Box Elder County residents file referendums to overturn approval for massive data center

SALT LAKE CITY — Multiple referendums have been filed in Box Elder County seeking to overturn the commission’s approval of the Stratos-MIDA Data Center that has drawn fierce opposition.

The Box Elder County clerk’s office confirmed it is reviewing the referendum applications. Under state law, the county has 20 days to complete its review before sponsors can begin collecting signatures.

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Two of the applications were submitted May 8 by the Box Elder Accountability Referendum group (BEAR), a nonpartisan political issues committee formed by county residents. 

Farrah Pliley is a sponsor on those referendums and runs the social media accounts for BEAR. She said the group came together after the commission approved the project at its meeting last week without addressing residents’ concerns or providing the transparency they had requested.

“They asked a lot of questions about what it’s going to do to the Great Salt Lake, what it’s going to do pollutionwise, energywise, taxwise.” Pliley explained. “They asked all the right questions, but we didn’t get any clarifying answers.”

The proposed data center would be built on 40,000 acres in unincorporated Box Elder County. Most residents did not hear about it until it was first introduced during a county commission meeting on April 27.  BEAR has said it believes the development was fast-tracked without impact studies or sufficient public awareness.

“We really didn’t get transparency. We still haven’t received transparency. There’s no studies. They’re not really taking into account everything that could be affected and they don’t seem to care about that,” Pliley said. “Nobody around here that I know is supporting it.”

Despite fierce public backlash, the Box Elder County Commission passed Resolutions 26-11 and 26-12 on May 4 to greenlight the project. BEAR’s two referendum applications target those resolutions.

“After that, I think everybody in the community was just very outraged,” Pliley said. “We were all posting about it and commenting on it. I was looking for a group that would possibly fight this with me and I think that’s how a lot of people felt.”

However, the county is now clarifying that the referendums will not necessarily halt the project. In a statement to KSL, the county said:

We received a referendum application last week related to both resolutions approved at Monday’s Commission Meeting. The County now has 20 days to review the application and follow the process required under Utah law.  We will follow the requirements and procedures outlined in Utah Code Annotated 20A-7, Part 6, governing local referenda. If the referendum moves forward successfully, it would void the consent and agreement approved by the Box Elder County Commissioners — not necessarily stop the project itself. That means the project could possibly still move forward, but without the concessions, conditions, and protections negotiated by the County. 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.

If the referendum applications clear the county’s review, BEAR will have 45 days to gather 5,422 signatures from registered voters in Box Elder County to place the data center’s approval on the November ballot. Pliley said she is confident the group will gather the support they need. The group has opened volunteer applications on its social media pages while it awaits the county’s decision on the referendum filings.

The county clerk’s office said they are also aware of other possible referendum efforts.