Utah lawmakers pass water reporting requirement for large data centers

SALT LAKE CITY — Both the Utah House and Senate signed off on a proposal to require large data centers moving to Utah to report their annual water use to state officials. It’s just one of hundreds of bills the Utah Legislature passed during the 2026 General Legislative Session.

“The market itself has reacted to the concern nationwide about water use,” said State Representative Jill Koford, R-Ogden, who sponsored the bill. “In the second-driest state in the nation, I think it’s good for us to set the tone nationally.”

Data centers have come under scrutiny in recent years because of how much water some of them use.

Koford told lawmakers in a committee hearing in January that some data centers in Utah use thousands of gallons of water a month. She said the NSA data center in Bluffdale uses 23 million gallons of water a month.

Koford’s bill would require data centers that are at least 10,000 square feet and use at least 75 acre-feet of water a year to report their water usage to the state. That water usage data would also be accessible to the public.

The bill sponsor made some changes to the bill before it was sent to the governor’s desk.

One of those changes made it so the reporting rule only applies to new large data centers that come to Utah on or after July 1 of this year. She told lawmakers in a Senate committee hearing on March 3 that change came after she spoke with some data center operators.

“Data centers are important to our economy, to where we’re going. We don’t want to discourage them from coming (to Utah), but we want them to be good partners,” Koford said. “That’s why we landed where we did in the bill. It’s not 100% where I would love for it to be, but I think it’s a really good compromise.”

The law is set to take effect in May, as long as Gov. Spenser Cox signs the bill. He has until March 26 to sign or veto it.

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