A state permit for a transmission project and a court’s review of the property rights needed to build it are separate matters. That distinction, established in Ohio Power Co. v. Burns and applied in later litigation, matters as route studies proceed for lines connected to the planned data-center campus near Piketon.
In Ohio Power Co. v. Burns, decided in 2022, landowners disputed easements sought for an electric-transmission upgrade. The Ohio Supreme Court held that approval of the project by regulators did not, by itself, establish that every property right the utility later sought was necessary, according to the Supreme Court of Ohio. The court found that regulators had approved the project without examining the particular property interests at issue, as TiffinOhio.net reported.
The practical consequence was a property-by-property, term-by-term inquiry: a court must assess the necessity of each challenged easement provision that was not reviewed during state siting approval, according to TiffinOhio.net’s account of the ruling. That inquiry does not reopen the approval of the transmission project itself; it concerns the specific rights the utility asks a court to authorize and does not guarantee that landowners can stop construction of the line.
What the Case Was Actually Fighting Over
The Burns dispute followed unsuccessful easement negotiations, according to the Ohio State University Farm Office. Ohio Power then sought wider easements than those initially discussed. The landowners accepted that the project had been found necessary but argued that the particular property rights and terms proposed went beyond what the line required.
Ohio Power had also sought distribution-line rights as part of the package, initially including them because the company said it did not know whether distribution lines would ultimately be part of the project. A company witness later acknowledged those rights were not needed, and Ohio Power withdrew its request for distribution-line rights after the property owners challenged their necessity, per TiffinOhio.net.
After the trial court found the disputed terms necessary on remand, the Fourth District Court of Appeals reached a mixed result in 2024. It left in place construction and access-route rights, as well as a tree-protection zone permitting limited removal of dangerous trees outside the easement, according to the Ohio State University Farm Office’s review. It reversed the findings on herbicide use, an anti-abandonment provision and distribution-line rights that Ohio Power had already withdrawn.
Herbicides, Abandonment Clauses and the Limits of Necessity
On herbicides, Ohio Power argued the chemicals can be useful and cost-effective for maintaining the easement corridor. The appeals court was not persuaded, finding that the company's evidence did not establish an actual need for herbicides on the landowners' specific properties, the Farm Office noted. The anti-abandonment provision fared no better; it would have addressed whether nonuse or removal of facilities could surrender the company's easement rights, and the appeals court found it unnecessary as well.
The appeals court sent the case back with instructions to remove the three rejected provisions from the easements, while leaving the other rights it found necessary in place. The decision illustrates the narrower question in an appropriation case: whether each disputed property right is needed, rather than whether the transmission project as a whole has regulatory approval, as the Farm Office’s analysis explains.
The Rules Landowners Have to Follow to Fight Back
None of this works automatically in a landowner's favor. Ohio's appropriation law, which governs these eminent-domain court proceedings, requires a landowner's answer to specifically deny the agency's authority, the parties' inability to agree, or the necessity of the appropriation — and to lay out supporting facts for that denial. Under Ohio Revised Code Section 163.08, those matters are resolved in the agency's favor if they are not specifically denied with supporting facts in the answer. A general objection is not enough, and landowners do not need to prove the utility acted in bad faith — they simply have to state specific objections and the facts behind them.
Ohio's 2007 eminent-domain law also built in presumptions that cut both ways. A public utility that presents evidence that an appropriation is necessary receives a rebuttable legal presumption in its favor, per TiffinOhio.net, but a property owner can rebut that presumption with evidence of their own, since the utility still carries the ultimate burden of proving necessity. Where the statute gets tougher for landowners is when a state or federal regulator has approved the appropriation of a particular property interest — in that narrow circumstance, the law provides an irrebuttable presumption of necessity. Still, an appropriation lawsuit does not give owners a general opportunity to reopen the Ohio Power Siting Board's underlying approval of the project, since Ohio's siting-review statute routes that kind of challenge to the Ohio Supreme Court instead.
Why This Legal Fight Matters Right Now in Piketon
The distinction is relevant to route studies in southern Ohio. Farmland owners have raised concerns about lines planned to serve a data-center campus near Piketon, as Cleveland.com reported. Route studies for the Piketon-area project include possible effects in Ross County.
AEP Transmission announced the Piketon Area Improvements Project in April, aimed at upgrading the power grid across several southern Ohio counties, according to AEP Transmission. The work includes building multiple power lines and upgrading area substations to power a data-center campus planned at the former gaseous diffusion plant site in Piketon, with towers expected to run roughly 155 to 200 feet tall. AEP says no final line route has been determined yet, since the company is still evaluating multiple study segments.
The broader investment is substantial. AEP Ohio, the U.S. Department of Energy and SB Energy announced planned investments totaling $4.2 billion in transmission infrastructure for the Piketon data-center campus in March, according to AEP. The plans include new 765-kilovolt transmission facilities, with power expected to begin flowing to the site in 2029. A separate Ohio Power Siting Board filing estimates a proposed line serving the campus will cost about $1.1 billion; the available material does not clarify whether that estimate covers a different project component or scope. Cleveland.com has reported that Ohio Power says SoftBank has committed to cover the cost of its lines, while AEP’s announcement identifies SB Energy as the committed funder of the $4.2 billion investment. The available accounts do not reconcile those descriptions.
What the available record says about data-center costs and the site
A separate AEP Ohio plan, approved by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, requires large new data-center customers to pay for at least 85% of the energy they subscribe to use; smaller customers have a sliding scale, and customers must show they are financially viable, according to AEP Ohio. That customer-payment rule is not an explanation of how the costs of the Piketon transmission lines or individual easements are allocated. The U.S. Department of Energy says uranium enrichment at the Portsmouth Site ended in May 2001 and that treatment is ongoing for all five groundwater plumes to contain and reduce contamination, according to its site history and cleanup update. Those are site-wide facts; they do not establish conditions along any proposed power-line route.
Ohio Power is developing three separate transmission lines to supply the planned PORTS Technology Campus data center, including one running through Ross County, according to Cleveland.com's reporting. That's where Laura Dill Morton's family comes in — her family has owned their Ross County farm for more than 200 years, a detail that underscores what's at stake for longtime landowners now facing easement demands tied to a data-center project many did not ask for.
A Broader Debate Over Public Use and Quick-Take Power
Underlying all of this is a harder question that the courts have not resolved: whether infrastructure built to serve one large private customer — a data-center operator — still qualifies as a public use under Ohio's eminent-domain framework. That debate has pushed into the legislature, too. Cleveland.com reports that the Ohio Business Roundtable has proposed expanding utilities' quick-take powers, which would let them seize land before owners finish fighting over compensation. Republican lawmakers tried to move in the opposite direction in 2023, introducing House Bill 64 to eliminate the automatic presumption of necessity and force condemning agencies to prove their case — but that bill stalled.
For now, the Ohio Power Siting Board will oversee permitting for the new transmission lines feeding the Piketon campus, with public input, environmental-impact studies and socioeconomic and land-use analysis built into the process, per AEP's announcement. Whether that process satisfies the same courts that split the baby in the Burns case remains to be seen as easement negotiations in Washington and Ross counties move forward.
