Residents say a major data center project, backed by “Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary, could endanger the area’s water supply and quiet atmosphere.
The data campus operators have said they will purchase roughly 3,000 acre‑feet of water rights, and have around 10,000 acre‑feet under contract near Snowville if needed. That’s enough water to support the indoor water needs of more than 20,000 Utah households.
Still, Box Elder County resident Terry Tiller said concerns about water in the region predate the project. Groundwater levels in Box Elder County have been declining for decades, he said.
“And now they’re going to build this massive data center, and water resources are already stretched,” Tiller said. “I mean, we’re not stupid. You don’t have to be a hydrologist to know we don’t have enough water.”
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(✍️: Samantha Moilanen | 📹: @trevorchristensen )
As many restaurants are struggling to get by, and people are drinking less alcohol when they go out, some establishments seem to be experimenting with ways to maximize the earning potential of their lease.
Camille Fiducia, co-owner of Mother Cafe & Bar, said, “You’re paying rent for 24 hours a day. ... Why not use it all day and all night?”
When asked why Mono Tape Club isn’t just a listening room, a bar or a coffee shop, and is instead all three, co-founder Joel Davis half-jokingly said, “Trying to survive in late-stage capitalism.”
Whatever their motivation, these individuals are creating some of the most interesting nooks in the city.
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(✍️: Kolbie Peterson | 📹: @landwehrphotography )
It wasn’t until they were sharing casual updates about their lives around Christmas that three generations of women in one Utah family realized that somehow — almost magically — their lives had aligned in an unexpected way.
Melissa Davis, 45, first mentioned that she was finishing up her degree at Utah Valley University and planned to graduate that spring.
Surprised, her mother, Diana Flygare, 66, chimed in: “That’s when I’m graduating.”
Then Davis’ daughter — and Flygare’s granddaughter — paused. “Wait, me, too,” added Hadley Davis, 22.
At first, each wondered if the others were joking. But all three were serious.
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(✍️: @courtneyltanner | 📸: August Miller, Jay Drowns)
Millions of dollars from state coffers will help prepare a Utah National Guard site for two potential manufacturing facilities – including one that could produce the hardware used in uranium enrichment.
The Military Installation Development Authority, or MIDA, last month approved a $16.5 million loan from its own infrastructure loan bank to support the manufacturing projects.
The loan from the authority to itself, with a 2.25% interest rate over 15 years, will fund the extension of utilities, clearing and excavating the site and other work to make a buildable site on part of 400 acres at Camp Williams.
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(✍️: Megan Banta | 📸: @samuelsski27 )
More than 130 people packed a meeting room in Iron County’s Festival Hall Thursday evening to raise alarms and questions about a proposed data center and natural gas plant.
The open house hosted by BrightNight for the proposed Red Butte Energy Campus and Data Center lasted nearly four hours, with residents lining up to ask questions and share concerns about water, heat island effects, noise, air quality and energy use.
Chanel Borchardt-Slayton, a member of the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, said it felt “very disheartening” that the company was not taking into account that the project would be on her tribe’s ancestral land.
“The land that you’re building this on is native land, and this is our history and our future,” she said.
Read the story at the link in bio.
( ✍️: @BrookeLarsenWrites | 📹️: @TrevorChristensen )
Confirming its pivot away from any idea of a gondola, the Utah Department of Transportation has cleared plans to address winter congestion in Big Cottonwood Canyon with more transit service and bus access.
UDOT said its decision Wednesday to approve an environment assessment of its plans for the popular canyon will now set in motion final designs, purchasing of rights-of-way and construction along State Route 190, all aimed at easing those long, snowy snarls of bumper-to-bumper vehicles during ski season.
“We’ve all experienced winter traffic backing up in Big Cottonwood Canyon,” Devin Weder, Cottonwood Canyons transit program manager, said in a statement. “These improvements are designed to give people another reliable option to reach the canyon without sitting in hours of traffic.”
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(✍️: Tony Semerad | 📸: @TrentHead )
For the first time in its 155 years, and after years of planning, The Salt Lake Tribune is making its daily journalism free to anyone.
The news is now free, but it’s not free to produce. As a nonprofit newsroom, we need the support of our followers to do this work.
Comment "donate" on this post to get the link.
As opponents of a massive data center campus greenlit for Box Elder County search for ways to stop it, a group of Utahns gathered on the Capitol steps Thursday to deliver a letter signed by roughly 6,000 people to Gov. Spencer Cox.
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(✍️: Samantha Moilanen | 📸: @samuelsski27 )
An effort called the Box Elder Accountability Referendum — or BEAR — hopes to put the decision to build a data center in northern Utah to voters.
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(✍️: Addy Baird | 📹️: Addy Baird, @trevorchristensen )
“As national attention turns to Utah, we face a critical question that could shape the future of environmentalism,” write Maria Archibald and Autumn Featherstone in an op-ed. “How do we restore the lake without sacrificing the movement itself?”
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(✍️: Maria Archibald and Autumn Featherstone | 📸: @franciscokjolseth )
In a rare move, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill charged a police officer on Thursday with manslaughter for fatally shooting an unarmed man last October.
It’s the first time Gill has charged an officer in a fatal shooting in more than a decade.
Taylorsville police officer Jimmy Jeremy Haas was charged with the second-degree felony count Thursday. He faces a potential penalty of up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
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(✍️: Jessica Schreifels | 📸: @netmoser )
Eleven Utahns complained to the Federal Communications Commission about Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show earlier this year.
One complainant characterized it as “lewd and indecent and not fit for public broadcast.” Another had issues with the “overall sexual innuendo of the performance” — referencing “crotch grabbing” and “twerking.”
Wired, a tech magazine, requested copies of the complaints under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). There were more than 2,000 complaints in total.
The identities of the complainants were redacted, but they came from the following cities in Utah: Lyman, Layton, Richfield, Draper, South Jordan, Midway, Murray, Ogden and Salt Lake City. There were two complaints filed by residents in Lehi and Santa Clara.
🔗 Link in bio.
(✍️: Palak Jayswal | 📸: Mark J. Terrill, Andrew Harnik via The Associated Press)
