Petitions against the proposed data center in Waterford were available to sign outside a polling place at the Washington County Fairgrounds during the May 5 Ohio primary election. (Photo by Amber Phipps)

MARIETTA – Ohio residents are petitioning for a ban on all proposed data centers exceeding 25 megawatts of electricity per month while the Ohio Joint Data Center Committee continues testimony meetings at the Statehouse in Columbus.

Amidst the influx of information and testimonies, Jessica Adams Baker, a Clermont County resident, and other residents in rural Ohio communities from Adams and Brown County led efforts to pass a six month moratorium on data center development in their communities.

Baker said the coalition has an unofficial count of about 60,000 signatures and needs a minimum of 413,000 by July 1.

The deadline marks the cutoff date for the state to validate the signatures and approve the petition to appear on the ballot in November.

“In January, we found out about a proposed data center in my town, so I went to local government meetings for more information but NDAs (nondisclosure agreements) blocked information from us,” said Baker. “We kept researching and submitting record requests.”

Baker said the residents found information confirming there was a data center proposed to be built on their farmland and she decided it was time to take action.

“By March we realized this was a problem and nobody was listening,” she said.

With the help of two attorneys, they drafted a petition and started collecting signatures and obtained nearly 2,000 signatures from the community in two days.

“We had counties in northern Ohio wanting to sign and that’s how it all got started,” she said. Signing a petition requires an eye-witness, so petitions can’t be signed online but www.conserveohio.com has petition signing locations available.

According to the website, the purpose of the petition is to amend Ohio law and “ban the construction of data centers that consume over 25 megawatts of energy per month.”

In Washington County, Marietta resident Lynn Cady oversees the petitions for the county. She said she found out about the petition about two months ago.

“They (developers) are moving way too fast, the state government and county governments seem to be wanting to push this without a lot of oversight,” said Cady.

The Washington County Commissioners signed and approved an NDA with a developer in January. Cady said she had to take off work to attend a commission meeting at 9 a.m. on a Thursday in March to see what was being discussed.

“If this is such a great thing then why are they keeping information from us?” she asked. “There’s been an explosion of data center growth everywhere and it makes you wonder what it’s all for.”

Cady said she had been keeping up with the testimonies going on in the Statehouse recently and said she is skeptical and worried because of the lack of information available.

“It’s basically been done behind everyone’s backs,” she said.

She said it’s “too late” for government officials to do anything.

On the weekends, Cady attends local events and collects signatures. She said she is in charge of gathering all of the signatures from the petition volunteers.

“In the beginning we had a lot of positive feedback and it’s snowballing as people become more aware,” said Cady. “We got a lot of signatures during this past First Friday in Marietta.”

Cady said even though the deadline is only weeks away and they are far from the goal, they can keep the signatures they’ve gained and continue to collect over the fall and winter to aim for getting on the May 2027 ballot.

Cady said there are about 600 unofficial signatures for Washington County. Signature statistics for the petition are available on the Conserve Ohio website.

The Ohio Joint Data Center Committee held a meeting on June 1 entirely open for the public to attend and testify. There were over four hours of comments and testimonies from people across the state, Baker was one of them.

“They need to listen to the people,” said Baker. “The secrecy is a huge problem, they’re hiding it, there’s a reason they’re hiding it.”

Baker said the committee wasn’t asking the urgent, difficult questions and didn’t push hard enough during testimony.

“We don’t live in the country because we have to, we want to because of the views and the quiet and they’re taking away our land,” she said. “Nobody is telling us anything.”

Baker said she had been keeping up with the testimonies and said the individuals who testified “must think we’re stupid.”

Baker said even if they don’t obtain enough signatures by the deadline, they will keep collecting signatures.

“We won’t stop,” she said. “This is a bipartisan issue, it doesn’t matter which political ‘side’ you’re on.”

Amber Phipps can be reached at aphipps@newsandsentinel.com