The data center fight in Iron County, Utah
As of October 1, 2026, Iron County, Utah has a data center moratorium in force (action taken May 26, 2026; documented end date 2026-11-22).
Status is derived, not stored — a pause with a documented end date flips to Expired on its own — and the source is right next to the claim.
Status today
Ordinance 2026-13: 180-day halt on data centers, data center power plants, and solar power plants; prospective only
SourceOfficial
read 2026-08-13
An expiry date is the earliest a pause could have ended — extensions are common, so confirm with the clerk before citing it.
The project on the table
Antelope Data Campus (Project Antelope) — Approved
Filing LLC: Pronghorn Development LLC · Acres: 640
Iron County Planning Commission unanimously approved a conditional use permit on 2026-06-04 for Pronghorn Development LLC's five-building campus (up to 6.75M sq ft, with an on-site natural gas plant of up to 1.5 GW) on 640 acres along Antelope Springs Road, about 8 miles west of Cedar City, with 62 conditions covering water rights, wastewater, noise, lighting and site restoration. The application was vested before a county moratorium on new data center applications adopted the month prior; additional permits are still required before construction. Buildout is proposed in phases over 8-10 years.
Next: Approved — pivot from stopping it to a binding CBA: enforceable caps on noise, water and cost, plus a community benefit.
Latest in the record
- 2026-06-10 — Pronghorn Development issued a press release via Utah Policy announcing it secured the conditional use permit for the 1.5 GW Antelope Data Campus, projecting thousands of construction jobs, hundreds of permanent positions, and billions in economic impact. · source
- 2026-06-10 — Spectrum & Daily News (SUNews) reported the approval cleared a major hurdle but noted additional permits and regulatory approvals are still required before construction can begin; Governor Cox's Executive Order 2026-03 was signed days before the June 4 vote. · source
- 2026-06-08 — Iron County Today reported the approval followed months of debate and a packed March public hearing; conditions included dozens of protections, and Planning Commission Chair Erick Cox said they did their 'very best to protect the people in Iron County.' · source
- 2026-06-07 — KSL reported the unanimous approval of the Antelope Data Campus CUP for up to five buildings on 640 acres with phased construction over 8-10 years; Pronghorn Development stated the permit 'validates the trust we've built with our neighbors.' · source
- 2026-06-06 — The Salt Lake Tribune reported the Iron County Planning Commission approved the conditional use permit for the Antelope Data Center, which would include a 1.5-gigawatt natural gas power plant approximately 15 miles northwest of Cedar City. · source
- 2026-06-05 — Utah Public Radio reported the Iron County Planning Commission unanimously approved the data center's conditional permit one week after the county paused all new applications; construction is planned over 8 to 10 years, and a 480-page impact report is publicly available. · source
Full dated timeline on the project tracker.
Source. Read 2026-08-14.
Recent news
- Iron County’s moratorium on data centers ends in 2 months. Here’s what it plans to do after.
- AI Company Sues City for Opposing Data Center Next to National Park
Automated news aggregation, not human-verified — follow each link to the original outlet. Part of the story tracker, 2 headlines archived.
What to do next
- Questions to ask at the hearing — force specific answers onto the record.
- Estimate the impact — electricity, water, and rate pressure for any facility size in Utah.
- Model CBA clauses — copy-paste language communities have actually won.
- Utah briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts, and every fight in the state.
Nearby in Utah
- Milford (50 mi) — Enactedexpires 2026-12-13
- Wayne County (92 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-01-17
- Grand County (200 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-01-03
- Clearfield (244 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-03-07
- Box Elder County (270 mi) — Enactedexpires 2026-12-07
- Cache County (287 mi) — Enactedexpires 2026-12-20
- Logan (288 mi) — Enactedexpires 2026-12-27
All 8 tracked actions in Utah are on the state page.
As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing
Illustrative rather than exhaustive — dozens of localities churn weekly, and this tracks the ones we have read a source for. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to the ordinance, the enacting body's own page, or a datable report of the vote, and were read on that date. Rows marked *unverified* came from bulk compilation and have not been checked against a primary source — the locality, the year, and the status may all be off. Verify one of those with the town clerk before citing it as precedent. **Expiry is derived, not asserted.** A row with a documented end date flips to *Expired* on its own once that date passes. A time-limited moratorium whose start date was never documented keeps showing as enacted — that is a known gap, not a claim that it is still in force. Moratoriums are also routinely extended, so an expiry date is the earliest it could have ended, not proof that it did.
Part of the U.S. data center moratorium tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0.