Note to readers • This story is made possible through a partnership between The Salt Lake Tribune and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.

Another data center planned near the shores of the Great Salt Lake faces mounting backlash.

Staffers with the Utah Division of Water Quality listened to two hours of frustrated comments Monday evening as they contemplate a permit that would allow discharge from an industrial development called the Tooele Valley Project Area. The wider project is supported by the Utah Inland Port Authority, and would include a 500-megawatt data center and a truck stop. Plans call for pipe up to 250,000 gallons of polluted water each day into Gilbert Bay on the Great Salt Lake’s southern end.

“We all know the Great Salt Lake is the beating heart of our watershed,” filmmaker Alyssa Swanzey said. “Without a healthy lake, this valley won’t survive.”

The Tooele Valley project needs a water discharge permit because it would include a reverse osmosis treatment plant to provide water for the development.

The division regulates industrial developments that flush pollutants into the environment via the “Utah pollutant discharge elimination system,” or UPDES. Once the state issues a UPDES permit, the facility operator must monitor its discharge, keep pollutants under specified concentrations and self-report each month. The facility could see fines up to $10,000 a day for violating the permit.

Opponents of the Tooele Valley project called those penalties a slap on the wrist.

“The fines ... are pocket change,” said Jean Tabin, a physician from Park City. “The company’s not going to care.”

The Division of Water Quality gathers public comment as part of the permitting process, which prompted Monday’s meeting. Staffers warned meeting attendees that the division does not consider feedback outside the scope of the water quality permit. But commenters discussed topics like air pollution, dust, energy use, noise and nuisance anyway.

“As the Great Salt Lake continues to dry up, what ends up in our lakebed ends up in our air as dust, and it ends up in our mountains and in our lungs,” said Alexis Rowley, a Brigham City resident. “It’s very fragile ecosystem, and what we do here stays here.”

‘Forever chemicals’

While artificial intelligence data centers are increasingly turning to closed-loop cooling systems so they use less water, those systems occasionally need to be flushed, and the water can become polluted with PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) also known as forever chemicals. Commenters also worried about diesel and gas pollutants washing into the lake from the truck stop.

The Utah Inland Port Authority collects property taxes to create incentives to build infrastructure and fuel industrial development. The agency issued a statement in late June noting that it prioritizes protection of the Great Salt Lake, is not actively recruiting data centers, and does not offer incentives for data centers.

But the Tooele Valley developer, Charles “Chuck” Akerlow, previously told The Salt Lake Tribune that his project would not be possible without the incentives and financing provided by the port authority. He said his data center would cover around 200 acres.

Another 20,000-acre data center planned near the north shore of the Great Salt Lake, called the Stratos Project, also received backing from a quasi-government agency called the Military Industrial Development Authority, or MIDA, to the ire of many Utahns.

Like MIDA, the port authority’s governing board includes legislators. Sen. Jerry Stevenson, R-Layton, and Rep. Paul Cutler, R-Centerville, currently hold seats. Stevenson also sits on the MIDA board, along with Senate President J. Stuart Adams, who lost his primary election in June amid the fallout from the Stratos Project.

The Stratos Project is backed by TV celebrity Kevin O’Leary. It spurred multiple protests and a deluge of bipartisan opposition from across the state. At full build, plans for the hyperscale data complex would gobble up to 9 gigawatts of energy, more than double the state’s current consumption.

In an interview Tuesday, inland port Executive Director Ben Hart said his agency will prioritize the wishes of Tooele County over those of the developer. The port authority, he added, also has environmental stewardship in mind.

“So far,” Hart said, “the port has not taken any action to support development of data centers in any project areas across the state.”

Tooele County officials have not approved any plans for the Tooele Valley data center. In June, after the Stratos Project outcry, the County Council adopted an ordinance directing staffers to recommend rules and regulations for data center developments.

‘Irreparable damage’

Tooele Valley’s data center would be smaller than Stratos, but like many data centers popping up across the state, it would generate its own energy using natural gas generators. That would also require permits from the Utah Division of Air Quality.

Although Monday’s water permit hearing did not devolve into shouting and outbursts like meetings this spring for the Stratos center, residents raised similar concerns.

“This proposal is not based in the hard facts of our present reality and will inflict irreparable damage on the environment,” Utahn Clive Romney said to thunderous applause.

Commenters worried about paving over a fragile ecosystem that supports wildlife and millions of migrating birds. They questioned the data center’s water demands, with the Great Salt Lake teetering on the brink of another record low. They noted Tooele County’s water is overtapped and has been subject to a state-mandated groundwater management plan since the 1990s. They complained that politicians seemed more concerned about enriching developers than protecting Utahns and the environment.

“When the lake dries up, people younger than me are going to die of arsenic poisoning,” said Michael Kalm, a past president of the Utah Psychiatric Association, “and my concern is that people who are in business and have a profit motive, they don’t see that.”

Note to readers • This story has been updated with comments Tuesday from the Utah Inland Port Authority’s executive director.