A new water rights law will directly affect the Box Elder data center. Here’s how
May 13, 2026, 4:20 PM | Updated: 4:49 pm
Box Elder County commissioners met Monday at the Box Elder County Fairgrounds in Tremonton to consider a controversial data center proposal, approving two resolutions allowing it to move forward. (Tim Vandenack, KSL.com)
(Tim Vandenack, KSL.com)
SALT LAKE CITY — A new law that went into effect last week in Utah could make it easier for the backers of a proposed data center in Box Elder County to secure the water rights they need.
HB60, which was passed by state lawmakers during the 2026 legislative session, limits the reasons the state engineer can deny a water rights application.
Bill sponsor Rep. David Shallenberger, R-Orem, told his fellow lawmakers during the session that the bill’s main purpose was to limit how many complaints the state engineer had to review, while still protecting the public’s right to complain against water rights applications.
State Engineer Teresa Wilhelmsen voiced her support for the legislation during the general session, and Shallenberger said it was brought forward in coordination with her.
Under the new law, the state engineer would be barred from denying an application based on reasons like the detriment to public welfare, as long as there’s a regulatory agency better suited to make the call.
“To determine whether a proposed plan would not prove detrimental to the public welfare under subsection (1)(a)(iii), the state engineer may only consider: (i) the effect of the proposed plan on: (A) the beneficial use of water; or (B) the quantity, quality or availability of water; and (ii) other factors as specifically directed by statute,” HB60 reads.
Further, if the state engineer thinks there is a better use for the water elsewhere, they’d be blocked from denying an application on that basis, too, with the new law removing language that outlined possible better water use purposes: “irrigation, municipal and industrial, domestic or culinary, stock water, power or mining development, or manufacturing.”
The state engineer can now only consider factors like whether the water is available and whether its proposed use is “beneficial,” although the means of classifying it as such are not outlined in the law, except to say “an appropriation may be made only for a useful and beneficial purpose.”
Not to be confused with the term “beneficial use” as defined under general provisions as “the basis, the measure and the limit of all rights to the use of water in this state.”
Gov. Spencer Cox signed the bill into law, but it didn’t take effect until May 6 — one day after Bar H Ranch sent notice that it was pulling its initial application for water rights related to the data center project. The company’s initial application was submitted before the new law took effect.
The application was considered canceled by DWR on May 7. At that point, so were thousands of complaints from members of the public, each paid for by a $15 submission fee. For those who submitted protests and would like to protest the new application, new protests would have to be filed at a new $15 fee, as KSL previously reported.
The new law’s text also slightly amends the way protests will be handled: instead of the state engineer’s role to “consider the protest” of any given community member, the new law states the engineer must “consider a protest only to the extent the protest addresses a basis for which the state engineer may approve or reject the application.”
A consultant for Bar H said the water application would be resubmitted quickly, however there has been no update since the initial application was canceled last week.
Related:
Scientists raise concerns over hyperscale data canter impact on ecology
Data centers have to report water usage, under new Utah law
