Running at Full Speed in the Dark: Historic Sites in Crosshairs as Power Grids, Data Centers Race Ahead

Law Protecting Sacred and Historic Ground Is Facing Its First Rollback in 60 Years

Story by Matt Bayman | This Local Life

   In an effort to improve safety, in 2000, the Ohio Department of Transportation planned a straightforward realignment of the intersection of State Route 41 and State Route 202 in Troy. But when an ancient Native American processing camp was discovered during the survey process, the entire project had to be rerouted, and the site reburied. That's why, today, there's a pointless curve on St. Rt. 202, just north of the intersection.

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   The law that required ODOT to respect that site—and ultimately reroute their project—is Section 106 of the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act, a landmark law designed to protect and preserve America's cultural heritage, including Native American cultural sites, archaeological ruins and historic buildings.

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   It's the only federal mechanism that requires agencies to consult with Native American tribes and the public before a federally funded or permitted project (such as a pipeline, a power grid, or data center) can damage a historic site. And it's now facing its first major rewrite in 60 years, for reasons you can probably read between the lines.

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   The proposed rewrite is being pushed by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP)—an independent, presidentially-appointed federal agency established by the very act it's now rewriting, tasked specifically with administering the Section 106 process.

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   Congress and the ACHP have both amended the act before—most significantly in 1992, when Congress wrote Native American tribes into the law as “formal, statutory participants,” and again in 2004, when the ACHP last revised its own regulations. Every one of those changes added protection. This is the first one aimed the other way.

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   If enacted, the proposed changes would strip state and local governments—and tribes—of their right to even be notified when a federal agency plans to damage a historic site in their own jurisdiction, and would make public comment optional rather than mandatory. It would replace the current step-by-step consultation process with a single agency-certified "Section 106 Report," redefine the law as purely "procedural," hand federal agencies unilateral power to move their own deadlines, and swap the current "avoid, minimize, or mitigate" standard for a vaguer directive to just "address" harm.

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   To put it a different way, an independent federal agency Congress created in 1966 specifically to protect this law is now rewriting its own rules to gut it.

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   So why would an agency built to protect this law choose to weaken it?

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   The trail leads to a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing in October of 2025, where Section 106 was first spotlighted as causing "permitting delays for energy infrastructure, transmission lines, and conservation projects." In other words: the nation's power grid—increasingly strained by the data center boom—needs to move fast, and Section 106 is in the way.
 

   That hearing is what triggered the ACHP's review and rewrite, four months later. 

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   The ACHP's official justification for the revisions, as laid out in its own document released in July, is to "enhance clarity, provide greater regulatory certainty, and align the rule with statutory and policy directives"—mirroring the Senate committee opinion that the current process causes "uncertainties, delays, and regulatory burdens." (Note: NPR reported that, to justify these statements, the ACHP leans on a 2019 study finding that consultation can, in “extreme cases,” take nearly seven years to complete.)*

  Even the process of passing this rewrite was rushed. According to The National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers, the ACHP had promised its own members a two-month window to weigh in before any draft was written. Instead, members were handed a nearly finished proposal and given exactly one week to review and vote on it. It passed—roughly 16 in favor, 5 opposed, 2 abstentions. Opposition came specifically from the state and tribal preservation officer representatives on the council—i.e. the people who represent state, local and tribal government interests—voting against it as a bloc. That vote took place on July 24.

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   The ACHP's proposal now heads to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for review, with publication in the Federal Register expected before the end of 2026. Once it's published, a mandatory 30-day public comment period opens. The ACHP is legally required to respond to “substantive” comments before finalizing anything. This is when the public will have a chance to speak for or against the revisions.

Section 106: Closer to Home
  Although these revisions may seem obscure now, western Ohio (and specifically Piqua) was once home to one of the largest Native American populations east of the Mississippi—the Miami Indians to be exact, who (now known as the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma) are among 50 federally recognized tribes that have ancestral ties to the Ohio River Valley dating back thousands of years (others in our area include the Shawnee and Wyandotte) and whose sites (discovered or not) are protected by Section 106.

   Right now, a company called Grid Growth Ventures (a joint venture of AEP and FirstEnergy) is proposing 190 miles of 765-kilovolt transmission line running from Darke County, through parts of Shelby and Miami counties (prime Miami Indian territory), all the way to Guernsey County on the other side of the state at a cost of $1.1 billion**. The stated reason for building it is surging electricity demand from data centers located in the central part of Ohio, including in New Albany (Read more about New Albany's connection to our area HERE).
 

  Outreach to landowners by Grid Growth Ventures started this summer, and part of that outreach involves the company itself asking property owners to report any historic or “meaningful” sites on their land, such as: cemeteries/burial sites, landmarks, Indian mounds, and the kinds of things Section 106 exists to catch (and protect) before it's too late. If such sites exist along the proposed grid, at the present time, Section 106 will operate under its current, strengthened status, focusing on preservation and respect. If the revisions are accepted at the federal level, it won’t matter if a site exists in the path or not, nor will Native American tribes or the public have a say in what happens.

  Residents (mostly in Shelby County) have organized against the grid project. A "Stop the Power Lines" group has formed. The Ohio Farm Bureau has held sessions on eminent domain for affected landowners, many concerned about what’s going on. Everyone is caught up in the rush! 
 

   And that’s really the point here.

  The archaeological discovery at St. Rt. 41 and St. Rt. 202 in 2000 delayed an ODOT project for only a short time, and the dignity of the site remained intact and the project was completed. The strange curve in the road doesn’t really bother anybody, as far as I know. 

   Right now, though, many people are bothered by the break-neck speed at which society is moving toward powering and growing artificial intelligence. It’s like running at full speed in the dark. Where are we going? If somebody knows the answer, they’re not telling us.

   For this reason, many people would be fine with Section 106 acting under its full capacity, if anything just to slow down what seems to be a reckless process, but more so to protect our treasured heritage.  

   Maybe the good news (and a public tool) is that, it is estimated that more than 10,000 Indian mounds and earthworks once stood in this state alone, dozens of them in Piqua and many more in the area (Learn more and see a map of sites HERE). Many thousands more burial, village and archaeological sites have been identified in the state, with many others still waiting to be found…

   However, Section 106 doesn't stop at the Miami County line. It's quietly doing this same work in every county in America, which means the choice being made in Washington right now isn't really about Ohio. It's about whether any of us still get a say in what gets remembered.
 

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* According to a 2010 National Trust for Historic Preservation study: of the roughly 114,000 Section 106 reviews conducted every year nationwide, about 85 percent find no historic properties affected at all. Only about 2 percent—a couple thousand projects a year—actually turn up something serious enough to require a formal mitigation agreement.

** The roughly $1.1 billion project is largely driven by data-center demand, but the Ohio Consumers' Counsel has flagged that about 60% of the cost is expected to land on ordinary Ohio ratepayers, not the data centers creating the demand. Ohio regulators have already taken some steps to shield residents from data-center-driven costs, but critics argue Grid Growth's proposed rate structure doesn't go far enough—meaning those of us in Darke, Shelby, and Miami counties could be having land condemned and lines run through farmland and historic ground to serve Columbus-area data centers, while also subsidizing the bill for it and getting nothing in return.

Public Hearings Planned for Power Grid Expansion
Pending approval from the Ohio Power Siting Board, construction of the transmission line could begin in 2028. Public hearings are planned. LEARN MORE