ATHENS, Ohio — Both the Athens County Commissioners and the Athens Township Trustees showed support for anti-data center measures at their respective regular meetings on Tuesday.
Both meetings were heavily attended. Crowds gathered outside meeting rooms that were at capacity for compliance with fire codes. Most attendees professed anti-data center sentiments and encouraged both governmental bodies to adopt policies that would block data center construction.
Roxanne Groff, a local activist and former Athens County commissioner, gave the commissioners a draft of a non-binding resolution declaring that “the county cannot support the building of or the resources needed to fulfill the needs of the development of data centers.”
“We’ve brought you a draft of a resolution, knowing that it’s probably non-binding — [the county commissioners] don’t have legal authority through zoning because there’s no county-wide zoning,” Groff said. “It would be a resolution of intent to dissuade and discourage data centers from approaching our community.”
Commissioners President Lenny Eliason said in the meeting that the commissioners would likely adopt the draft resolution.
“I think the general sentiment of the board is that we’re very supportive of this [resolution],” Eliason said. “I sent it over to the prosecutor this morning after I read it, so I want to say it was a great first draft.” Eliason said the resolution will probably be on the commissioners’ agenda next week after Prosecutor Keller Blackburn reviews it.
At the Athens Township trustees’ meeting, Trustee Steve Pierson said that the zoning code for The Plains could be amended to ban data center development.
“We do have the ability to declare a moratorium, and I’ll be talking to the prosecutor’s office legal counsel on that,” Pierson said. The Ohio Attorney General has found that townships can impose moratoriums, he said, “but there’s kind of like guidelines you have to follow.”
The Independent previously reported that it’s possible for a prospective data center project to avoid zoning review entirely by building outside of Athens Township or any local municipalities.
John Zook, a local resident whose property would be adjacent to the prospective data center, spoke to both groups about the lack of utility access on River Road. The near 300-acre property that the prospective data center would be on would require the laying of new sewer and water infrastructure alongside updating existing electrical infrastructure.
“A thing I’d like to bring up about [the property] is that we have no public water on River Upper River Road,” Zook said. “We have never had public water on that [road]. I’ve been trying for 30 years, one time I was told it [would] cost us $85,000 to get water there.”
Hazel Goodburn, the Athens County lead petitioner for a statewide effort to ban large scale data centers, spoke to the Athens Township Trustees about issues with the cooling water used in data centers. Politico previously reported that a data center in Wyoming flushed a rare bacteria into the sewer system that remained in water after it was treated.
“[Data centers are] being built because a bunch of tech bros went to a bunch of investors and conned them into thinking that AI or all of these data centers are the future,” Goodburn said. “And now we’re having to pay the price with our land and resources.”
Many residents spoke about the Village of Albany, which adopted an ordinance last year banning the development of data centers in village limits. Other residents spoke about the lack of permanent jobs provided by data centers, the noise generated by them, and their impact on water and electricity infrastructure.
