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Public voices strong opposition to proposed Project Stratos AI data center at county meeting
Summary
During the public-comment period, multiple residents urged commissioners to reverse or reconsider support for Project Stratos, citing concerns about water use, air pollution, surveillance and local process. Speakers directed claims and allegations at project backers and at statewide policy decisions.
An extended public-comment period at the Box Elder County Commission meeting focused on opposition to the proposed AI data center known in comments as Project Stratos. Several residents raised concerns about water use in an arid region, potential environmental and air-quality impacts, surveillance and alleged conflicts of interest involving business backers.
Deanna Hardy, representing the Box Elder Committee for Liberty, urged commissioners to reconsider support for the project and alleged conflicts of interest: "Governor Cox is fast tracking this AI data center against the will of the people," she said, and warned the facility would "violate our 4th amendment by collecting our data." Tenille Taggart said the county is in severe drought and that the project would use scarce water. Walter Masterson proposed, rhetorically, relocating the project to Miami Beach and described Project Stratos as extremely large in scale. Sam Prentice and other speakers reiterated environmental, statewide and generational concerns.
Commissioners had earlier described efforts to gather information, published answers to roughly 86 prominent citizen questions on the county website, and said they had delayed action to obtain more data and protections. Speakers’ claims ranged from technical projections about power and emissions to accusations of inappropriate public-private arrangements; the commission did not take public comment as a formal vote, and no official county action on Project Stratos was recorded at this meeting.
Because public speakers made assertions about water use, emissions and ownership ties, those claims remain matters of public debate and were not resolved on the record during the meeting.
