HANSEL VALLEY, Utah — Newly released renderings of the proposed data center in Box Elder County show large glass buildings on 40,000 acres of land in the Hansel Valley area near the Great Salt Lake. Images of the buildings from O’Leary Digital and the design company, Gensler, show just how large the footprint of the new Stratos Data Center project could be.
People have already started protesting a newly surfaced water rights application that was submitted to divert water to use for generating power in a natural gas plant. This application is for much less — asking for 11-acre feet instead of the earlier filing for about 1,900-acre feet, which was withdrawn about a week and a half ago. Almost 4,000 people submitted formal protests or letters of concern to that application.
The development team confirmed to FOX 13 News on Monday night that this is an older application that recently surfaced. They have not yet filed an application in place of the old one, and are still “assessing phasing.”
WATCH: Box Elder County data center project withdraws water rights application — for now
Kevin O'Leary, a celebrity investor in the project, claimed over the weekend that one of the groups opposing the data center has ties to China. On Monday, we still have not seen those documents from him, or heard back after reaching out to his team.
Alliance for a Better Utah continued to emphasize that they do not have any such ties, and are not worried about what could be released.
"When he said there’s millions of dollars, I know what our organization's budget is and it is not in the millions of dollars, and we're definitely not getting millions of dollars from any donor,” said Elizabeth Hutchings with Alliance for a Better Utah. “No, we're not sponsored by China, we're not given a lot of money by China, we're just a pretty small, feisty organization that’s trying to do their best in this world."
