Save Ohio Parks opposes NEO Power Generation Facility at the Ohio Power Siting Board

Save Ohio Parks submitted the following public comment on Case #26-0627-EL-BGN, the NEO Power Generation Facility, a 500 MW gas plant to power the Meta Prometheus data center in New Albany. The Ohio Power Siting Board held a public hearing on NEO on October 6, 2026.

Chair French and members of the Ohio Power Siting Board,

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 am writing in opposition to the 500 MW NEO Power Generation Facility, the fourth gas plant proposed to power Meta’s Prometheus data center in New Albany. If built, NEO would join Socrates South (200 MW), Socrates North (200 MW), and Socrates the Younger (250 MW), creating 1150 MW of gas plants to power one data center in a suburban area.

NEO’s power generation would include 27 simple cycle gas turbines and four reciprocating internal combustion engines. None of this is state-of-the-art technology.

Simple cycle turbines are much less efficient and more polluting than combined cycle turbines, which use the same gas to power two different generators. Reciprocating engines expel pollution similar to a gas car engine, only the size of a school bus.

If Meta was using combined cycle turbines, the same gas would go a lot farther. But simple cycle turbines burn the gas, then send the waste heat and pollution out 30-foot stacks at 825 to 870 degrees. Again, this is next to a populated Columbus suburb.

How much gas these turbines and engines use matters because some of the gas will come from fracking Ohio’s state parks and wildlife areas. Since the program to frack public land began in 2023, Ohio has approved 21,638 acres for oil and gas extraction, largely in Salt Fork State Park and Egypt Valley Wildlife Area.

However, 71% of this land was approved just this year – almost three times as many acres as in the previous three years combined. This is for gas to power data centers like Meta’s Prometheus—by far the largest data center complex in Ohio.

Ohioans have made it clear in over 10,000 comments submitted to the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission since 2023 that we do not want our parks and wildlife areas subjected to oil and gas extraction. Comments against these nominations routinely run 98% to 100% opposed. These lands were set aside and meant to be protected.

Dangerous air pollution

We are also concerned about the pollution itself. According to its air permit application, the NEO facility has the potential to create:

• 3,471,813 tons of greenhouse gas pollution
• 197.1 tons of fine particulate matter
• 243.3 tons of Nitrogen Oxides (NOx)
• 172.73 tons of Volatile Organic Chemicals (VOCs)
• 189.1 tons of Sulfur Dioxide (SO2)
• 245.2 tons of Carbon Monoxide (CO)
• 40,200 pounds of Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs)

Even if this power plant emits only half these amounts of pollutants, it is still a significant source of pollution. But consider that NEO is the fourth major gas plant for Meta’s Prometheus data center. Together they have the potential to emit the following:

Greenhouse gas

Particularly concerning are greenhouse gas emissions – CO2e – and particulate matter 2.5.

The world is at the tipping point of a runaway climate crisis, driven by burning fossil fuels. Just this summer we witnessed a glacier collapse in Nepal that killed 1500 people. We experienced days of dangerous smoke from wildfires burning over 11 million acres of Canadian forests. And here in Ohio we lived through a week of storms and tornadoes that downed trees, knocked out power, flooded basements, and damaged buildings.

It will take a long time to repair that damage – and Meta’s gas plants will only continue to make this worse. If NEO is approved, Meta’s gas plants could pour over 8.3 million tons of greenhouse gas into our atmosphere each year – more than annual emissions from the city of Memphis, according to the Carbon Disclosure Project – just to power one data center.

Nor does this count three other gas plants approved and proposed to power EdgeConneX data centers in New Albany, which would bring potential greenhouse gas emissions up to 11.9 million tons per year – similar to the emissions of Detroit, all from one business park.

Again, if these data center gas plants create only half this much in greenhouse gas, they are still a significant source of climate-warming pollution — yet the Ohio EPA does not consider carbon dioxide or methane in awarding air permits. To say these gas plants have Ohio air permits does not convey the truth of how they use our atmosphere as an open sewer.

Fine particulate matter

Then there is the fine particulate matter. At 1/30^th the width of a human hair, particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers is one of the most harmful forms of air pollution to human health. Particles this small can’t be seen or filtered by the nose. They penetrate into the lungs and enter the bloodstream, triggering inflammation throughout the body.

