Here’s how much water Kevin O’Leary’s partner says data center will use
The short version: Fox 13 Utah reports on a Kevin O'Leary-backed data center project near the Great Salt Lake, spotlighting water-use disclosures and the land it would consume.
Our Take
Credit to Fox 13 News Utah for pressing on the water math here — that's the number that actually matters when a project this size lands next to an already-stressed Great Salt Lake. The lake has been shrinking for years, and every acre-foot promised to a server farm is an acre-foot not going to the lakebed, the dust mitigation, or the communities downwind. When a project backer says the water use is manageable, the follow-up question is always: manageable compared to what, and who's checking the meter five years from now?
This is the pattern we track everywhere: brown, "empty" land gets described as worthless right up until it's rezoned for a hyperscale build, and the water and power contracts get signed long before most residents know a project exists. Utah's water rights system is already a tangle of seniority claims and closed basins — bolting a massive new industrial user onto that system deserves more scrutiny than a celebrity investor's reassurance, however sincere.
If you want to see how this Utah project fits into the national buildout, check our facility map, and if you're in a community facing a similar pitch, our take-action page has questions worth asking before anyone signs off.
This is GridWatch the USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of FOX 13 News Utah, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.