Welcome to Lemhi County Informed (LCI)

 We're glad you're here.

Our mission is simple: to provide clear, factual, and timely information about the issues, decisions, and opportunities that affect Lemhi County.

Across the country, communities are facing important decisions about growth, development, natural resources, infrastructure, housing, and public spending. In many cases, residents don’t learn about these issues until after major decisions have already been made.

We believe local government works best when people have access to information early, understand what’s being discussed, and have the opportunity to be involved if they choose.

Rather than trying to report on every public meeting, Lemhi County Informed will focus on researching specific issues that matter to our community (on an as-needed basis) and sharing what we can verify from public records, official documents, and other reliable sources.

We’re starting with geothermal leasing and development in Lemhi County, including the activity near Sharkey Hot Springs. We’re working to understand what land is being considered, what protections already exist, what the proposed development could mean for our county, and what questions still need to be answered.

We believe it’s important to acknowledge that no one is completely free from personal perspectives. Our commitment is to make reliable public information easier to access so every resident can make informed decisions for themselves. When we offer analysis or commentary, we will strive to clearly distinguish it from factual reporting.

As we grow, we may also cover other local projects, public decisions, community issues, emergency information, and topics that matter to the people of Lemhi County.

An informed community is a stronger community.

Thanks for joining us. We look forward to learning alongside you.

What local topics would you like us to cover in the future?

If you would like to get involved with Lemhi County Informed, email us at LemhiCountyInformed@gmail.com.

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Popular posts from this blog

A Big Discovery at Sharkey Hot Springs? And Who Is Behind Lemhi County’s Geothermal Leases?

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  Over the past several weeks, Lemhi County Informed has been digging through decades of government records to better understand the three Lemhi County parcels scheduled for the November 17 geothermal lease sale . At the same time, many residents have been asking another question: Could this geothermal development have any connection to a future AI or other large data center in Lemhi County? This article provides an update on both issues. First: the three geothermal lease parcels What started as a fairly simple question — What protections already exist on this land? — led to something much more significant. Buried in the old Lemhi County planning record was a very specific decision involving approximately 800 acres at Sharkey Hot Springs . And it raised a serious question about land that is currently being offered for geothermal leasing. What was found at Sharkey Hot Springs Historic BLM planning records specifically state that an additional 800 acres at Sharkey Hot Springs would ...
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Sharkey’s Geothermal Lease Now Officially Connected to Data Centers

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After months of waiting, Lemhi County Informed finally received internal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) records about the November 17 geothermal lease sale. What we uncovered raises serious questions. 1. BLM Records Reveal That Ormat Nevada, Inc. (a 100%-Owned Subsidiary of Ormat Technologies)—One of the Leading Geothermal Energy Suppliers to AI Data Centers—Nominated All Three Lemhi County Parcels. View the three Ormat nomination forms Ormat is involved in supplying geothermal power to the data-center industry. In January, it announced a deal to supply Switch data centers in Nevada. In February, it announced a geothermal agreement supporting Google’s Nevada data-center operations. Read Ormat’s Switch announcement   |  Read Ormat’s Google announcement And Ormat is aggressive in pursuing geothermal for Data centers. Their CEO said :  Today, Ormat hopes to grow exponentially with the AI data center boom, aiming to build baseload, clean power plants throughout the Wester...
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After Sharkey, We Kept Digging—and Found More Questions

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  What began as a question about AI data centers has turned into a much more fundamental investigation: Are all of the acres BLM plans to offer for geothermal leasing in Lemhi County actually supposed to be available for geothermal leasing in the first place? That question is no longer theoretical. BLM has now advised that—following research by one of our Lemhi County Informed members, which we documented in our previous article —approximately 800 acres around Sharkey Hot Springs (*see maps at the end of this article for reference) are now being removed from the upcoming lease sale after the historic CLOSED-to-geothermal-leasing decision was brought to BLM’s attention. This is a genuinely positive outcome. It shows what can happen when careful research, informed community advocacy, and open communication with our public agencies work together. We especially want to recognize the Salmon BLM office. When the discrepancy at Sharkey was brought to their attention, they took it serious...
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