As Introduced

136th General Assembly

Regular Session S. B. No. 378

2025-2026

To amend sections 1521.01 and 1521.99 and to enact sections 9.72 and 1521.232 of the Revised Code regarding the withdrawal and consumptive use of water by data centers and to name the act the Responsible Water Use by Data Centers Act.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF OHIO:

Section 1. That sections 1521.01 and 1521.99 be amended and sections 9.72 and 1521.232 of the Revised Code be enacted to read as follows:

Sec. 9.72. (A) As used in this section:

(1) "Water or sewer system" means a system operated by an entity authorized to provide water services to consumers or authorized to provide sewer services to consumers under Chapter 504., 729., 735., 743., 4905., 4909., 6101., 6103., 6115., 6117., or 6119. of the Revised Code.

(2) "Data center" means a facility consisting of one or more buildings dedicated to housing computer systems, servers, storage, and network equipment to collect, process, store, and distribute large amounts of data.

(3) "Infrastructure costs" means direct and indirect water and sewer services infrastructure costs.

(B) The owner or operator of a data center is responsible for payment to a water and sewer system of all infrastructure costs incurred by the water and sewer system that are attributable to the establishment and operation of the data center. The water and sewer system may collect payment for such costs from the data center in a manner determined appropriate by the system. No other ratepayer within the service area of the water and sewer system is responsible for payment of infrastructure costs that are the responsibility of the owner or operator of the data center under this division.

Sec. 1521.01. As used in this chapter:

(A) "Consumptive use" means a use of water resources, other than a diversion, that results in a loss of that water to the basin from which it is withdrawn and includes, but is not limited to, evaporation, evapotranspiration, and incorporation of water into a product or agricultural crop.

(B) "Diversion" means a withdrawal of water resources from either the Lake Erie or Ohio river drainage basin and transfer to another basin without return. "Diversion" does not include evaporative loss within the basin of withdrawal.

(C) "Other great lakes states and provinces" means states other than this state that are parties to the great lakes basin compact under Chapter 6161. of the Revised Code and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec.

(D) "Water resources" means any waters of the state that are available or may be made available to agricultural, industrial, commercial, and domestic users.

(E) "Waters of the state" includes all streams, lakes, ponds, marshes, watercourses, waterways, wells, springs, irrigation systems, drainage systems, and other bodies or accumulations of water, surface and underground, natural or artificial, regardless of the depth of the strata in which underground water is located, that are situated wholly or partly within or bordering upon this state or are within its jurisdiction.

(F) "Well" means any excavation, regardless of design or method of construction, created for any of the following purposes:

(1) Removing ground water from or recharging water into an aquifer, excluding subsurface drainage systems installed to enhance agricultural crop production or urban or suburban landscape management or to control seepage in dams and levees;

(2) Determining the quantity, quality, level, or movement of ground water in or the stratigraphy of an aquifer, excluding borings for instrumentation in dams, levees, or highway embankments;

(3) Removing or exchanging heat from ground water, excluding horizontal trenches that are installed for water source heat pump systems.

(G) "Aquifer" means a consolidated or unconsolidated geologic formation or series of formations that are hydraulically interconnected and that have the ability to receive, store, or transmit water.

(H) "Ground water" means all water occurring in an aquifer.

(I) "Ground water stress area" means a definable geographic area in which ground water quantity is being affected by human activity or natural forces to the extent that continuous availability of supply is jeopardized by withdrawals.

(J) "Person" has the same meaning as in section 1.59 of the Revised Code and also includes the United States, the state, any political subdivision of the state, and any department, division, board, commission, agency, or instrumentality of the United States, the state, or a political subdivision of the state.

(K) "State agency" or "agency of the state" has the same meaning as "agency" in section 111.15 of the Revised Code.

(L) "Cone of depression" means a depression or low point in the water table or potentiometric surface of a body of ground water that develops around a location from which ground water is being withdrawn.

(M) "Facility" has the same meaning as in section 1522.10 of the Revised Code.

(N) "Hydrologic study area" means the area within a four-mile radius from the boundary of the withdrawal area.

(O) "Well field" means a contiguous land area containing two or more wells that provide water to a facility.

(P) "Withdrawal area" means the proposed well or well field location or locations.

(Q) "Development" means any artificial change to improved or unimproved real estate, including the construction of buildings and other structures, any substantial improvement of a structure, mining, dredging, filling, grading, paving, excavating, and drilling operations, and storage of equipment or materials.

(R) "Floodplain" means the area adjoining any river, stream, watercourse, or lake that has been or may be covered by flood water.

(S) "Floodplain management" means the implementation of an overall program of corrective and preventive measures for reducing flood damage, including the collection and dissemination of flood information, construction of flood control works, nonstructural flood damage reduction techniques, and adoption of rules, ordinances, or resolutions governing development in floodplains.

(T) "One-hundred-year flood" means a flood having a one per cent chance of being equaled or exceeded in any given year.

(U) "One-hundred-year floodplain" means that portion of a floodplain inundated by a one-hundred-year flood.

(V) "Structure" means a walled and roofed building, including, without limitation, gas or liquid storage tanks and manufactured homes.

(W) "Substantial improvement" means any reconstruction, rehabilitation, addition, or other improvement of a structure, the cost of which equals or exceeds fifty per cent of the market value of the structure before the start of construction of the improvement. "Substantial improvement" includes repairs to structures that have incurred substantial damage regardless of the actual repair work performed. "Substantial improvement" does not include either of the following:

(1) Any project for the improvement of a structure to correct existing violations of state or local health, sanitary, or safety code specifications that have been identified by the state or local code enforcement official having jurisdiction and that are the minimum necessary to ensure safe living conditions;

(2) Any alteration of an historic structure designated or listed pursuant to federal or state law, provided that the alteration will not preclude the structure's continued listing or designation as an historic structure.

