May 18, 2026
As public outcry in Utah's Box Elder County continues in the fight against Kevin O'Leary's $100 billion data center proposal, the "Shark Tank" star is standing firm in his position that this is the way to compete with China. But locals disagree.
Following the recent approval, a group of residents filed an application seeking to put a referendum on the ballot to stop the project, the Salt Lake Tribune (1) reported.
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The effort, called the Box Elder Accountability Referendum (BEAR), is led by locals such as Brenna Williams, who has experience fighting big data center projects when one was in the works in Millard County (2), the rural region in western Utah where her parents live.
"A lot of women in the county who have children and are looking at our futures and our children's futures — we just coalesced into a group, and we all felt the same," Brenna told the Tribune (1). "It needed to be done. There needed to be a fight here."
Protesters were initially turned away and were told approval was a state issue, not a county one. Brenna then received a call from the clerk stating the data center's approval could be subject to a county referendum.
The county has 20 days to review the referendum. If viable, the residents would still need to secure 5,422 signatures (1) from neighbors across four different participation areas to put it to a vote.
A seat at the table
A spokesperson for Box Elder County told Fortune (3) that if the referendum moves forward, it would not necessarily stop the project.
"The project could possibly still move forward, but without the concessions, conditions, and protections negotiated by the County," the spokesperson said. "The County Commissioners worked tirelessly to secure the best possible outcome for the County, and a successful referendum could undo those negotiated protections and agreements."
Residents, however, say the project was rushed through without their consultation — and that one commissioner told the audience (3) at a community meeting to "grow up."
The Salt Lake Tribune found just two percent of crowdsourced comments were in support of the data center.
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Box Elder County did not immediately respond to Moneywise's request to comment.
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A growing anti-AI movement
Robert Davies, a physics professor at Utah State University, told the New York Times that O'Leary's data center would be the "equivalent of about 23 atom bombs worth of energy dumped into this local environment every single day." (4)
Davies predicts stressing the environment with that much heat and energy in Hansel Valley will raise local temperatures by five degrees Fahrenheit during the day and up to 28 degrees at night. This comes at a time when locals were asked to conserve water (5), as the region is in a major drought.
Utah Gov. Spencer J. Cox wrote on X (6) that he has "requested that the project developer publish a publicly available water plan that demonstrates to Utah DNR officials that no degradation occurs to the Great Salt Lake. All water use must be reported publicly, and in no event will the developer reduce water going to the Great Salt Lake."
Governments are still grappling with how to handle the 24-hour industrial-scale electricity demand required to keep pace with AI innovation. Yet measures seeking to block or halt AI centers are gaining momentum at the state and local level.
Last month, Maine put an 18-month pause (7) on new data centers that require more than 20 megawatts of power, while a Wisconsin city passed the first anti-data center referendum (8).
Article Sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our ethics and guidelines.
Salt Lake Tribune (1),(2),(4); Fortune (3); Fox 13 Now (5); X (6); The New York Times (7); Politico (8)
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Amanda Smith is an Australian freelance journalist and writer based in the New York City area who reports on culture/society, technology, and health.
