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Eagle Mountain Planning Commission balks at ordinance revisions to allow new energy sources

But the City Council will take up the issue next

By Curtis Booker - | Jan 16, 2025

Curtis Booker, Daily Herald

An Eagle Mountain sign sits along Pony Express Parkway as traffic flows Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025.

The City of Eagle Mountain is looking into opening the door to advanced technologies to meet the needs of the growing city and future demands for energy, such as small nuclear reactors and natural gas power plants.

The city’s current code, however, presents challenges to facilitate new forms of energy resources.

On Tuesday, the Eagle Mountain Planning Commission rejected a proposal to make amendments to the city’s Regional Technology and Industry overlay zone.

The code amendment would accommodate the use of a variety of energy options in the city including battery energy storage systems, solar energy projects and small modular reactors within city limits.

The city is not preauthorizing any projects but is preparing for potential developments.

“As the city, of course, safety, security, the environmental impact and all those things are super important to all of us,” said Evan Berrett, the city’s economic development director. “We don’t want to do any of these things, whatever power generation source it is, that would negatively impact our community, and we wouldn’t be proposing this if this wasn’t a value of some kind.”

Small modular reactors, or SMRs, are a new technology and Berrett reiterated to the commission that Eagle Mountain isn’t looking to be a “test site” for them, saying other areas are more suitable for the exploration. Instead, the city would rather evaluate SMRs once other locations have gathered data on their safety and performance.

“We need to be ready with that power in some way, whether it’s with Rocky Mountain Power or other independent providers,” Berrett said in a city-issued release. “It’s about ensuring we don’t find ourselves wishing we had acted 15 years earlier.”

City officials believe SMRs could potentially offer a cleaner and more manageable energy solution in the future.

A key factor for the proposed code change is a request from Enyo Energy, a renewable energy company with a focus on solar generation in the Intermountain West, which wants a streamlined approval process to develop future sustainable energy projects, including solar, battery storage and possibly natural gas.

A representative for the company said Enyo’s current plans do not include SMRs.

“That’s not a part of anything we’re thinking about doing in Eagle Mountain or elsewhere,” said Adrien Bell from Holland & Hart, representing Enyo.

Eagle Mountain already is home to a Facebook data facility, and both Tract and Google recently have acquired land for future data centers.

Tuesday’s meeting came after the planning commission tabled the issue last month, as they wanted more time to research information about energy plants before making a decision.

Since then, Eagle Mountain officials have taken steps to explore the idea of allowing nuclear power into the community by visiting other plants and speaking with experts in the field.

“We do an enormous amount of research on pretty much all of our decisions,” City Communications Manager Tyler Maffitt told the Daily Herald. “When we meet with the Idaho National Laboratory, when we meet with concerned scientists, we’re trying to find out the best information so that we can make the best decision possible. We want to hear everyone’s side, including the residents for and against, and we want to use the available evidence to make the most informed decision for the community.”

As the matter is seemingly still on the table for the time being, Eagle Mountain residents have voiced their feelings on it.

Jason Rasmussen, an Eagle Mountain resident, raised questions about moving forward with parts of the proposal while tabling others, considering that the city doesn’t currently have the infrastructure to support the technology.

Though he also questioned if tabling a proposal to allow SMRs now sends the wrong message to future businesses.

“I guess my question is, does tabling small modular nuclear reactors right now send a message that we won’t be willing to make a long-term investment? And I don’t believe it does,” Rasmussen told the commission.

Joy Rasmussen, another Eagle Mountain resident who started an online petition opposing the zoning change, expressed a number of concerns ranging from safety issues to impacts on property values.

“Small modular reactors are scary for any type of population, especially right now,” she said during the public comment portion of the meeting.

Joy Rasmussen also questioned the motive behind the proposal and cited potential health risks.

“Whose children are you willing to sacrifice to satisfy (artificial intelligence) and its energy appetite?” she asked the commission.

In a response to Joy Rasmussen’s Change.org petition, Mayor Tom Westmoreland said Eagle Mountain recognizes that the state is experiencing an electric power shortage, which he says the city is impacted by.

“We are working with the state and federal governments to look into a variety of power generation options, which we hope will best serve our residents and businesses,” Westmore said. “Small modular reactors are one of those options, and that will be thoroughly vetted as consideration of these code changes continues”

The proposed revisions would align with “Operation Gigawatt,” announced last year, in which the state aims to double its energy production within a decade, city officials said in a release.

While the planning commission ultimately voted 3-2 to recommend denial of the proposal to the Eagle Mountain City Council, the matter will be taken up during the council’s meeting Tuesday.

If the council decides to move forward with the proposed amendments, any energy generation projects would still undergo review processes to ensure compliance with federal, state and local regulations, officials said.