Utah should ban hyperscale data centers in water-stressed regions like ours.
Yet, despite overwhelming public opposition, Box Elder County commissioners unanimously advanced the massive “Stratos” project near Tremonton.
More than 3,800 Utahns paid $15 to file formal objections to the project’s water rights transfer. Hundreds showed up in person, some driving from as far as Cedar City, and chants of “people over profits” echoed through the crowd.
Backed by reality TV personality Kevin O’Leary, the proposal has become a defining test of whether Utah will prioritize long-term environmental survival over short-term corporate interests. There is still no definitive public environmental impact analysis for the project, and major questions remain about the infrastructure that would ultimately be deployed. But experts are already warning about the scale of the potential consequences.
According to Kevin Perry, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Utah, if the project were fully built out to 9 gigawatts and powered primarily by natural gas, it could increase Utah’s carbon dioxide emissions by more than 50%. In practical terms, the facility could emit as much carbon dioxide annually as the entire state of Connecticut.
A moratorium delays the question. A prohibition answers it.
Utah is already water-stressed. The Great Salt Lake continues to recede, exposing toxic dust carrying arsenic and other pollutants across the Wasatch Front. At the same time, Utah families are being asked to conserve water while multinational corporations negotiate access to enormous quantities of it for industrial computing infrastructure. The contradiction is obvious.
Artificial intelligence is often discussed as if it exists separately from the physical world. In reality, the infrastructure behind the AI boom is intensely physical. The servers must be cooled. The electricity must be generated. The water must come from somewhere.
Increasingly, that somewhere is Utah. It should not be.
National leaders have called for a moratorium on new data center development until strong environmental standards are established. That is a serious framework because it ties restraint to regulation.
But in Utah, the moratorium itself is increasingly treated as a standalone solution. It is not. A pause without binding standards simply postpones the same conflict.
Hyperscale data centers create extraordinary demand for water and electricity while often shifting long-term environmental costs onto the public. In water-abundant regions, some of those tradeoffs may be manageable under strict environmental rules. In Utah, they are increasingly difficult to justify.
A state cannot simultaneously warn residents about scarcity while subsidizing industrial-scale water consumption.
Supporters of projects like Stratos argue that if Utah refuses, another state will accept. That is exactly how corporations pressure governments into lowering standards, offering subsidies and absorbing environmental risk in exchange for promised “economic growth.”
Utahns reject that model.
When elected to Congress, I will introduce legislation establishing comprehensive national environmental standards for hyperscale data centers, including:
- A prohibition on hyperscale data center development in water-stressed regions like Utah
- Enforceable water neutrality requirements
- Mandatory clean-energy standards and emissions limits
- Full cost-causation rules so residents are not subsidizing private infrastructure
- Strict siting standards tied to ecosystem and public health protections
- Mandatory public disclosure of water and energy usage
I worked in public policy roles inside big tech companies. I saw firsthand how local opposition is often treated as a temporary obstacle rather than a legitimate warning. The assumption is that enough tax incentives, enough political pressure and enough promises of economic growth can overcome almost any concern.
Ecological limits do not negotiate.
What happens next matters. The Box Elder vote advances the project framework, but it does not complete the process. Projects of this scale still require major air quality permits, water approvals and environmental reviews. Utahns should use those processes exactly as they were intended: to demand rigorous review, challenge inadequate permits, scrutinize subsidies and insist on accountability before irreversible decisions are made.
For years, the digital economy was treated as if it floated above the realities of land, water and energy. Artificial intelligence is ending that illusion. The next political conflict over AI will concern who bears the environmental burden required to sustain it: who gives up the land, who sacrifices the water, who absorbs the pollution, and who profits from the arrangement.
Utah should not sacrifice its water, air and future so corporations can power artificial intelligence on an industrial scale.