Here’s veteran journalist Heath Haussaman with a deep dive into the $165 billion Project Jupiter that’s proposed for Sunland Park.
ARTICLE SUMMARY:On its face Project Jupiter looks to be the boost our region needs to better the lives of our residents and diversify our state’s economy away from the oil and gas industry. But citizens are being asked to give a lot without a chance to see whatever substance lies beneath many of the rosy promises. This article delves into the county’s strong legacy of negotiating with developers, and how the current commission is falling short of that responsibility.
It digs deep to provide details about Project Jupiter and include source documents. It investigates what is known about the water and power situations to provide accurate information to the public.
Doña Ana County just announced five upcoming public meetings to discuss the project. That’s a strong first step. But with the project moving at light speed toward approval, this article makes the case that commissioners need to negotiate a contractual agreement that backs up Project Jupiter’s big promises with legal guarantees.
You can read the whole story at Haussaman.com.
Read Kent Paterson’s coverage of the story here.
I posted this on my Facebook page last week.
JUPITER IN OUR STARS?
I went to the community meeting at DACC last night for the Project Jupiter presentation. Project Jupiter, in case you haven’t heard of it, is the planned mega data center in Santa Teresa.
It was a loud, rowdy, overflow audience. Mostly, people were concerned about water and how much the data center will use.
Quick takeaways are that it will have its own power grid and closed loop cooling system to conserve water. It is funded by industrial revenue bonds issued by Dona Anna County to the tune of $165 billion dollars, more than the assessed valuation of El Paso County. Jupiter will pay the county $300M over 30 years in lieu of property tax. It is to be a large-scale data center campus. Construction alone will generate 2,500 to 5,000 temporary jobs.
I asked questions about the business model, i.e., who owns it and who the principals are, who are the customers, and what are they selling. They were cagey about that, so no real answer. I presume the county has done their homework on this, but in Southern New Mexico, that’s not always a good presumption.
The biggest issue was water, and that’s what people asked about the most. The presenters, Borderplex Digital Assets, said they will invest millions of their own money to upgrade the Sunland Park water system, which has been poisoning its residents for some years now. The main water usage will be for the finished campus of about 750 permanent employees or about what a community college uses. The cooling system will be a one-time fill of 10 million gallons and then recirculation. 10 million gallons is nothing, especially on a one-time basis. A typical pecan orchard uses more than that.
There are eight investor entities so far. A company called STACK will build and manage the campus. Apparently, they’ve done this in other places.
Emotions ran high last night on both sides, local supporters and skeptical residents. If I had one thing to say about it, it would be that a project of this size needs an environmental impact statement. That is probably their worst nightmare, and I assume the state of New Mexico and the county will do everything they can to fight it. Because the topic never even came up.