(X) "Substantial damage" means damage of any origin that is sustained by a structure if the cost of restoring the structure to its condition prior to the damage would equal or exceed fifty per cent of the market value of the structure before the damage occurred.

(Y) "National flood insurance program" means the national flood insurance program established in the "National Flood Insurance Act of 1968," 82 Stat. 572, 42 U.S.C. 4001, as amended, and regulations adopted under it.

(Z) "Conservancy district" means a conservancy district established under Chapter 6101. of the Revised Code.

(AA) "Data center" has the same meaning as in section 9.72 of the Revised Code.

Sec. 1521.232. (A) In addition to any other applicable permit required under this chapter or Chapter 1522. of the Revised Code, no person shall allow a data center that the person owns or operates to withdraw waters of the state that results in the consumptive use of any amount of water without first obtaining a data center consumptive use permit from the chief of the division of water resources under this section.

(B) An owner or operator of a data center shall submit an application for a data center consumptive use permit to the chief on a form the chief prescribes. In the application, the applicant shall declare and document all of the information specified in division (B) of section 1521.23 of the Revised Code and any other information the chief may require by rule.

(C) The chief shall adopt rules in accordance with Chapter 119. of the Revised Code that establishes criteria for issuing a data center consumptive use permit under this section. Such rules shall include all criteria described in division (A) of section 1521.29 and any other criteria the chief may require.

(D)(1) The chief shall determine the period for which each permit approved under this section will be valid and specify the expiration date.

(2) The chief shall establish rules providing for the transfer of permits. A permit may be transferred on the conditions that the quantity of water withdrawn not be increased and that the purpose of the withdrawal not be changed.

(E) The chief may hold public hearings upon any application for a permit.

(F)(1) Within a time established by rule, the chief shall do one of the following:

(a) Notify the applicant that an application the applicant filed under this section is approved or denied and, if denied, the reason for denial;

(b) Notify the applicant of any modification necessary to qualify the application for approval.

(2) Any person who receives notice of a denial or modification under division (F)(1) of this section is entitled to a hearing under Chapter 119. of the Revised Code if the person sends a written request for a hearing to the chief within thirty days after the date on which the notice is mailed or otherwise provided to the applicant.

(3) The chief shall issue a permit to an applicant whose application is approved under this section. However, the chief shall not issue a permit to a data center that proposes to withdraw waters of the state in an amount that would result in a new or increased consumptive use of more than an average of five million gallons of water per day in any thirty-day period.

(G) No person shall allow a data center that the person owns or operates to withdraw waters of the state in an amount that would result in a new or increased consumptive use of more than an average of five million gallons of water per day in any thirty-day period.

(H)(1) The chief shall revoke a permit under this section without a prior hearing if the chief determines that the quantity of water being withdrawn exceeds the quantity stated in the permit application.

(2) The chief may suspend a permit if the chief determines that the continued withdrawal of water will endanger the public health, safety, or welfare. Before suspending a permit, the chief shall make a reasonable attempt to notify the permittee that the chief intends to suspend the permit. If the attempt fails, notification shall be given as soon as practicable following the suspension. Within five days after the suspension, the chief shall provide the permittee an opportunity to be heard and to present evidence that the continued withdrawal of water will not endanger the public health, safety, or welfare.

If the chief determines before the expiration date of a suspended permit that the withdrawal of water can be resumed without danger to the public health, safety, or welfare, the chief shall, upon request of the permittee, reinstate the permit.

(I) Any six or more residents of this state may petition the chief for an investigation of a withdrawal of water resources that they allege is in violation of a permit issued under this section.

The petition shall identify the permittee and detail the reasons why the petitioners believe that grounds exist for the revocation or suspension of the permit under this section.

Upon receipt of the petition, the chief shall send a copy to the permittee and, within sixty days, make a determination whether grounds exist for revocation or suspension of the permit under this section.

(J) Each permittee shall submit to the chief an annual report containing such information as the chief may require by rule.

Sec. 1521.99. (A) Whoever violates division (E)(1) of section 1521.05 or division (E)(1) of section 1521.16 of the Revised Code is guilty of a misdemeanor of the fourth degree. All fines collected pursuant to this division shall be deposited in the state treasury to the credit of the water management fund created in section 1521.22 of the Revised Code.

(B) Whoever violates section 1521.06 or 1521.062 of the Revised Code shall be fined not less than one hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars for each offense. Each day of violation constitutes a separate offense. All fines collected pursuant to this division shall be deposited in the state treasury to the credit of the dam safety fund created in section 1521.06 of the Revised Code.

(C) Whoever violates section 1521.22 of the Revised Code or the terms or conditions of a permit issued under that section shall be fined not more than ten thousand dollars for each day of violation. All fines collected pursuant to this division shall be deposited in the state treasury to the credit of the water management fund created in section 1521.22 of the Revised Code.

(D) Whoever violates section 1521.23 or 1521.232 of the Revised Code or the terms or conditions of a permit issued under section 1521.232 or 1521.29 of the Revised Code is guilty of a misdemeanor of the fourth degree. All fines collected pursuant to this division shall be deposited in the state treasury to the credit of the water management fund created in section 1521.22 of the Revised Code.

Section 2. That existing sections 1521.01 and 1521.99 of the Revised Code are hereby repealed.

Section 3. This act shall be known as the Responsible Water Use by Data Centers Act.