Concepts
The concept glossary — term and method definitions cross-linked through the record. 77 concept(s).
7Q10 The lowest 7-consecutive-day average streamflow expected on average once every ten years — the design low flow for sizing effluent dilution. AEP The investor-owned utility whose Ohio operating company serves much of the grid footprint in this record. Assimilative capacity A stream's ability to dilute or assimilate an added load (or a loss of flow) without breaching water-quality criteria, evaluated at design low flow. Behind-the-meter On-site generation that serves a load directly, without that power crossing the utility meter or the public grid. Brownfield A property whose redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived contamination, often carrying cleanup obligations and dedicated funding. CERCLA The federal Superfund statute governing the cleanup of contaminated sites and the strict, retroactive liability of the parties responsible for them. CGP The NPDES general permit that authorizes stormwater discharges from construction sites disturbing an acre or more — including smaller sites within a common plan of development or sale that reaches an acre — under a standard set of conditions. Closed-loop cooling A recirculating cooling design whose water loss is chiefly evaporation and blowdown, so it withdraws little but consumes most of what it takes. CMAR A project-delivery method in which the construction manager joins during design and commits to a guaranteed maximum price for the build. Colocation A data center that leases space, power, and cooling to multiple tenants who install their own hardware — distinct from a single operator's owned campus. Common-control plumbing Shared registered agents, organizers, or addresses across entities — evidence of common administrative control, not of beneficial ownership. Conditional use A use allowed in a zoning district only by case-by-case approval, granted with conditions rather than by right. Consent decree A court-approved settlement in which a party agrees to specified actions under continuing judicial oversight, carrying the force of a court order. Constructive denial An agency's failure to produce public records within a reasonable time, treated in law as a denial even though no formal refusal was issued. Consumptive cooling Cooling water that is withdrawn and lost (mostly to evaporation) rather than returned to the source, reducing downstream flow. CRA An Ohio property-tax-abatement district (R.C. 3735) that lets a municipality exempt the value of new construction to incentivize development. Curve number The NRCS coefficient (0–100) relating land cover and soil to the depth of runoff a storm produces — the core parameter of the curve-number runoff method. Dilution The clean receiving-water flow available to dilute a discharged load, sized at design low flow — the physical basis of a water-quality-based effluent limit. Dissolved oxygen The oxygen dissolved in water and available to aquatic life; a core water-quality criterion that a discharge must not depress below standard. DMR The self-reported effluent-monitoring data a permittee files with the regulator, the primary public record of whether a discharge meets its permit. ECHO EPA's public database of facility permits, inspections, violations, and enforcement actions across its major programs. Effluent Treated wastewater discharged to a receiving water; its pollutant concentrations and loads are capped by limits written into the NPDES permit. EIA The federal statistical agency for U.S. energy production, consumption, and prices, and a primary source of utility-level demand data. Enterprise zone An Ohio program that grants property-tax exemptions on new investment in a designated area in exchange for job-creation and investment commitments. EPA The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — the federal environmental regulator that sets national standards and delegates much of their enforcement to states. ESC The construction practices that keep disturbed soil and sediment out of stormwater and receiving waters while a site is being built. FERC The federal regulator of interstate electricity transmission, wholesale power markets, and the RTOs that operate them. FFA A CERCLA cleanup agreement between EPA and a federal facility that sets the enforceable schedule and terms for remediating a listed site. Grant-refund clause RDA §5.5 — public grant awards (State 629 / ODOD Jobs & Commerce) can backfill and refund the developer's "private" road-work contribution, dollar for dollar. HB A bill originating in the Ohio House of Representatives, cited by number where it changes the siting, tax, or environmental law a project turns on. Heat reuse Capturing a data center's rejected thermal energy and redirecting it to on-site or district heating instead of dumping it — a cooling-design axis distinct from how much water the cooling draw consumes. HSG The NRCS A–D classification of a soil by how readily it infiltrates water — a primary input to runoff curve-number modeling. HUC The USGS nested numeric code that keys a hydrologic area at a chosen scale, from large subbasins (HUC-8) down to local subwatersheds (HUC-12). Hyperscale data center A very large, cloud-scale data center campus; the local zoning code defines the term and gates it as a conditional use. Hyperscaler A cloud operator that builds and runs data centers at massive scale — the class of companies (AWS, Microsoft, Google, Meta) behind most large campus projects. IL6 The U.S. Department of Defense cloud security classification for classified (SECRET-level) workloads — the tier that dictates a data center's physical and personnel controls. Interconnection queue The backlog of proposed generators and large loads awaiting the grid-connection studies and approvals an RTO requires before