By Kent Paterson
Emerging as one of the hottest issues in the U.S. today, hyperscale AI data centers have become a magnet for citizen activism and political battles. Up 1-25 in Socorro, New Mexico, opponents of a proposal by the Canada-based Green Data company to install a massive data center on thousands of acres of land belonging to the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, better known as New Mexico Tech, scored a victory June 2 when New Mexico Tech President Michael Jackson (no relation to the King of Pop), announced that the project had been relegated to a long shelf. The announcement came one week before the Socorro County Commission was anticipated to consider a one-year moratorium on data centers in the rural New Mexico county.
“During the initial phase of this process we identified several material considerations that led (New Mexico Tech and Green Data) parties to mutually conclude that proceeding under the current framework is not the right path at this time,” Jackson said in a statement. But holding out the possibility that circumstances and conditions could change in the future, Jackson added, “NMT remains open to revisiting a conversation..”
Jackson’s message followed weeks of uproar over the proposed data center, including a May 19 town hall attended by the reporter, where near unanimous opposition sizzled against Green Data’s proposal. The gathering was attended by about 200 people while others connected online. As of June 1, a petition opposing a Socorro County data center had attracted 4,644 signatures on Change.org. The 2020 census counted 16,505 people in Socorro County.
Water consumption by a big data center was high on the list of people in Socorro speaking out against a New Mexico Tech-Green Data deal. Preceding the town hall, the adjacent middle Rio Grande began drying up again. In late May, the United States Department of Agriculture issued a natural disaster declaration for multiple New Mexico counties, including Socorro, because of serious drought conditions.
“Water is life in the Southwest, as you know, and stocks of water have been continuously depleting due to drought.,” resident Beaumont Chrismer told the reporter while waiting for the May 19 event to commence.
Other reasons against a data center voiced by speakers at the town hall included intrusions on sacred indigenous and historic Chicano lands, noise pollution, and health hazards from stirring up depleted uranium contamination originating from previous tests conducted by New Mexico Tech.
“I’m very concerned about the dust that accumulated from the testing of depleted uranium in the area,” former Socorro resident Damacio Lopez said. Data center construction activities could result in exposures to workers and others. Lopez works with Veterans for Peace and is co-chair of the Uranium Weapons Working Group.
Another issue raised by some attendees was the possibility of electronic interference from a data center to the National Science Foundation and National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Very Large Array (VLA), one of the world’s leading astronomical radio observatories, which consists of 27 radio antennas set in a Y-shaped field configuration about 50 miles west of Socorro.
Prior to the town hall, a scathing statement calling for an end to negotiations with Green Data and its affiliates was issued by the New Mexico Tech Alumni Association to the school’s Board of Regents. The statement questioned the deal making process, the lack of feasibility and engineering studies, unknown financial facts, impacts on the VLA, and much more.
“As a public institution, NM Tech has a responsibility to be open in its business dealings,” the statement read in part. “This secret, sole source project process does not comport with any form of public contracting procedures in New Mexico government…”
On the defensive at the town hall, New Mexico Tech President Jackson insisted that he was doing his “due diligence” as the school’s leader by looking out for the financial health of New Mexico Tech at a time when the (Democratic-dominated) New Mexico State Legislature was telling the state’s institutions of higher learning that they must become more “self-sufficient” and “entrepreneurial,” and contribute to the Land of Enchantment’s economic development.
A partnership with Green Data was one opportunity for needed revenue that should be considered, Jackson asserted. Despite a study that concluded New Mexico Tech was underfunded to the tune of $7 million, New Mexico’s lawmakers had failed to fund the gap, according to Jackson.
Still, pending upcoming consultations with university and community stakeholders, no contract or final decision had been made to move forward with the data center, he stressed at the time of the town hall.
In attendance at the town hall, Green Data CEO Jason Bak unsuccessfully attempted to convince locals that Green Data could operate in an environmentally friendly, technologically innovative and sustainable manner. “I understand where you are coming from. There’s a sign there that says ‘Big Data, Big Lie’,” Bak said, referring to a placard held by an attendee. “You’re not wrong, you’re not wrong. And I think the opportunity here is to do something different, and that’s our intent.”
Political Fallout Spreads
A noteworthy feature of the showdown in Socorro was mention of the giant Project Jupiter/Stargate data center currently under construction next door to El Paso in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. Instead of the shining model of AI and economic development promoted by its developers, the Santa Teresa example is increasingly viewed as something to avoid, as was voiced at the Socorro town hall.
If the June 2 New Mexico primary is any indication of the direction of prevailing political winds, then Daisy Maldonado’s victory as the Democratic nominee for the Doña Ana County District 1 County Commission seat in the November general election could well signal a new public willingness to openly challenge the promises of big money developers and their environmental impacts. A longtime community activist, Maldonado has been one of the most outspoken critics of the Santa Teresa data center development. Maldonado will now face off with Republican nominee Samanth Barncastle Salopek.
In another Doña Ana County primary race, former County Commissioner Shannon Reynolds, who took heat as one of four county commissioners to vote last year for the tax incentives that launched Project Jupiter/Stargate in Santa Teresa, lost his bid for County Assessor in a three way competition for the Democratic nomination, according to unofficial results posted by the New Mexico Secretary of State.
Meanwhile, more data center action is brewing in El Paso. City Council Representative Josh Acevedo announced on his Facebook this week that he is adding an item to the June 9 City Council meeting agenda that proposes canceling the city government’s contract with Meta, which is fast building a large data center of its own on the far northeastern outskirts of the Sun City.
“This data center will immediately add heat and pollution to the area with its 813 inefficient gas power generators and full blown gas power plant. The data center will strain our precious water resources. Our air and water are more important than any money the city would make…a bad deal is a bad deal and it should be broken,” Acevedo said. He invited the public to comment at the June 9 meeting.
As in Socorro and in Santa Teresa/Sunland Park, many residents have protested the installation of data centers in El Paso. Stay closely tuned to this and other developments in a defining issue of our times that’s shaping the future of the Southwest, the United States and humankind across the globe.