Sam Menges is 12 years old, a seventh grader at Keystone Middle School, and he wants nothing more than to grow up and become a farmer. But he says that dream is now threatened by a proposed mega-site development that could consume roughly 1,000 acres of farmland near his home in Lorain County.
Menges began paying attention to local zoning fights after hearing that 1,000 acres of community farmland could be destroyed for a mega-site tech development, and he has since become a fixture at township trustee and county commissioner meetings opposing the project, according to Cleveland.com. He has published a guest column calling for a statewide moratorium on data centers while their long-term effects are studied, and he says he is collecting letters from other Ohio children about data centers to send to state lawmakers — he had gathered more than 30 of them by the time he wrote his column.
The Lorain County mega-site is proposed near the Lorain County Regional Airport in New Russia Township and is intended to attract major manufacturers, not necessarily a data center, per the same report. The state awarded $67.4 million from the All Ohio Future Fund in July 2025 to support infrastructure for the project.
Trustees Say No, But the Fight Isn’t Settled
In March, New Russia Township trustees unanimously rejected a request to rezone 622 acres of farmland near the airport for industrial use. The application, covering nine parcels along State Route 58, Russia Road and Oberlin Road, was filed by Liberty Development on behalf of four landowners, according to cleveland.com. Residents' concerns at the time ranged from environmental impacts and increased traffic to infrastructure strain and the loss of farmland, the outlet reported, and it remained unclear at the time whether the vote would effectively stop the broader project.
The wider megasite would combine that 622-acre parcel with more than 900 acres of adjacent county land, according to Ideastream Public Media. Lorain County Commissioner David Moore has said infrastructure construction is still going ahead despite the township's no vote, the station reported — a position that sits in tension with cleveland.com's earlier note that the project's fate after the rezoning rejection was unclear. No tenant has committed to the site, and Ideastream reported that Team NEO, Liberty Development and county officials maintain a data center is not the plan, even as residents have raised that possibility themselves. Lorain County commissioners did not respond to questions about the project's status as of Thursday, and Liberty Development did not immediately respond to a request for comment, per Cleveland.com's report.
A Statewide Pattern of Pushback
Menges is far from alone in pressing officials for answers. The Ohio Farm Bureau has raised concerns with state lawmakers about data centers' effects on agricultural land, and the organization testified before the Joint Data Center Committee earlier this year about the industry's growth and its long-term effects on agriculture and rural communities. Ohio has lost nearly 1 million acres of farmland over the past 20 years, according to USDA data cited by the Ohio Farm Bureau, which says the issue has raised many concerns and questions among members across the state.
Evan Callicoat, the Farm Bureau's director of state policy, has said modern farming technology actually depends on data centers, even as he acknowledged that farmland, water, power and natural gas committed to data-center projects have raised member concerns statewide. Callicoat has called for Ohio to set guardrails that maximize local benefits while minimizing long-term impacts on infrastructure, natural resources and farmland, and Farm Bureau members are urging policymakers to balance economic development with protection of prime farmland, natural resources and landowner rights. Once land is developed, the bureau has said, it is nearly impossible to return it to farming. For his part, Menges has said that if data centers must be built, they should go on brownfields instead of farmland — because, as he put it, farmland cannot be replaced once it's lost.
Amherst, Monroeville and a Growing List of Rejections
Lorain County is not the only place in the region wrestling with this fight. In July, the Board of Zoning Appeals in nearby Amherst rejected Cervenka Development Partners LLC's request to convert three Nordson Corp. buildings into a 45-megawatt data center, finding that the property remained suitable for uses already permitted under its existing industrial zoning and that the variance standards weren't met, according to FOX 8. More than 100 residents attended that meeting, most speaking against the project, though the station noted the ruling did not resolve residents' broader concerns about electricity, water, pollution or health effects.
Similar battles are playing out elsewhere in Ohio. In rural Mt. Orab, property records show 1,000 acres of farmland and trees were sold to a data-center developer in 2024 and 2025, according to NPR, which also reports that Conserve Ohio-backed ballot initiatives in 10 communities would amend local charters to prohibit large-scale data centers outright. In Huron County, the village of Monroeville is weighing a proposed 100-megawatt facility from Decimal Digital that would employ roughly 50 people and require more than 500 construction workers, with the company requesting a 100% property-tax abatement in exchange for annual payments to local schools and the village, News 5 Cleveland reported.
More than 200 data centers were already operating in Ohio when Ideastream published its report on the Lorain County dispute, reflecting a statewide boom drawn by inexpensive land, existing energy infrastructure and generous tax breaks, NPR has reported. The facilities can bring considerable tax revenue, money for schools and numerous construction jobs, but typically a smaller number of permanent positions — a tradeoff fueling opposition over noise, emissions and pollution concerns in community after community. For Menges, the stakes are more personal than statistical: he says the officials pushing these developments forward are putting his future as a farmer at risk, and he wants answers on health, environmental and water-supply effects before any shovels hit the ground.
