Ohio doling out $120 million to remediate brownfields as they enter the data center equation
The state is planning to dole out $120 million to remediate brownfields across Ohio, just as they are increasingly touted as potential locations for data centers.
Lawmakers included $200 million for the program in House Bill 96, the state’s biennium operating budget. Since 2021, the program has handed out nearly $800 million in tax dollars to more than 900 projects in 87 counties.
“This program has been instrumental in turning eyesores and formerly used areas into new business opportunities that support our communities,” state Rep. Sarah Fowler Arthur, R-Ashtabula, said in a release touring the initiative.
Brownfields are abandoned, idled, or underused industrial, commercial, or institutional properties. Generally, known or potential releases of hazardous substances or petroleum complicate expansion or redevelopment.
Applicants eligible for the program, or so-called “lead entities,” include local governments, district parks, port authorities, county land reutilization corporations, and for-profit entities.
The Greater Ohio Policy Center estimated that across Ohio, there are more than 9,000 “former industrial and commercial sites that are unusable in their current condition.”
“It is important to clean up old sites and fix the blight in our communities,” state Representative David Thomas, R-Jefferson, said in a release. “This is a worthy investment of our tax dollars.”
Brownfields have also emerged in the fight over data centers, which residents across the Buckeye State are increasingly resisting.
The campaigns of both Republican Vivek Ramaswamy and Democrat Amy Acton have suggested brownfields as possible locations for data centers.
Acton has called for “a conditional moratorium” on data centers. On her website, Acton said that under her policy, data centers “must be built on brownfields and previously developed industrial sites, not farms or in the hearts of our communities.”
On his campaign website, Ramaswamy has vowed to safeguard the state’s “environment and farmland.”
“Data centers must comply with strict air and water quality standards, minimize and recycle water use, and prioritize brownfield and industrial sites so we protect Ohio’s fertile farmland,” the page reads.
