Kevin O’Leary says he will remove 19,430 acres from his planned Project Stratos data center in and around the Locomotive Springs Waterfowl Management Area, cutting the project roughly in half after Utah residents and activists pushed back and Senate President
Kevin O’Leary’s Utah data center plan is shrinking—by a lot.
In a letter sent Thursday to Utah Senate President J. Stuart Adams, O’Leary agreed to remove 19,430 acres from his planned 40,000-acre Project Stratos project. The original site is located in and around the Locomotive Springs Waterfowl Management Area. The revised footprint comes out to around 20,000 acres.
The decision lands after days of direct pressure from Adams and mounting concern from residents and activists. Just days earlier. Adams called on O’Leary to slash the size of Project Stratos by 75 percent. which would reduce it to about 10. 000 acres. Adams also asked O’Leary to implement technology that minimizes water consumption and to divert excess water to the Great Salt Lake. which continues to shrink.
O’Leary’s new commitment goes beyond a single adjustment. He also said he will cut another 620 acres in the northeast portion of the project near the highway, and that he will “preserve a majority of the remaining acreage as open space.”
Even with the smaller footprint, the scale is still striking. Project Stratos, at around 20,000 acres, will cover an area larger than Manhattan. The pushback hasn’t been only about the land. Concerns have continued to center on energy usage. environmental impact. and pollution—worries that persist even when data centers are far smaller than the original plan.
The sequence is now clear in the facts alone: Adams asked for major cuts and water-focused changes. residents and activists kept the pressure on. and O’Leary responded with a large acreage reduction and additional trimming near the highway while promising most remaining land as open space. The question for Utah now is whether the revised size and commitments meaningfully ease the environmental stakes that sparked the fight in the first place.
Kevin O’Leary Project Stratos Utah data center J. Stuart Adams Locomotive Springs Waterfowl Management Area Great Salt Lake water usage open space energy usage environmental impact pollution
Manhattan?? For a data center?? That’s wild, why not just do it somewhere else.
So he halves it but it’s still like… 20k acres? Sounds like they didn’t listen at all until everyone yelled. Also the Great Salt Lake thing feels like a political buzzword.
Wait is this the guy who owns Starlink or whatever? Idk I saw a TikTok say Utah is just getting more and more “smart” crap. If they’re diverting water to the Great Salt Lake that’s probably gonna make it worse, right? Like water doesn’t just disappear.
I don’t get why they’re surprised. Data centers always need energy and water. Cutting acres doesn’t magically stop pollution either, it just moves it around. But hey, open space sounds nice until you realize it’s still bigger than Manhattan so it’s not exactly “small.”