IRON COUNTY, Utah — As the ongoing battle over the proposed data center in Box Elder County continues to spark debate, the Iron County officials have approved a conditional permit for a 640-acre data center project.
The Iron County Planning Commission gave the project the green light during a non-public hearing on Thursday.
What is being proposed?
Pronghorn Development, LLC, is the applicant for the project located around 8 miles west of Iron Springs Road in the Cedar City area. According to the developers, the center would be located on agricultural land.
A total of five data center buildings are proposed, each approximately 1.35 million square feet. For reference, the Utah State Capitol building is only 330,000 square feet in total.
Each building in the data center complex will be designed to support 300 megawatts of electrical capacity, specifically designed for high-density artificial intelligence model training and hyperscale computing workloads.
Construction would be planned over an 8 to 10-year timeline.
How much power and water would this take?
The current approved plans call for a dedicated 1.5 gigawatt natural gas-fired power plant to be built on the site, with developers calling for a 24-inch natural gas pipeline to supply the plant with natural gas.
During construction, developers say they will be using 10-20 acre feet per year. One acre-foot of water is enough to cover an entire football field in a foot of water.
Following construction, plans claim the data center would only require 8 acre-feet for an initial filling of the closed-loop cooling system. However, annual operation water demand is estimated to call for an additional 7.83 acre-feet of water per year.
What will be the impact on the environment?
Due to the fact that the proposed data center site is within a pronghorn antelope habitat, certain measures are required for the construction. For example, during pronghorn fawning season, which runs from April 15 to June 15, construction that disturbs the ground will be stopped.
Also, for every one acre permanently disturbed by the construction, four acres will be required to be conserved as high-value habitat. Additionally, a protocol-level survey is required for the federally threatened Utah Prarie Dog population before any ground disturbance.
Because the center would be built in a high wildfire hazard zone, a 100-foot defensible space buffer must be established around all structures.
How much noise and light will the data center generate?
One of the main sticking points for residents who submitted public opposition to the proposed project is light and noise pollution caused by the center. According to the county's paperwork, a sound wall will be built near the power plant.
Noise coming from the center of the project boundary is estimated not to exceed 65 dBA. And developers estimate that the noise at the nearest residence, about two miles away, will not exceed 54 dBA.
According to Yale researchers, a typical household vacuum emits about 75 dBA.
For lighting at the center, documents stated that all exterior lighting be full-cutoff, fully shielded, downward facing, with a maximum color temperature of 2,700 Kelvin. That would put the center within dark-sky compliance.
What are the alleged economic benefits of the center?
According to Pronghorn Development, LLC, following the full buildout, 672 full-time equivalent jobs are projected for direct on-site time. When accounting for indirect and induced jobs, the developers claim there will be 1,800 full-time equivalent positions created.
For Iron County, the project is projected to generate around $35 million a year in direct revenue.
