A huge proposed data center campus in Box Elder County is back before Utah's water regulators, and Utahns are lining up against it again.
O'Leary Digital, the company of celebrity investor Kevin O'Leary, filed a new water rights change application Thursday for its hyperscale data center project, known as Wonder Valley Utah and Stratos, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. By Monday afternoon, close to 200 people had filed protests.
The new filing comes after the company withdrew two earlier applications this year that drew a deluge of protests.
The size of the plan
The application describes a development that would eventually include 11 data center clusters and 7.5 gigawatts of power generation to train, deploy and run artificial intelligence systems, according to The Tribune.
The developer says it has raised $20 million and is working to raise another $30 million to move the project forward. It has secured about 11,000 acres through purchase agreements.
Much is still unsettled, including how the campus would be powered. Earlier plans relied on combined-cycle natural gas, but the developer is also considering renewables and other options, The Tribune reported.
The water request
O'Leary Digital is asking Utah's state engineer to approve using water that has irrigated Bar H Ranch for decades for power generation and other commercial and industrial uses instead.
The water right allows the ranch to divert up to 1,712 acre-feet a year from the Salt Wells Spring Stream. That's less than the earlier applications, which sought a little more than 1,900 acre-feet.
An engineering report with the application projects the campus would divert about 1,215 acre-feet a year at full buildout. It estimates about 229 acre-feet would be returned through wastewater treatment and irrigation flows, for a net depletion of about 987 acre-feet a year. The application calls those numbers conservative and "less than the diversion and depletion amount under the current use."
The Great Salt Lake claim
The application also proposes a pipeline of about 2.5 miles to carry unused water and return flows toward the downstream edge of the ranch.
O'Leary has repeatedly said the project is "almost certain to result in a net increase of water flowing to downstream water rights and the Great Salt Lake." The application admits it's unclear how much water in that pipeline would actually reach the lake, but says "there can be no question that more water will reach the Great Salt Lake from Salt Wells Spring Stream than has reached it historically."
Protesters have raised concerns about how the project could affect the lake, The Tribune reported.
What's next
The state engineer will consider the application and the protests. No hearing date was reported.
Why it matters for contractors
If it's ever built at the scale described, this would be one of the largest construction projects in Utah's history: 11 data center clusters, 7.5 gigawatts of power generation, pipelines and supporting infrastructure on thousands of acres in rural Box Elder County. That would mean years of work for site, utility, concrete, steel, electrical and power plant contractors, plus housing and services for the workforce.
But it's a long way from shovels in the ground. The project still needs water rights, still hasn't settled on a power source and is still raising money. Two earlier water applications were withdrawn, and this one drew nearly 200 protests in a matter of days.
For Utah contractors, it's one to watch, not one to plan around. The state engineer's decision on the water rights will be the first big signal of whether the project can move forward.