HB 076 Data Center Water Policy Amendments
We are following this bill as one of many that is focused on water use. This bill is largely neutral to mildly positive for consumptive water use in Utah because it does not authorize new water rights or limit water use, but instead increases transparency and accountability around large data centers’ water demand. By requiring advance communication with water providers, detailed reporting of projected and actual water use, and public disclosure of non-proprietary data, the bill gives state agencies, local governments, and water providers better information to evaluate whether proposed data centers can be served without increasing unsustainable consumptive use. This transparency can help discourage speculative or poorly planned developments in water-stressed areas and may indirectly promote conservation, reuse, and more efficient cooling technologies over time.
From an air quality and Great Salt Lake perspective, HB 76’s impacts are indirect but potentially meaningful. Large data centers can be highly consumptive if they rely on evaporative cooling, which can reduce downstream flows to the Great Salt Lake if new water demands are met through diversions in the Lake’s watershed. By requiring reporting on water sourcing, reuse, and discharge practices, the bill improves the state’s ability to track and manage cumulative impacts that affect lake levels. Maintaining inflows to the Great Salt Lake helps limit exposed lakebed, which is a growing source of dust pollution that degrades air quality along the Wasatch Front. However, because HB 76 does not cap water use or require reuse, its air quality and lake benefits depend on how the information it generates is used in future land-use, water-planning, and conservation decisions.
Sponsors
Rep. Koford, Jill. R, Weber Co.
Position
Monitor
Status - Passed
1/20 House Rules
1/22 House Economic Development. Passed. Favorable Recommendation 8-0-2
1/28 House 3rd Reading. Passed. 72-0-3
2/26 Senate Natural Resources 8:00am. Not considered
3/3 Senate Natural Resoures. Passed. Favorable Recommendation 4-0-3
3/5 Senate 2nd and 3rd Reading (suspension of the rules) Failed 13-15-1
3/5 Senate 2nd and 3rd Reading (suspension of the rules) Reconsidered. Passed 19-5-5
3/5 House Concurrence 62-2-11
