Parks photo by Rachel Kutzley)