Updated

Updated · The Guardian · Oct 17

Judge Halts 1 Million-Square-Foot Imperial AI Datacenter, Ordering Year-Long Environmental Review

Updated

Updated · The Guardian · Oct 17

Judge Halts 1 Million-Square-Foot Imperial AI Datacenter, Ordering Year-Long Environmental Review

Q: Will a massive AI data center ultimately drain a drought-stricken desert community's vital agricultural water supply?

Not yet, and it may never happen. The proposed Imperial County AI data center has been sent back for a full environmental review, its water request was denied by the Imperial Irrigation District, and the project remains tied up in litigation. For now, it has no secured water supply. The central risk is real. Developer Sebastian Rucci says the facility would need about 750,000 gallons a day, roughly 260 million to 287 million gallons a year, for cooling. He argues that water could come from retiring about 160 acres of farmland, so the project would not increase total Colorado River demand. But water experts say that is not automatic: owning or fallowing farmland does not by itself guarantee a legal right to convert agricultural deliveries into industrial service, and such a shift could still weaken the local farm economy and related jobs. Whether it would “drain” the community’s agricultural supply depends less on the project’s raw volume than on precedent and local rules. The project’s annual demand is only a tiny share of IID’s overall allocation, but critics fear a successful farm-to-data-center transfer would create a template for more industrial conversions in a drought-stressed region. The judge’s order requiring a full CEQA review means those impacts now must be examined in detail, including water supply, cumulative effects, emissions and grid strain. Until that review is completed and the water dispute is resolved, the threat remains potential rather than actual.

3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Oct 17

A county judge last month sent Sebastian Rucci’s Imperial County AI datacenter back to square one, barring construction until it completes a full environmental review that could take a year or more.
The proposed 75-acre, nearly 1 million-square-foot facility had won county approval in April under a CEQA exemption, but the city of Imperial sued over bypassed public input and environmental scrutiny.
Residents and local officials argued the project could strain the Colorado River-dependent water supply, the power grid and air quality; Rucci says the site would use about 750,000 gallons of water a day and 330 megawatts of power.
Opposition widened into more than half a dozen lawsuits, a 45-day datacenter moratorium, a petition with nearly 3,500 signatures and a recall effort against a county supervisor who backed the project.
Rucci, who says he has already invested about $5 million and promised 1,600 construction jobs plus nearly $30 million in annual tax revenue, plans to challenge the ruling and keep pursuing the project.