Adams County residents seek answers on possible Amazon data center project

Before any Amazon data center moves forward at Buck Canyon, Adams County residents want the most basic questions answered: how much water and power the project would use, what it would do to traffic on Ginger Ridge Road and U.S. Route 52, how much tax revenue might be gained or lost, and what kind of jobs would actually remain in the county. Those stakes sharpened after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved a federal permit for the 1,016-acre site in Sprigg Township, north and east of Ginger Ridge Road and west of U.S. Route 52, within sight of the former J.M. Stuart coal plant.

The Corps’ February 18 approval covered the Buck Canyon Site Project under Nationwide Permit 39 and allowed work tied to twelve buildings, internal roadways, five stormwater basins and utility infrastructure. It also required mitigation for 1,893 linear feet of stream loss and 0.06 acre of wetlands, along with a 100-foot buffer around three cemeteries near the site and protections for endangered bats, mussels and butterflies. The Nature Conservancy’s in-lieu fee program was used for mitigation credits.

That federal signoff did not settle the local debate. A June 18 forum at Manchester High School gave residents a chance to put their questions directly to Amazon Web Services representatives, after a February 18 town hall in Manchester drew a crowd of skeptical neighbors. Community concerns have centered on infrastructure, job growth, daily operations, water and electricity use, environmental effects, noise, traffic, emergency services and the future of a rural county that sits on the edge of the Ohio River economy.

The power question is especially hard to ignore. WCPO reported that the project could draw 31 times Adams County’s annual power consumption, a scale that would force county leaders, utilities and state regulators to confront what kind of grid upgrades, water planning and road improvements might follow. The economic promise is just as uncertain. Amazon Web Services and state officials announced in December 2024 that AWS planned an estimated $10 billion additional investment in Ohio’s data-center infrastructure and promised hundreds of jobs statewide by the end of 2030, but local critics have pressed for a clearer accounting of permanent jobs, not just construction work.

The politics around the project are moving on several tracks at once. In March, a petition drive at the West Union Walmart sought a statewide constitutional ban on data centers, rural zoning limits in Adams County and a reversal of a township zoning resolution. The Manchester Local School Board also approved a resolution opposing any data-center tax abatement agreement made without direct involvement between the property owner and the board. At the Statehouse, lawmakers’ June data-center bill stalled over tax breaks; the proposal would have created an electric rate class for data centers and cut local tax abatements by 50 percent. Gov. Mike DeWine then announced a temporary pause on new state data-center sales-tax exemptions on May 27 after the Ohio Department of Taxation said the exemption cost nearly $1.6 billion in 2025. For Adams County, the unanswered questions are no longer abstract. They now sit at the center of land use, public finance and the county’s long-term development path.