More than 900 Tooele County residents have signed a letter urging the county's planning commission to delay approval of its proposed data center ordinance, with a public rally planned ahead of Wednesday night's meeting. The letter, circulated by the local group TooeleCARES, asks commissioners to slow down and answer key community and environmental questions before signing off on Chapter 34 of the county's land use ordinance.
According to KSL News, TooeleCARES member Amy Lawson said more than 900 people signed the letter opposing approval of the current draft of Chapter 34. Jessica Perschon, another member of the group, said TooeleCARES found loopholes in the current draft that could leave the community vulnerable down the road, and added that the group is concerned the legislation used in Tooele could set a template affecting other Utah counties. “We want to make sure that what's in this application is safe and beneficial, not only for Tooele, but for all residents in the state of Utah,” Perschon said, per the outlet's report.
A County Scrambling to Write Its First Data Center Rules
Tooele County has proposed Chapter 34 standards for data center locations, setbacks, noise limits, and disclosures about water and power use, according to Tooele County. The county began drafting the ordinance after determining its existing municipal code lacked specific rules governing commercial server farms. This is not the draft's first contentious airing: a July 22 public hearing, detailed by the Tooele Transcript Bulletin, saw a heated discussion about Chapter 34 and residents raise concerns about its provisions, prompting planners to table that earlier draft.
Lawson said TooeleCARES wants a one-year moratorium on data centers across the entire state of Utah, and that if the county does move forward with an ordinance, it needs to be all-encompassing. TooeleCARES has previously halted data center legislation in the county, and the group plans to deliver its latest letter directly to the Tooele County Planning Commission ahead of Wednesday's 7 p.m. meeting at the Tooele County Council Chambers.
Why Residents Are Worried About Water
The unrest traces back to a specific project: a planned 200-acre data center campus on the southern shore of Great Salt Lake in Tooele Valley, led by developer Charles “Chuck” Akerlow, with a capacity of 500 megawatts and plans to generate its own energy using natural-gas generators, according to Grow The Flow. That project has requested a state water discharge permit to release up to 250,000 gallons per day of concentrated reverse osmosis brine wastewater into transitional wetlands feeding Gilbert Bay in Great Salt Lake, as reported by The Salt Lake Tribune. Tooele Valley sits in a closed groundwater basin where water rights have been shut to new appropriations since 1996, which helps explain why a wastewater permit into lake-feeding wetlands has become such a flashpoint locally.
The Utah Inland Port Authority has already approved a $4.875 million loan and made available up to $234 million in public financing incentives to support infrastructure for the Tooele Valley industrial project area, Grow The Flow reported. That level of public backing for the project site has only sharpened the sense among TooeleCARES members that county land-use rules represent the last meaningful checkpoint before construction moves forward.
State Rules Set a Floor, Not a Ceiling
State lawmakers have not ignored the issue. Governor Spencer Cox signed House Bill 76, the Data Center Water Transparency Amendments, in March, according to the Utah Governor's Office. In Tooele County, a pause and a proposed data center ordinance have also been discussed.
Statewide, Utah already hosts 48 operational data center facilities representing more than 900 megawatts of electricity capacity, Hoodline previously reported.
Tooele's fight centers on calls to study potential impacts before the county green-lights data center development.
What Happens at Wednesday's Meeting
TooeleCARES plans to hold an informal rally outside the council chambers at 6:30 p.m., ahead of the 7 p.m. commission meeting. Perschon said she hopes at least 50 people will attend, calling awareness key to the group's effort. Natalie Merriam, also with TooeleCARES, said the rally will be informal and is meant to help like-minded community members connect with one another.
Merriam said the legislation appears to be moving too quickly without a full understanding of its potential community and environmental impacts, and that the process needs to slow down and proceed carefully. The letter itself states that the group is simply asking the county to slow the process and answer important questions first. The Tooele County Planning Commission did not respond to KSL's request for comment by the time of that outlet's publication.
