Utah county approves massive data center project despite protests

Box Elder County approved a sprawling hyperscale data center campus in Hansel Valley, choosing promised jobs and tax revenue over mounting fears that the project would strain water supplies, land use and the grid across northern Utah.

The Box Elder County Commission voted unanimously on Monday, May 4, after delaying the decision for a week and moving the meeting to the Box Elder County Fairgrounds in Tremonton to make room for a larger crowd. County officials said they reviewed more than 2,500 public comments before voting, but the hearing still drew hundreds of protesters who shouted objections as police managed parts of the crowd.

The project, called the Stratos Project, would cover about 40,000 acres of mostly privately owned, unincorporated land centered in Hansel Valley. It is backed by Utah’s Military Installation Development Authority and investor Kevin O’Leary through O’Leary Digital, and MIDA had already approved key steps in late April. Supporters have said the development could create about 2,000 jobs and bring tax revenue and infrastructure investment to Box Elder County.

The scale of the power demand is what has sharpened the backlash. Full buildout could reach up to 9 gigawatts, more than twice Utah’s current electricity use, even as the state already has 48 operational data center facilities with more than 900 megawatts of capacity. Opponents say adding a campus of that size in Hansel Valley would deepen pressure on water resources and threaten the Great Salt Lake.

Water remains the most explosive point of contention. More than 3,700 formal protests have been filed with the Utah Division of Water Rights against a key water-rights application tied to the project, far above the handful of objections the agency typically sees. The water right dates to 1904 and includes 1,900 acre-feet of water. Developers say they plan to buy about 2,800 acre-feet and have another 10,000 acre-feet under contract, but conservationists say the project’s water and power claims remain unclear.

Utah passed the Data Center Water Transparency Amendments in 2026, requiring new data centers to estimate future water use, yet conservationists say actual water-use records are still kept secret. After the vote, O’Leary dismissed much of the opposition as coming from outsiders and suggested some criticism was paid or generated by artificial intelligence, hardening the divide around a project that could reshape Hansel Valley for decades.