A large body of scientific evidence links exposure to PM 2.5 to asthma, heart disease, strokes, and premature deaths. It accounts for most of the 8 million deaths caused by air pollution worldwide each year. High-risk groups include children, older adults, and people with heart and lung conditions – many of whom live in the vicinity of these gas plants.

A report by the Environmental Protection Network, a group of over 800 former career staff of the federal EPA, finds that data center-related air pollution could impose roughly $11.7 billion to $20.9 billion in annual public-health costs by 2028, including 600,000 asthma symptom cases and 1,300 premature deaths — and that over 90 percent of these impacts come from the power plants like NEO supplying electricity to data centers.

Where the gas is fracked

The harm of burning gas isn’t just at the power plant. It starts at the point of extraction and continues through the life cycle of gas to the point of disposal.

Gas has been fracked from Ohio’s public lands since 2023 – but fracking has occurred across Appalachian Ohio – the most disadvantaged part of our state – since 2010.

Fracking levies enormous health and environmental costs to communities. Physicians for Social Responsibility publishes a compendium of over 2000 abstracts and links to medical, scientific and investigative reports on oil and gas drilling, fracking, and infrastructure, covering air pollution, water contamination, radioactive releases, public health effects, noise and light pollution, threats to agriculture, threats to climate, and more.

In one example, a Yale study of people living near fracking operations in Pennsylvania found that children between ages 2 and 7 were two to three times more likely to be diagnosed with leukemia as children who do not live near fracking operations.

Here in Ohio, public records show that from 2015 to 2023, the oil and gas industry experienced almost 2,000 incidents and accidents, including leaks, spills, releases, transportation accidents, pipeline accidents, loss of well control, fires, and explosions. This amounts to an oil and gas accident or incident in Ohio every 1.5 days.

Fracking is also associated with earthquakes in Ohio. Last year, the Ohio Department Natural Resources shut down the Bears well pad in Noble County due to the highest number of earthquakes in the state. The number of earthquakes in Ohio has increased significantly since fracking began – from 18 in 2011, to 62 in 2019, to 177 in 2025.

Toxic, radioactive waste

Fracking takes enormous amounts of fresh water from Ohio’s lakes and streams and turns it into toxic radioactive waste. ODNR permits show each fracking well is allowed to take 100,000 gallons per day for a total of 40 million to 60 million gallons from places like Atwood Lake or Leatherwood Creek.

The water is mixed with toxic chemicals, then injected at extremely high pressure to break apart rock and free oil and gas. When this mixture comes back to the surface, it brings not just oil and gas but also radioactive elements. Although these materials are naturally occurring, the wastewater is highly radioactive and cannot go back into the water cycle.

Instead, frack waste is disposed of in Class II injection wells. Ohio has permitted more than 240 Class II injection wells for oil and gas waste, compared to 19 in Pennsylvania and a few dozen in West Virginia. Injection wells are supposed to hold fracking wastewater forever, but that is not happening. Fracking wastewater has migrated into orphan wells and other production wells in Ohio. It now threatens drinking water in Marietta.

Conclusion

Although it is unlikely the Ohio Power Siting Board will deny the NEO Power Generation Facility, there is every reason to do so.

• It will drive more fracking of Ohio state parks and wildlife areas, which the majority of Ohioans oppose.
• It will create enormous amounts of air pollution – as much greenhouse gas pollution as some cities and fine particulate matter that makes people sick.
• It will drive fracking across Appalachian Ohio, already the poorest and most extracted part of the state.
• It takes indirectly or directly billions of gallons from Ohio lakes and streams and turns that water into toxic radioactive waste.
• Fracking wastewater is not staying in disposal wells but is migrating into other wells and threatening drinking water.

All of this is known to economics as “external costs” – all for the sake of one data center. If Meta had to pay these external costs, NEO and other gas plants could not be built.

The OPSB is supposed to weigh all of these elements. Please recognize the costs to the health and environment of New Albany and communities across Ohio and deny the Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need for the NEO Power Generation Facility as not serving the public interest, convenience, or necessity.

Image: The Meta Prometheus data center in New Albany is the world’s first 1 gigawatt (1000 MW) data center. So far three gas plants totaling 650 MW have been approved to power it. The Ohio Power Siting Board is considering a fourth gas plant, the 500 MW NEO Power Generation Facility.