The celebrity investor reiterated that his project will not contribute to the Great Salt Lake’s decline.
Note to readers • This story is made possible through a partnership between The Salt Lake Tribune and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
Less than a month after filing, a second application to transfer water rights for the planned Stratos data center project in Box Elder County has been withdrawn.
Murray Hollow L.C. filed a brief notice with the Division of Water Rights on May 22 requesting cancellation of its change application. The Holladay-based company has rights to around 11 acre-feet, or enough water to meet the needs of 22 Utah households, in Hansel Valley near the northern tip of the Great Salt Lake.
The notice did not say why Murray Hollow opted to withdraw the application, or indicate whether it plans to refile. The Division of Water Rights published the notice Wednesday along with an acknowledgment and formal cancellation by State Engineer Teresa Wilhelmsen, who oversees the division.
The application received nearly 700 letters of protest from Utahns across the state who expressed concerns about wildlife, drought and the shrinking Great Salt Lake.
The project’s primary backer, TV personality Kevin O’Leary, has denied that his sprawling data complex will harm the environment.
“There’s already water usage on the property,” O’Leary told NewsNation’s The Hill with Blake Burman Tuesday. “We’re not planning to take any water from the Great Salt Lake. And if anything, we’ll put water back into the Great Salt Lake after it’s treated.”
O’Leary and the project’s developers have not shared detailed information about their planned power plant or cooling system. At full build, the project is expected to use up to 9 gigawatts of electricity, more than double the state’s current consumption.
The project area for the computing complex encompasses 40,000 acres, but O’Leary further dismissed claims that buildings would cover the entire footprint.
“That’s ridiculous,” O’Leary told NewsNation. “That was the parcel that was available. We’ll probably use a quarter of that.”
The project developers have said they will purchase roughly 3,000 acre‑feet of water rights in Hansel Valley and have around 10,000 acre‑feet under contract near Snowville, although no such documentation exists with the Division of Water Rights. Any sale, transfer or change in use of a water right in Utah requires approval by the state engineer.
An earlier water right application that sought to transfer 1,900 acre-feet from the Bar H Ranch to the data center project was also withdrawn earlier this month after drawing thousands of protests. A representative for Bar H said the ranch plans to file again at a later date.
