Project Blue

Data Center



Plan Heads to Pima County Board of Supervisors

Tomorrow morning, (6/17) the Pima County Board of Supervisors will be deciding on whether to approve a new data center called Project Blue.

One concern with this project is the amount of water used by any data center, in this case, up to 50 million gallons.

The proponents of this claim their water will be sourced from reclaimed water. However, in water-stressed AZ, even reclaimed water has many demands on it, from aquifer recharge to revitalizing riparian areas to advanced purification for increasing drinking water.

All this loss of available water will result in only creating an estimated 180 permanent jobs, though they are only actually required to employ 75 people.

The proposal has aspirational language that leaves plenty of room for loopholes in the actual contract, such as “ULTIMATELY rely on reclaimed water via a PHASED approach.” (Capitalization added), and “PROPOSE to fund SIGNIFICANT reclaimed water infrastructure”, and “WORKING WITH Tucson Water to replenish.”

Also, data center purchases are exempt from state and local taxes for 10 years.

If you have concerns about this project, please contact your supervisor by 9:00 am tomorrow. Ask for additional time for citizens' input, and to make aspirational promises covered in the Project Blue Fact Sheet, into firm quantified contract requirements.

Below is the link to send your concerns and messages. When completing the form, click "select all" when asked for the district.

BOS - District 1 Feedback

Thanks for your support!

NOTE:

A June 12th article released by Tucson.com and written by Tony Davis reviews the project and a 44-page memorandum released on June 10^th, just three working days ago, by Jan Lester, County Administrator. Her memo provides some, but not all, of the details about the project.

What's missing is:

• How the project would recoup its future water uses to achieve its goal of being “water positive.”
• How the project would protect existing TEP ratepayers.
• How big the reclaimed water line to be built to the data center site would be or
• How the site could meet a commitment not to take reclaimed water away from any existing uses, including water recharged daily into the Santa Cruz River.

More to come in Thursday's regular newsletter.