WAVERLY, Ohio — Pike County residents can address state regulators tonight, Wednesday, November 4, when Ohio EPA holds a public information session and antidegradation hearing in Waverly on a water-quality permit for the proposed PORTS Technology Campus south of Piketon. The hearing begins at 6 p.m. at the YMCA, 400 Pride Drive, Waverly. At issue: whether filling parts of 15 streams and six wetlands in the Lower Scioto watershed complies with Ohio water-quality rules.
The applicant is Portsmouth DevCo LLC. The state review is Ohio EPA ID 262779A2, according to Ohio EPA’s hearing notice as reported by W4 News, and is connected to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Huntington District file LRH-2026-00354-SCR. Ohio EPA says anyone may attend and testify, W4 News reported. Comments may also be filed through Ohio EPA’s online portal through the end of the business day on Thursday, November 12, citing both file numbers.
Portsmouth DevCo seeks a Clean Water Act Section 401 certification — the state’s determination that a federally permitted discharge will comply with water-quality requirements. It is separate from the Army Corps’ own Section 404 review, which remains underway. Ohio EPA has not approved or denied the certification, and tonight is not an approval announcement. It is where the public record is built: testimony and written comments the agency must weigh alongside the application.
Ohio EPA says the proposed impacts trigger antidegradation review, W4 News reported. Under Ohio Administrative Code chapters 3745-1 and 3745-32, an applicant must justify the necessity of any lowering of water quality, and Ohio standards must be protected. The notice says the affected waters do not qualify for an exclusion or waiver. Triggering review is not a finding that the applicant has proved its case; it is a finding that the case must be made in public first.
The broader project, in the federal permitting record summarized by W4 News, covers about 1,300 acres of private land next to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site. Federal materials describe two data-center buildings with roads, administrative areas, substations, laydown areas and parking. That scale is why this permit draws a countywide audience: it is among Pike County’s largest proposals, in the Scioto River watershed.
The neighboring federal site is the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which, according to the Scioto Valley Guardian, enriched uranium from 1954 until 2001 and has been the subject of cleanup debates ever since. Tonight’s decision does not decide that cleanup, or every question about data centers and power generation. But the history explains why residents here ask for specifics — exact impact tables, monitoring locations and enforceable conditions — rather than general assurances.
Those specifics are likely to dominate tonight’s testimony. The notice counts 15 streams and six wetlands, but does not state how many linear feet or acres would be filled, or which impacts would be permanent. Commenters can ask what layouts were considered to avoid those waters, why alternatives were judged impracticable, and how the chosen layout minimizes what remains. They can ask how much mitigation is proposed, where, when it would be completed, and how it would be monitored.
Construction controls are a second open question. Residents can ask how work would be sequenced, how stream crossings would be handled, and what erosion, sediment and stormwater controls would operate in heavy rain. They can ask what downstream monitoring would occur before, during and after construction, what would trigger corrective action, and how inspection reports would be made public — practical concerns where sediment can reach the very streams the permit is meant to protect.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on
What is confirmed: tonight’s 6 p.m. Waverly hearing; the applicant, file numbers and scope in Ohio EPA’s notice as reported by W4 News; a pending application with no approval or denial; and a November 12 comment deadline, independently reported by J News Network on October 30. Still unknown: final acreage and linear footage, the alternatives analysis, mitigation amount and location, any certification conditions, and the Army Corps’ separate decision.
Tonight’s application is not two neighboring filings in the news last week. J News Network reported Ohio EPA ruled, in letters dated October 29 and October 30, that the separate Artemis power facility and Bobo technology project Section 401 applications were incomplete and would not be reviewed further until missing material is filed. Those are different applications from tonight’s 262779A2. The rulings do not change tonight’s schedule, but they show the agency testing PORTS-area applications closely on completeness.
A separate decision point follows next month. The Ohio Power Siting Board holds a local public hearing at 5 p.m. Thursday, December 10, at Piketon High School on Portsmouth Gas DevCo LLC’s proposed PORTS Energy Center, described in the board’s notice as a 1.77-gigawatt natural-gas facility on about 776 acres adjacent to the Energy Department site, providing behind-the-meter power to a nearby data center. That case, 26-0746-EL-BGN, concerns the power plant. Tonight concerns only water quality.
What happens next is procedural and traceable. The written record stays open until November 12; residents should keep their filing confirmation and cite 262779A2. Ohio EPA will then respond to comments and issue its certification decision, and the Army Corps will act separately on the federal permit. Until then, the application remains what it is tonight in Waverly: a pending request, tested in public, in the county that would live with it.