KUER⁠0%

Water rights paperwork tied to Box Elder data center withdrawn after heavy protest ⁠54%

By Macy Lipkin⁠0%

5/7/2026, 5:34:37 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 19 faulty reasoning types, including Availability Heuristic, Anecdotal, and Biased Writer Voice, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 34.9% saturation with 112 hits. Analysis detected 733 faulty-reasoning hits from 321 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 52.5% and a BS Rank of ⁠54% (10,072 of 21,886 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 54.00% of the article peer group.

After more than 3,700 protests were filed against a northern Utah water rights change tied to a proposed massive data center in Box Elder County, the owner, Bar H Ranch, has withdrawn the application with the Utah Division of Water Rights. 
But the project is not abandoning this water, which accounts for a chunk of the water rights the developers plan to get. 
“Bar H. 
Ranch intends to resubmit in a timely manner with additional supporting information and to further demonstrate the feasibility of the application,” a consultant wrote in an email to the division. 
“The applicant fully intends to move forward with the project and remain committed to working collaboratively through the process,” the consultant said. 
The change application sought to repurpose the water from agricultural use to industrial use for the natural-gas-fueled power plant intended for the Stratos Project data center complex. 
The application noted that a small portion of the water would be used for the cooling system. 
Each protest costs $15 to file, and a division spokesperson said protesters will not get their money back. 
Deeda Seed, a campaigner with the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, told KUER this is the developers’ way of cleaning the slate of public comment because it will be like those protests “never happened.” 
Every protest is unique to the application it was filed against. 
“They're going to file in a couple of months, and we'll start over again, and people may be so angry about this that they’ll file again,” Seed said with a laugh. 
The proposed data center has drawn bipartisan outrage, she said. 
“I've been an organizer for a long time, and I've never seen as much energy coalescing in opposition to something so quickly as I have with this.” 
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern U 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 10.6%Macy Lipkin: 2.4%KUER: 2.8%Confirmation Bias10.6%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 2.0%KUER: 1.3%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 21.2%Macy Lipkin: 4.3%KUER: 3.4%Availability Heuristic21.2%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 1.0%KUER: 1.2%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.3%KUER: 0.5%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 1.6%KUER: 1.9%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 10.9%Macy Lipkin: 5.8%KUER: 7.4%Framing Effect10.9%This article: 5.6%Macy Lipkin: 1.4%KUER: 1.3%Loss Aversion5.6%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 1.2%KUER: 1.2%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 6.9%Macy Lipkin: 0.4%KUER: 0.3%Sunk Cost Effect6.9%This article: 12.1%Macy Lipkin: 5.1%KUER: 4.4%Optimism Bias12.1%This article: 9.7%Macy Lipkin: 2.1%KUER: 2.4%Pessimism Bias9.7%This article: 34.9%Macy Lipkin: 5.6%KUER: 6.3%Negativity Bias34.9%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 1.6%KUER: 2.2%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.8%KUER: 0.9%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.2%KUER: 0.2%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.9%KUER: 1.9%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.3%KUER: 0.6%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 1.2%KUER: 2.3%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.0%KUER: 0.1%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.0%KUER: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 9.7%Macy Lipkin: 0.9%KUER: 1.2%Recency Bias9.7%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.2%KUER: 0.3%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.1%KUER: 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.2%KUER: 0.6%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.3%KUER: 0.4%Straw Man0.0%This article: 8.4%Macy Lipkin: 4.6%KUER: 4.7%Appeal to Authority8.4%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 1.5%KUER: 1.7%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 9.7%Macy Lipkin: 0.9%KUER: 1.1%Slippery Slope9.7%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.3%KUER: 0.2%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 3.6%KUER: 4.1%Hasty Generalization0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.1%KUER: 0.2%Red Herring0.0%This article: 3.1%Macy Lipkin: 0.4%KUER: 0.7%Bandwagon3.1%This article: 13.7%Macy Lipkin: 4.6%KUER: 5.6%Appeal to Emotion13.7%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.6%KUER: 0.7%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 12.8%Macy Lipkin: 2.2%KUER: 2.4%Post Hoc (False Cause)12.8%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.1%KUER: 0.1%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.4%KUER: 0.4%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.2%KUER: 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.2%KUER: 0.3%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 19.0%Macy Lipkin: 3.9%KUER: 3.1%Anecdotal19.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.2%KUER: 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 12.1%Macy Lipkin: 1.7%KUER: 1.5%Ambiguity (Equivocation)12.1%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.0%KUER: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.2%KUER: 0.2%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.0%KUER: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.2%KUER: 0.1%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.1%KUER: 0.2%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 10.6%Macy Lipkin: 0.9%KUER: 0.8%Unattributed Quote10.6%This article: 0.6%Macy Lipkin: 0.8%KUER: 0.7%Quote-first Misdirection0.6%This article: 16.8%Macy Lipkin: 1.4%KUER: 2.2%Biased Writer Voice16.8%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.9%KUER: 1.6%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.5%KUER: 0.8%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.2%KUER: 0.3%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Macy Lipkin: 0.7%KUER: 1.0%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

321 words analyzed.

Speakers

1speaker32%attributed speech219writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 13 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 41 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 22 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 2 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 30 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 22 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 27 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 18 words • 0.0% coverageDeeda Seed • 34 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 11 words • 0.0% coverageDeeda Seed • 31 words • 0.0% coverageDeeda Seed • 10 words • 0.0% coverageDeeda Seed • 27 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 16 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

Deeda Seed

100%flagged-word coverage
102 attributed words100% of attributed speech74% writer coverage
0%17.5%35.0%Unattributed Quote+33.3 ptsWriter: 0.0%Deeda Seed: 33.3%33.3%Biased Writer Voice-24.7 ptsWriter: 24.7%Deeda Seed: 0.0%0.0%Quote-first Misdirection-0.9 ptsWriter: 0.9%Deeda Seed: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.