BOX ELDER COUNTY, Utah — The developers behind the proposed Box Elder County data center, which has stirred debate and backlash for over a month, have agreed to dramatically cut the size of the facility, while also admitting the project's roll out was less than perfect.
In a letter addressed to Utah Senate President J. Stuart Adams, project chairman Kevin O'Leary said he will remove 19,430 acres from the data center's original footprint, which spanned 40,000 acres.
O'Leary's agreement comes after Adams called last week for the proposed facility to be shrunk by 75 percent.
The letter claims the adjustment will remove acres to the south of the data center "in recognition of the Locomotive Springs Waterfowl Management Area," a bird habitat overseen by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. O'Leary called the habitat "critical to the north shore of the Great Salt Lake, whose spring flows have declined significantly over recent decades."
County commissioners had two meetings about Stratos data center before public was told:
O'Leary added that his O'Leary Digital developers will also remove a 620-acre parcel in the northeast portion of the plan, and that they will preserve "a majority" of the remaining land as open space.
"We're just trying to address the issue that was brought up by Adam's letter, and saying, ‘Look, we can do much of what you want, including the environmental issues. We can part with the land that is the bird sanctuary, we're obviously not going to put it—never were going to put a data center there," O'Leary told FOX 13 News reporter Nate Carlisle.
A Utah DWS spokesperson told FOX 13 News on Thursday that potential impacts to wildlife and water in the area are not yet known, but added that the agency is willing to work with the developers to provide information to avoid negative impacts.
“With responsible water use, transparency and input from the people of Utah, we will show the nation how to build [the data center] right," Adams responded.
While agreeing to decrease the size of his proposal, O'Leary's letter claimed that the outcry over the Stratos Project "has been based on incorrect assumptions and facts about land use, water use, heat dispursion (sic), air quality, and project timeline that does not reflect reality."
New 'Wonder Valley' data center diagrams reveal 17% power reduction, half the original acreage:
Although Adams and O’Leary said the cut addresses citizens’ concerns, advocates against the data center believe things don't seem much different.
“The county’s just too vulnerable for a development of this scale. We can’t handle it. The fact that they cut the land area doesn’t mean that it’s going to change the impact,” said Brenna Williams, lead liaison for the Box Elder Accountability Referendum group.
O'Leary, the reality television star known as "Mr. Wonderful," said that his company has yet to break ground on the project or obtain the permits to do so, and admitted in an interview with FOX 13 News that communication on the project was poorly done.
"I definitely feel that we did a poor job in communicating... the attributes and the merits of the project and the actual, you know, size and scale and water requirements, all of that," he said. "What should have happened in Utah is we should have had that conversation, whether it was Adams or whoever, and those concerns, had we known they'd be such, so much concern about them and all the misinformation long before we announced the project.”
