Read the Spanish version of this article here.
On Sept. 19, Doña Ana’s Board of County Commissioners voted 4-1 in favor of issuing a $165 billion industrial revenue bond to a data center first proposed on Aug. 26. The vote followed five hours of public comments on the project.
Project Jupiter is an initiative to build a data center in southern Doña Ana County outside the communities of Santa Teresa and Sunland Park. Spearheaded by Austin-based STACK Infrastructure, the center will consist of four facilities, which in total will consume 7.2 million gallons of water each year during ongoing operations, according to El Paso Matters. Currently, El Paso residents consume an average of 110 million gallons of water, El Paso Water said.
STACK Infrastructure said that the data center will rely on a “closed-loop” cooling system, which only requires a one-time fill up of water that is then continuously circulated. This contrasts with an evaporative cooling system, which uses more water.
STACK Infrastructure currently has 23 campuses across North America either completed or under construction, along with 22 campuses overseas. They focus on digital infrastructure initiatives like Project Jupiter, with an emphasis on sustainability, their website says. They have partnered with BorderPlex Digital Assets for the project.
According to STACK Infrastructure, the data center will provide more than 2,500 construction jobs, and 750 permanent jobs to the area, with salaries ranging from $75,000 to $100,000.
The deal with STACK Infrastructure involves a 30-year exemption of property taxes on the campus in exchange for a $300 million payment to the County over the term. Doña Ana County Commissioners voted to publish a notice of intent to issue bonds for the financing of Project Jupiter, leading to the initiative becoming widely known to the region’s community.
Former NM State Senator Steven Fischmann said in a message on KRWG to the County Commissioners that past projects in the area have led to a lack of trust in Project Jupiter by residents.
“Rushed economic development proposals based on faulty assumptions and misrepresentations of fact have become commonplace in our community,” Fischmann said. “Verde Realty’s proposed 2007 Santa Teresa development, 2009’s Vistas at Presidio proposal, 2020’s Royal Crossings Tidd proposal at the former Las Cruces Country Club, and NMSU’s recent annexation and development proposal all fit the profile. Only public demands for independent evaluations and more transparency revealed the flaws in each of these proposals.”
Over 200 miles west of Las Cruces, Beale Infrastructure proposed Project Blue in Tucson, Arizona, in June. Despite its promises to minimize water usage, it was rejected by Tucson City Council in an Aug. 8 vote. Concerns ranged from its impact on Southern Arizona’s water supply to the electrical demands, resembling those concerns voiced by Doña Ana County residents during Project Jupiter’s hearings.
Upon opening, the Project Jupiter campus will run on natural gas allegedly provided by El Paso Electric until 2045. By then, it is set to rely on its own microgrid and achieve net-zero emissions in operations, STACK Infrastructure says. New Mexico’s climate legislation has aimed for the state to reach net-zero by 2050.
In a statement, El Paso Electric promised customers in the region that they would not foot the bill for data centers like Project Jupiter.
“El Paso Electric is committed to ensuring that residential customers do not subsidize infrastructure costs associated with large-load customers, including data centers,” El Paso Electric said. “Any new infrastructure, whether transmission, distribution, or generation, required to serve large loads is attributed to and paid for by those customers.”
President Donald Trump’s changes to environmental regulations have raised concerns about STACK Infrastructure’s commitment to sustainability in the Southwest. Community member Chantelle Yazzie-Martin brought this up at a community meeting concerning Project Jupiter at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum on Sept. 10.
“How do we know with this presidential administration that you guys will keep the promise that you’re going to maintain this environmentally friendly image that you’re currently putting on? And not just say, ‘oh, the government is not caring anymore, so we won’t either now,’ and that it is just a little town in New Mexico,” she said.
