Utah Data Centers are DRAINING our Resources
The short version: A Utah realtor's video crunches the numbers on a proposed 9-gigawatt, 16-billion-gallon O'Leary-backed data center and questions the growth-is-always-good script.
Our Take
Credit to Scott Steele for doing something a lot of local coverage skips: actually running the numbers instead of just repeating the press release. A 9-gigawatt campus with a claimed 16-billion-gallon water appetite isn't a rounding error for a desert state — it's a resource commitment on the scale of a small city, except this "city" doesn't vote, doesn't pay income tax like a household, and can renegotiate its water and power terms in ways your average Utah homeowner never could.
The pattern Steele is pushing back on is the one we track everywhere: officials tout jobs and tax revenue, the developer touts scale, and the actual utility contracts, water allocations, and land deals get discussed in vague gigawatt-and-gallon soundbites rather than plain terms residents can hold anyone to. Who's on the hook if water tables drop or rates climb to cover new transmission and generation? Those questions rarely get answered before the shovels hit dirt.
Utah ratepayers and well owners deserve the same numbers-not-vibes treatment Steele is giving this project, applied to every facility proposed or already running in their backyard. Check our facility map to see what's been built or planned near you, and hit take-action for ways to push your utility commission and county officials for real disclosure before the next mega-deal gets signed.
This is GridWatch the USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Scott Steele - Living in Utah, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.