LOGAN – Ongoing social unrest in Utah will move from Box Elder to Cache County on Saturday, May 30.
Advocacy groups opposed to the proposed Stratos data center project in Box Elder County will hold a protest rally starting at 1 p.m. that day on the square at the Cache County Historic Courthouse in downtown Logan.
The Logan rally will climax a week of demonstrations orchestrated by the Box Elder Accountability Referendum (B.E.A.R.) organization and six other advocacy groups aligned against the project, according to Farrah Pliley Hardy, who coordinates social media for B.E.A.R.
Previous events included a public forum in Tremonton on May 26 and protests during a meeting of the Box Elder Commission in Brigham City on May 27.
“We want people informed and involved,” Hardy said, explaining the shift in focus to Cache County. “We are in this Stratos fight together.”
The advocacy groups’ efforts to stop the proposed multi-billion dollar hyper-scale data center development in the remote Hansel Valley have been gaining momentum throughout the month of May.
Following initial approval of the project by Box Elder Commissioners on May 4, the scale of public outcry against the project caused Canadian billionaire Kevin O’Leary’s development team to withdraw their initial water rights application. A second application was also withdrawn this week after state officials received 720 official protests and more than 700 additional letters of concern from residents and stakeholders.
Data center foes in northern Utah also scored a symbolic victory of sorts when adverse publicity over the Stratos Project influenced the Iron County commissioners in southern Utah to declare a 180-day moratorium on new data center applications while a zoning review is underway.
Despite an adverse ruling by County Attorney Stephen R. Hadfield on May 28 that blocked their attempt to put the data center on the November ballot in Box Elder County, B.E.A.R. and other groups have vowed to move ahead with litigation in Utah’s First District Court, to spread awareness of the environmental consequences of the data center and to advocate for local communities to have a voice in similar developments.
In addition to the B.E.A.R. group, other organizations aligned in opposition to the data center project include Elevate Strategies, Friends of the Great Salt Lake, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Alliance for a Better Utah, Grow the Flow, the Great Salt Lake Audubon Society and the Utah Democratic Party, among others.
The Cache County Historic Courthouse is located at 199 North Main Street in downtown Logan.