Tremonton • When Kevin Ekins walked into the meeting Monday night where Box Elder County commissioners approved a “hyperscale” data center and energy project in the rural county, he expected more time.

Commissioners had already postponed a decision on the project a week prior, after a wave of public backlash. Ekins said he had hoped the delay meant they would slow down and listen to concerns.

After interruptions from the crowd, commissioners moved the meeting into a back room and streamed it virtually to those that stayed to watch. From there, the county’s three commissioners unanimously approved the project.

The next morning, Ekins, who lives in Thatcher about 35 miles from Hansel Valley — where the first phase is planned — said the outcome felt predetermined.

“Commissioners listened to the people that were profiting from this and no one else,” Ekins said, while standing outside Kent’s Market in Tremonton on Tuesday, sheltering from the pouring rain.

In his view, Box Elder County residents are “overwhelmingly” against the project, and he wanted more opportunity for public input before a decision was made.

“I saw the writing on the wall with it, that you were hopeful that maybe people being able to have a voice and input with it would give a little bit more pause for consideration,” said Cassie Page, another Thatcher resident. “But I think it was one of those things that [was like], ‘what impact really can you make?’”

The only formal public comment came April 22, when the proposal first appeared on the commissioners’ agenda. Many residents later said they hadn’t known about the project at the time. The following week, roughly 80 people came to a county meeting to protest the project, prompting commissioners to delay their vote — but no additional public comment was taken before Monday’s decision.

Commissioners said Monday they reviewed more than 2,500 public comments from an online form on the county website, and those comments were factored into their decision.

Unaware until after the vote

For some residents, the vote came before they even knew the proposal existed.

Christa Dangel said she moved to Box Elder County about eight years ago from Davis County, drawn to its rural character. She learned about the data center project Monday night — after commissioners had approved it.

“I think we have to be careful in drawing that right line between what’s going to be right for our community and what’s not going to be right,” Dangel said. “It’s already a done deal … and we really have no say in what’s going to happen with this.”

Now, she said she worries the project could change the lifestyle that drew her to the county.

Samone Swenson, who lives in Tremonton, said she also didn’t hear about the project until a decision was made. Still, she said she feels the county’s three commissioners made the “best decision” with the information they had.

“It’ll bring a lot of jobs to the area that we all need. We all need to boost the economy through here. And I think that it will be good, potentially,” Swenson said. “It’ll just take its time to get there.”

‘Double standard’ on water use

Ekins said he worries about how the project could reshape the landscape of Hansel Valley and the character of the county.

And the valley, he said, will never be dark or quiet again.

“We don’t live here because we wanted a big city,” Ekins said. “There’s value in our small town, and we mainly want to keep it that way.”

Page, who raises cattle, said she is concerned about how the project could affect her land and the area’s water.

Holding her daughter, Nevada Page, outside the market in Tremonton on Tuesday, she said her family tried to conserve water that morning, letting the incoming rain do the work of irrigation.

Allowing the data center project, she said, feels like a “double standard.”

“You always hear that when you’re the individual — the homeowner, the landowner, the livestock owner — you need to do your part to conserve,” Page said. “And yet these other decisions are being made that don’t fully support that.”

The data campus operators have said they will purchase roughly 3,000 acre‑feet of water rights, and have around 10,000 acre‑feet under contract near Snowville if needed. That’s enough water to support the indoor water needs of more than 20,000 Utah households.

Still, Box Elder County resident Terry Tiller said concerns about water in the region predate the project. Groundwater levels in Box Elder County have been declining for decades, he said.

“And now they’re going to build this massive data center, and water resources are already stretched,” Tiller said. “I mean, we’re not stupid. You don’t have to be a hydrologist to know we don’t have enough water.”

Small towns not equipped for growth

Zjani Julander grew up in Snowville and now runs her family’s Ranch House Diner in the tiny town just north of where the data center project is planned. Even from Brigham City, where she now lives, she said she still feels the weight of how rural communities absorb outside development.

She said she’s seen it before: promises of local jobs that don’t fully materialize years later.

“I don’t think it’ll really bring many jobs here,” Julander said. “I think they’ll travel from Ogden and Brigham and other areas.”

Snowville, a town of roughly 240 people, has limited infrastructure and relies on a volunteer fire department, she said. Julander said the department was already stretched thin when her parents volunteered when she was young, and emergency calls sometimes outpaced available help.

Now, she worries a larger project nearby could strain a small community already operating with limited resources.

“They didn’t give enough information to anybody and didn’t do enough testing to let anybody know, really, what was going on and what would impact our community,” Julander said. “I don’t feel it was fair.”

Even if jobs are created, Tiller said he questions what kind of growth the county can support.

“We’re not prepared for this at all,” he said. “It’s all moving too fast. People don’t have anywhere to live already.”

For Julander, Snowville has remained home even after she moved away — the place where her family is rooted and where she runs her business. And, she said, she doesn’t want that to change.

But if the project comes to fruition, she said she fears that “Snowville will never be Snowville again.”