A southern Utah county was the first to hit pause on new data centers. Now it’s tightening the rules.
Iron County is moving ahead with new regulations for data centers in the southwestern Utah county — months after passing a temporary moratorium on the controversial projects. The Iron County Commission unanimously approved the new rules during a meeting in Cedar City on Monday after hearing from residents for more than an hour. Notably, the new rules do not set hard limits on water use for data centers. Instead, data center sites that would use more than 50,000 gallons of water per day would have to submit a plan to prove the additional water use won’t harm the aquifer. … In another vote Monday, the commission repealed the previous moratorium on data centers, with no debate. Commissioners took public comment before voting Monday and heard from residents who were concerned about noise pollution, air quality, water use and the longtime environmental effect of data centers.
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