A Village’s Water Infrastructure in Distress

Earlier this year, the six-person Village Council of Ashville, Ohio was in a precarious position. On February 18th, the state’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a Notice of Violation to the Village for several problems found during an inspection of Ashville’s water infrastructure the previous month:

• A tank of sodium hypochlorite (bleach used to disinfect municipal water systems) was found to have a faulty or missing lid, allowing debris, insects and other contaminants into the tank.
• One of the Village’s wells had been inoperable since August 2024, leaving the system without backup if another well failed.
• The soil beneath an elevated 300,000-gallon water tank had begun to sink, pooling water at the base and risking further erosion.

The Council knew a reckoning was coming. On February 2nd — two weeks before the EPA’s notice — all six members voted to award $12.84M to build a new water treatment facility. That was nearly ten times the village’s entire annual water budget, and it still didn’t address all the violations.

With the EPA requiring a response within thirty days, Ashville — a town of ~4,600 people and home to the world’s oldest traffic light — had a few weeks to find a solution.

Financial Windfall

Eight days later, on February 26th, that solution presented itself. EdgeConneX — a private-equity owned data center developer founded in 2009 that operates facilities across four continents — offered the Village $35 million to address the improvements mandated by the Ohio EPA, $64M to the local school district, and $3M to a local fire department.

There were strings attached, however. To get the funds, Council needed to approve the construction of a data center within Ashville’s municipal boundaries, on 195 acres bordered by Weigand Road to the north and State Route 752 to the south, roughly a mile from the high school football stadium.

On April 6th, lacking many — or any — other options, the Council approved construction of the data center in a 5-1 vote.

An Emergency Measure

Crucially, the April 6th resolution was declared an “emergency measure” — a bureaucratic designation that eliminated any chance for residents to force a public vote.

Under Ohio Code Section 731.29, residents normally have thirty days after a council vote to organize a petition. If that petition gathered signatures from more than 35% of voters in the most recent gubernatorial election, the matter would go to a public referendum on a ballot.

The emergency declaration bypassed that window entirely, and the resolution took effect immediately.

Bring Your Own Power

The data center would require 800 MW of electricity — enough to power every home in nearby Columbus, Ohio, a city with a population of 900,000.

The electric grid near the site wouldn’t be able to support that load without additional generation. So on May 12th, a subsidiary of EdgeConneX named PowerConneX filed an application with the Ohio Power Siting Board to build an 800 MW natural gas plant on the same 195-acre plot.

The Power Siting Board’s decision is expected around October 2026.

What’s Next

Upcoming posts will focus on the proposed 800 MW natural gas plant — what it would mean for surrounding communities and what stands in the way of its approval. We’ll also look at the FEMA-recognized floodway running through the site, and what lies beneath that 195-acre plot: the Teays Valley Aquifer, a water source spanning multiple states that dozens of municipalities depend on for drinking water.

This is a developing story. Thank you for reading.