approvals that have not undergone a full zoning analysis. Under Utah law, land use authority remains with the county. Access to water or utilities does not equate to land-use compatibility, and service district annexation does not substitute for the conditional use findings required by the County code. The administrative record reflects that in practice, these mechanisms operate together. Conditional use permits are issued based on fragmented reviews, and the cumulative effect is a system in which residents experience the impacts of industrial development without a meaningful opportunity to shape, challenge, or influence the decisions that allow those.

Utah law does not permit land use governance to be outsourced in this way. When permitting decisions affect public health, safety, welfare, and long-term land use, those decisions must remain subject to accountable county processes supported by evidence and open to meaningful public participation. Dust and air pollution provide an additional well-documented example of negligent permitting. Dust is a regulated public health issue. County standards require near dust-free conditions and documented water sources for suppression.

Yet enforcement is effectively absent. Utah air quality rules prohibit regulated activities unless approved dust-control mitigation plans are in place. Approving large-scale industrial uses while deferring dust control violates this requirement. This is occurring in a basin designated as an ozone nonattainment area since 2018, with documented exceedances driven by oil and gas emissions and inversion conditions.

At the same time, particulate pollution from haul roads, excavation, and industrial traffic remains a persistent concern. Approving additional combustion sources, heavy trucking, and dust-generating activity without enforceable safeguards entrenches non-attainment conditions that agencies are already struggling to mitigate out here. Drought magnifies this failure. Dust suppression depends on water, precisely when water resources are the most constrained. Approving dust-intensive industrial buildout without front-loaded proof of water sourcing, monitoring, and enforceable standards externalizes drought-era impacts onto us as residents.

That is not balance, it's abdication. The Nine Mile Data Center is not the first problematic permit. It is the approval where years of negligent, CUP-based permitting since 2018 converged into a single, unavoidable record. Had the county required a unified review, complete applications and findings reports, set some enforceable standards, and followed lawful process, this appeal would not be necessary. Instead, the system doubled down.

This appeal is not about opposing development. It's about restoring the rule of law and giving a voice to locals who have been shipped away after several years. Conditional use permits were never meant to be rubber stamps for industrialization at any cost. They exist to protect the public when the stakes are high. From 2018 forward, that protection failed.

April 2nd is when that failure became unmistakable. We respectfully ask this commission to reverse or remand all 4 approvals, require unified lawful review, and restore a permitting system that complies with the County's own code and Utah law while protecting public health, public land, revenue, property values, and long-term community welfare.

Commissioner Killian made a motion to deny the appeals because of a lack of standing. Commissioner Chugg seconded the motion. Commissioner Killian voted aye, Commissioner Chugg voted aye, and Commissioner Miles voted aye. The motion passed.

Read and approved this on the 4^th day of May 2026.

Minutes of the meeting prepared by Commission Executive Assistant Melissa Hughes