they can energize. JEDD An Ohio township–municipality compact (R.C. 715.70) that shares income-tax revenue from a development area without annexation. Moratorium A temporary local ban on approving a class of development while a government reconsiders the rules that govern it. NDA A confidentiality agreement that binds a party to secrecy, often shielding the terms and identity behind a data-center deal during site selection. NPDES The Clean Water Act permit program that sets and enforces pollutant limits on point-source discharges to surface water. NWIS The USGS system that serves real-time and historical streamflow and water-quality data from the national gauge network. OEPA The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency — the state permitting and enforcement authority for water, air, and waste under delegated federal programs. Once-through cooling A cooling design that withdraws water, passes it once to absorb heat, and returns nearly all of it to the source — warmer but not consumed. OPC A design-phase cost estimate for a public project — the engineer's structured projection of what construction will cost, and the artifact this platform reconstructs from source PDFs. OPSB The Ohio board that reviews and certifies the siting of major electric generation and transmission facilities. ORC The codified statutes of Ohio, cited throughout the record — from public-records law to the economic-development and siting authorities. PFAS A large class of persistent synthetic fluorinated compounds, increasingly regulated in drinking water, effluent, and biosolids. PILOT A negotiated payment that substitutes for the property taxes abated on a development, often directed to specific recipients like a school district. PJM The regional transmission organization that operates the high-voltage grid and wholesale electricity market across Ohio and the mid-Atlantic. POTW The Clean Water Act term for a municipally owned wastewater treatment works — the public peer of a private industrial discharger. PTI Ohio EPA's pre-construction permit for a new or modified source of air or water pollution, issued before ground is broken. Public-records mandamus In Ohio, a writ of mandamus is the remedy that compels a public office to produce records improperly withheld under the Public Records Act. PUCO Ohio's utility regulator, overseeing the rates and service of electric, gas, water, and telecom utilities in the state. PUE A data center's total facility energy divided by its IT-load energy — the standard measure of how much overhead (mostly cooling) its computing carries. Rezoning A legislative change to a parcel's zoning district, frequently the approval that unlocks — or blocks — a large project. RFP A solicitation asking firms to submit a scoped, priced proposal, evaluated on a combination of approach and cost. RFQ A solicitation asking firms to submit their qualifications, used to shortlist or select on competence rather than price. Roadwork Development Agreement The agreement under which the developer funds the public road work around the campus — a ~$14.5M "Company Contribution" set against the $14.2M cost estimate, with clauses on grant-refunds, records-notice, and procurement. RSEI EPA's model that converts Toxics Release Inventory reports into a comparative, toxicity- and exposure-weighted chronic-risk score. RTO The independent operator that runs the transmission grid and wholesale energy market for a multi-state region — PJM in this record. SNC EPA's flag for a permittee whose violations are serious or chronic enough to warrant a formal enforcement response. SOS The state office that holds business-entity filings — the public trail from an LLC back toward the people and companies behind it. SSA An EPA designation for an aquifer that supplies most of the drinking water for an area with no readily available alternative source. SWAT A watershed-scale model that simulates runoff, sediment, and nutrient loading across a basin to support TMDL and land-use analysis. SWCD A local district that administers soil, drainage, and stormwater conservation programs, often reviewing the erosion controls on new development. Tax abatement A negotiated reduction or exemption of property taxes granted to attract or retain development — the umbrella over Ohio's CRA, enterprise-zone, and TIF tools. TIF A financing tool that earmarks the property-tax increment from new development to pay for public infrastructure serving it. TMDL The maximum pollutant load an impaired water body can receive and still meet water-quality standards, apportioned among the sources that contribute it. Total nitrogen A nutrient water-quality parameter summing the nitrogen species in a sample, tracked alongside phosphorus in loading and TMDL analysis. Total phosphorus A nutrient water-quality parameter measuring all forms of phosphorus in a sample; excess loading drives the Lake Erie / Maumee algal-bloom problem. TRI EPA's annual, facility-level inventory of reported toxic-chemical releases to air, water, and land — the data behind the RSEI risk model. USGS The federal science agency that operates the national streamgage network and publishes the water, terrain, and geology data the analysis rests on. Variance A parcel-specific waiver of a zoning standard granted by a board of zoning appeals when strict application would impose an undue hardship. WLA The share of a TMDL assigned to point-source dischargers, translated into the effluent limits of their NPDES permits. WUE A data center's water use per unit of IT energy — the cooling-water efficiency ratio; whether it counts withdrawal or consumption depends on how it is reported, so the basis has to be recorded before the number is used. WWTP The plant that treats sewage and industrial wastewater before discharging treated effluent to a receiving water under an NPDES permit.