Dear Governor Cox, Speaker Schultz, and President Adams:
We are Utahns — residents, hunters, anglers, farmers, ranchers, birders, and taxpayers. We call on you to require independent water analysis, independent fiscal review, and a genuine public comment period before any approval of the Stratos/Wonder Valley project proceeds in Box Elder County.
You initiated this deal. Kevin O'Leary confirmed it on Fox News: "I met with them only 5 months ago and they said we can do it in Utah," naming Governor Cox, Speaker Schultz, and President Adams. Box Elder County commissioners were last to know. Their chair said: "If we do this, it is irrevocable." He was right — Utah Code 63H-1-401(3)(b) makes that consent permanently irrevocable by statute.
Governor Cox, at your April 30 press conference you said the snowpack account is "effectively empty" and saving the Great Salt Lake is "not optional." We agree completely. You also called taking time to evaluate things "the dumbest thing ever" — in the worst water year in recorded history, about a 30-year irrevocable commitment from an aquifer your own agency has documented is in crisis. Taking time to ask whether the water exists is not the dumbest thing ever. It is the only responsible thing to do.
1. Utah's water: no verified supply in the worst year on record. Change Application a54385 — the project's only water filing — is unapproved, contested, and has a 2026 priority date. Your State Engineer is already shutting off 1907 water rights on the Weber River. USU physicist Dr. Robert Davies found the cooling claims would be 97% more efficient than any gas plant he could identify — "an extraordinary claim." USU watershed scientist Dr. Patrick Belmont said there "isn't a lot of science to support that this is a good idea." The State Engineer has already rejected Curlew Valley applications at greater distances from Locomotive Springs for these exact reasons. An independent water study is required before any approval.
2. Locomotive Springs is already dying from the same aquifer. UDWR's official records document that spring flows at Locomotive Springs WMA, 2 miles from the project, have declined 80% from Curlew Valley aquifer pumping. 3,200 acres of wetland have become mudflat. UDWR states: "Any further reduction would be seriously detrimental." UDWR holds water rights there from 1914, 112 years senior to the Stratos application. Locomotive Springs hosts Wilson's Phalaropes, Snowy Plovers, Bald Eagles, and 137 documented bird species. The Great Salt Lake holds 60-80% of the world's Wilson's Phalarope population. The account is empty. You cannot write a check from an empty account.
3. People were not allowed to comment at either meeting. You said MIDA has a process and people have had a chance to provide feedback. The record contradicts this. The project was presented and approved at the same April 24 MIDA board meeting, no public comment. At the April 27 county commission meeting, public comment was closed at the outset and people who spoke were threatened with removal. The only comment period on record was at an April 22 meeting held before MIDA materials were public and before any independent analysis existed. MIDA's own director apologized for the process failure. That is not adequate input on a permanently irrevocable 30-year decision.
4. The urgency is unverified, the tax deal may exceed the law, and the developer has no financing. The developer's own representative told commissioners the rush "may not be true." The development agreement returns 80% of property taxes — Utah Code 63H-1-501 caps MIDA at 75%. O'Leary admitted that financing begins after permits are issued, not before. No independent fiscal analysis. No named tenants. No disclosed exit clause.
5. President Adams chairs the MIDA board that approved this — while governing the legislature that empowers it. The April 24 MIDA minutes confirm President Adams chaired the meeting. He simultaneously governs one body of the legislature that writes MIDA's statute. Senator Stevenson, chair of the legislature's Executive Appropriations Committee approved this project as MIDA board vice-chair. Weber County Commissioner Gage Froerer moved or seconded every Stratos item. Governor Cox, Utah Code states you appoint five of seven MIDA board members. You and President Adams have the authority to require MIDA pause this process pending independent review. We are asking you to use it.
There is no obligation to approve this project without independent review. No statute requires Utah to approve a 9-gigawatt data center in three weeks with no water study and no public comment. What Utah does have an obligation to do, in your own words, is save the Great Salt Lake. Require the independent water analysis. Require the genuine public process. That is what an obligation to the Great Salt Lake actually looks like.
Respectfully submitted,
