In late September, Governor Spencer Cox of Utah stood on the shores of the drying Great Salt Lake, flanked by top legislative leaders and wealthy developers as he unveiled a new partnership between the state government, a nonprofit, and business owners, that he said could help refill Utah’s iconic inland sea in time for the 2034 Winter Olympics.
The lake needs to rise by more than 6 feet to reach what scientists and state resource managers consider a minimum healthy elevation, a goal that environmental advocates say would require years of substantially increased water flows.
At the same time, Utah’s elected leaders have pushed for the state to be a hub for data centers, facilities that, for decades, have relied on large amounts of water to keep their servers cool, through a process known as evaporative cooling. Since 2021, Utah has added or announced plans for at least 15 new data center buildings or campuses, according to Data Center Map, and at least a few existing facilities expanded their footprints over that time.
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