Meta Bowling Green data center, Wood County, Ohio

Meta is building an $800 million data center on more than 280 acres in Middleton Township, north of Bowling Green in Wood County, Ohio, its second in the state. It has its own permitted natural gas plant behind the meter, built with Williams and fed from lines off the Nexus and Rover pipelines. Meta puts construction at more than 1,000 workers and the running campus at about 100 permanent jobs.

County commissioners approved a tax abatement in September 2023, 75 percent for 15 years, and Meta was only named as the developer in the summer of 2024. The Eastwood and Otsego school districts are each estimated to receive about $900,000 a year.

On January 6, 2026 about 150 residents filled the Wood County Planning Commission room past capacity and questioned the commission for more than two and a half hours. Mark Patton, who lives on Devil's Hole Road a mile from the site, said: "We can't leave. We can't sell our properties." Joe DeMare of Bowling Green said: "Data centers can suck up all the resources." Brittney Klockowski, of Weston village council, said of this kind of development: "It's a different beast." They asked for a moratorium on new data centers, for transparency in rezoning, and for the end user of a project to be disclosed before approval.

The commission's answer was that it could not help. Commissioner Craig LaHote said: "We can be sympathetic. But we have no authority." Planning director Dave Steiner said of rezoning applications: "If it's 1,000 acres, it's probably a data center. If it's 50-100 acres, we don't know." Commission chair and county engineer John Musteric asked the room: "Do you want us to lie to you?" LaHote later said he understood the frustration, and that had officials known the potential downsides they might have been able to warn people. Economic development director Wade Gottschalk said that in 2023 "there was no 'anti data center' movement" and that data centers were sought after nationally. Port authority president Rex Huffman said, "What they were was never hidden. There were a lot of hearings along the way."

On water the two sides do not even agree on the order of magnitude. Meta says the running campus is liquid cooled in a closed loop with dry coolers and needs no water to operate, using less in a year than two full service restaurants, and that it pays the full cost of its water and sewer. Opponents have cited a figure of up to 600,000 gallons a day, served by the Northwestern Water and Sewer District from Bowling Green's supply.

Findlay and Tiffin both passed data center moratoriums on April 22, 2026, and Maumee, Monclova, Waterville Township and Lake Township passed their own earlier in the year.