The impact study Findlay never received
The environmental and economic study that should precede any abatement or rezoning — assembled from the public record. Where the record is silent, the silence is the finding.
Live Findlay Megawatt Hub (MWHub 01) · MARA Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: MARA); host One Power Co
7 of 15 chapters on the record · 3 partial · 5 gaps named
Findlay does everything to one small river. It impounds the Blanchard into two upground reservoirs, augments its low flow from them, discharges a 15-million-gallon-a-day sewage plant into it at a point where the state’s own arithmetic says there is no dilution left, and has spent roughly $160 million trying to stop it from flooding downtown. Four miles north, behind a township line that had no zoning at all until 2026, sits a 150-megawatt contracted compute load.
Unlike Fort Wayne’s Project Zodiac there is no developer codename to uncover here: the host and the customer are both named in SEC filings, and the county’s biggest employer is a Fortune 500 company headquartered downtown. What is hidden in Findlay is not who — it is how much, under whose contract, and against what rule. The load arrived first; the rules came after, from three governments with three different reaches, and not one of them has an adopted instrument that reaches the megawatts already contracted inside its borders.
This study also carries a retraction, and it is the most useful thing on it. The site was commissioned on a finding — that the sewage plant runs over its phosphorus allocation every reported year — that the record no longer supports. Rebuilding the load from the permit’s own published equation inverted it, and the honest answer to one of the three seasons is still cannot be called. Saying so is not a weakness in the analysis; it is the analysis.
Every figure here is read from a cited record and tagged: [verified] when a document states it,
[inference] when it is derived and the assumption is shown, [reference] for a secondary source,
[open] when the record does not say. Several of Findlay’s own instruments could not be retrieved
at all — the city’s moratorium ordinance, the county’s adopted SB 52 map, two county land systems.
Those are recorded as access failures, with their dates and response codes, and never as
findings of absence.
One name collision governs this whole study. MARA Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: MARA), the bitcoin miner holding the 150 MW contract, is not Marathon Petroleum Corp (NYSE: MPC), the refiner headquartered in Findlay. Two unrelated companies, both attachable to “Marathon … Findlay, Ohio.” They are never merged here.
Evidence tags
- [verified]
- Read from a cited record or a live source — confirmed and reproducible.
- [inference]
- A labelled reading or derivation from cited inputs — reasoning, not a record.
- [reference]
- An outside published specification or dataset — authoritative, but not a record about this site.
- [open]
- Withheld, unresolved, or not yet checked — a question, not a verdict.
Every figure in this study wears one of these tags. A chapter's verdict — On the record · Partial · Gap · Watch — measures the record, never the project's press.
The project
What this study is, how it reads evidence, and the project on the record.
- 01 Scope & method What a real impact study is, who normally commissions one, and how this one reads evidence. On the record
- 02 The project on the record Operator, lifecycle, load, cooling, and footprint — every undisclosed field a named blank. On the record
- 03 Land assembly & the deal How the land was put together, by whom, and what the paper trail says about when. the record carries no conveyance instrument — the land history has not been produced for this site Partial
The environment
Water, heat, groundwater, runoff, and air — each screened where the record allows.
- 04 Water supply & consumptive use How much water the project consumes, against the receiving water's own cited low flows. no campus water draw is on the record — neither a disclosed cooling method nor a metered or contracted quantity — so no buildout is modelled here; what stands is the receiving water's own existing burden Partial
- 05 The discharge & the receiving water Dilution at the design low flows, and the burden the receiving water already carries. On the record
- 06 Heat The discharge's heat against the reach's temperature criterion at design low flow. a thermal characterization for this project — none exists on the record. Gap
- 07 Groundwater & dewatering The wells within reach of the site's pumping, and where the pumped water went. a well survey and any dewatering record — neither has been produced. Gap
- 08 Stormwater & the built surface The runoff a campus-scale impervious surface adds to the design storm. the site grading and drainage plan — requested, not produced. Gap
- 09 Air The dispersion footprint of the campus's permitted generator fleet. an air-permit application for this project — none is on the record. Gap
The economy
The labor baseline, the grid and its ratepayers, the fiscal trade, and the balance.
- 10 Labor & the local baseline What this economy is before the project — the denominator every jobs claim divides by. On the record
- 11 Power & ratepayers Whose grid this load lands on, and what it does to the households on the same wires. On the record
- 12 The fiscal trade What tax revenue is being traded away, for how long, and what the paper trail says. no fiscal accounting and no incentive instrument is on the record Gap
- 13 Governance & the local record The ordinances, resolutions, votes, and minutes that approved — or refused — the project. On the record
- 14 The public balance What the community gives against what it is documented to get — a verdict over the chapters. synthesizes the screened chapters — 3 on the record, 1 partial, 4 gap Partial
What's missing
Every gap this study names, as one inventory — each with the record that would close it.