In the beginning of 2026, the Ashville, Ohio Village Council was in a precarious position. On January 22nd, the state’s Environmental Protection Agency had inspected Ashville’s water infrastructure, and found several violations that the council needed to remedy urgently, including:

• 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 municipal wells, Well #4, had been inoperable since 2024, leaving the municipal water system without backup in case something happened to one of the other wells in the system.
• Following recent construction work, the soil beneath an elevated 300,000-gallon water tank had begun to sink, providing a low spot for water to collect and potentially causing further erosion around the base of the tower.

On February 18, 2026, in response to the inspection, the Ohio EPA issued a Notice of Violation to the Ashville Council, instructing the Village to respond within 30 days with a plan to remedy the violations.

Eight days later, on February 26, 2026, the Village came to terms on an agreement with the global data center developer EdgeConneX to build a data center roughly a mile from the high school football stadium - on a 195-acre plot bordered to the north by Weigand Road and to the south by SR 752.

The contract between the Company and the Village, known as a Development and Supply Agreement, included a $35M payment from EdgeConneX to Ashville for the EPA-mandated water infrastructure improvements.

AI-generated content below (Replace with Human-content by Weds, June 3)

The timing is not a coincidence. The Village had no backup well, was facing EPA enforcement action, and had no money to fix it. EdgeConneX arrived with $35 million earmarked for exactly those improvements. Six weeks later, on April 6, 2026, the Council voted 5-1 to approve the deal — declaring it an emergency measure, a procedural step that allowed it to take effect immediately rather than being subject to a 30-day waiting period.

The deal goes beyond water infrastructure. EdgeConneX also committed $64 million to the Teays Valley Local School District for capital improvements — a payment conditioned on two things: the Ohio Power Siting Board approving the power plant, and EdgeConneX receiving final certificates of occupancy for the data center buildings. The Village also agreed to supply 50,000 gallons of municipal water per day to the project. That water comes from the same Teays Valley Aquifer that would sit beneath the facility.

That last point requires some explanation. The data center alone would not require OPSB approval. But a data center of this scale needs enormous amounts of power, and the local grid cannot provide it. So EdgeConneX’s sibling company, PowerConneX, filed an application with the Ohio Power Siting Board on May 12, 2026 to build an 800-megawatt natural gas generating facility on the same site — large enough to power roughly 600,000 homes. The plant, which would operate behind-the-meter to serve the data center directly, requires a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need before construction can begin. A final OPSB decision is expected around October 2026.

The site sits on approximately 195 acres between State Route 752 and Weigand Road. A portion of the property lies within a FEMA-designated regulatory floodway and 100-year Special Flood Hazard Area. The Teays Valley Aquifer — the primary drinking water source for Ashville and South Bloomfield — lies less than 50 feet below the surface across much of the parcel. The power plant would store approximately 930,000 gallons of urea on-site for use in its emissions control system.

This site documents the regulatory process, the outstanding questions, and the community context that surrounds it. The OPSB proceeding is public. The documents are public. The stakes are local.