Note to readers • This story is made possible through a partnership between The Salt Lake Tribune and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
An application to transfer 1,900 acre-feet of water from ranching to the Stratos Project hyperscale data center in Box Elder County was withdrawn Thursday morning.
The move comes after Utahns from across the state filed nearly 4,000 protests against the application with the Utah Division of Water Rights, citing concerns over drought, lack of detail for the development and alarm over possible implications for the neighboring Great Salt Lake. But the developers seem poised to to try again.
“The applicant fully intends to move forward with the project,” a consultant working on behalf of the water right holders wrote the division Wednesday afternoon, “and remain committed to working collaboratively through the process.”
The original request to the Division of Water Rights would have tapped water from the Salt Wells Spring stream near the northernmost tip of the Great Salt Lake. The water has historically been used by the Bar H Ranch for irrigation, and was originally approved in 1904, division records show.
Bar H intended to transfer the water to industrial use for a natural-gas fired power plant and data center, according to application documents filed March 25. The application further referenced “Wonder Valley,” another name used for the Stratos Project, which is led by “Shark Tank” TV personality Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary.
An engineer with a local water consulting firm sent the division a request to cancel the application on Tuesday evening — the deadline for contesting the requested water right changes — after the deluge of protests rolled in.
The following day, the consultant indicated the application was being withdrawn in light of the Box Elder County Commission’s vote to approve the project Monday afternoon.
“Bar H. Ranch intends to resubmit in a timely manner with additional supporting information and to further demonstrate the feasibility of the application,” the consultant wrote in his letter to the division.
State Engineer Teresa Wilhelmsen, who oversees the division, posted a letter Thursday morning acknowledging the state has canceled and withdrawn Bar H’s request.
It costs $15 to file a water right protest with the state, meaning the division has racked up around $60,000 on the canceled case and counting, as documents continue to get posted. That money goes into the state’s general fund, the division said. Several protesters had requested a hearing over the change application.
O’Leary previously claimed opponents of his project who showed up for the Box Elder County Commission’s vote were paid and bused in from out of state. But protests with the Division of Water Rights include the filers’ addresses, and they overwhelmingly came from locations across Utah.
“This is a very cynical move by the developer,” said Deeda Seed, a senior campaigner with the Center for Biological Diversity, “to suppress the concerns expressed by thousands of Utahns who paid $15 each to file.”