TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Project Blue is the proposed data center that would be built on vacant land near the Pima County Fairgrounds on the southeast side of Tucson near Houghton and I-10. The media outlet AZ Luminaria said Amazon Web Services is behind the project.
The City of Tucson held an informational public meeting with the developers, Beale Infrastructure. This time, there were more people than the meeting that was held in Vail about two weeks ago.
However, the crowd was also rowdier, interrupting almost every sentence presenters said. They yelled profanities at them and called for the cancellation of plans for Project Blue.
Marisol Winfrey-Herrera is one of the people against the project who attended the meeting. She said she doesn’t believe Beale Infrastructure when they said Project Blue would conserve water.
“This project will be water negative not water positive,” Winfrey-Herrera said.
The City of Tucson said construction for the project is going to cost over a billion dollars and another over two billion dollars for the equipment in phase one.
Beale Infrastructure is working with Tucson Water on the multi billion dollar project. They said Project Blue will not reduce water flow in the Santa Cruz River or the amount of water in the region. They said they’re also using reclaimed water.
Protesters like Winfrey-Herrera with No Desert Data Center said they don’t believe them.
“People trying to carry out this project do not live here and will not suffer the consequences of losing access to water,” she said.
Tucson Water said they have 59 years of groundwater stored. A new 18 mile pipeline, they said, is going to deliver water to a recharge facility where they store Colorado River water.
“A corporation giving one bucket back is not replenishing the one bucket that they took. They’re replenishing less,” Winfrey-Herrera said.
TEP said their reliability won’t be compromised and they’ve only committed to phase one of the project in which customers will not see an increase in their bills. Beale Infrastructure, they said is showing willingness to pay for the infrastructure for phase one.
“We know that all you want is to extract money and to move on and there will be no consequences for you,” Winfrey-Herrera said.
The project, Beale Infrastructure said, would create about 3,000 construction jobs and would include local unions in addition to about 180 permanent jobs.
“It would represent growth for our Local, for our members,” Jorge Pereyda said. “It would also mean that our members could have more stable work closer to home.”
Pereyda represents the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters Local 1912. The union is already in talks with Beale Infrastructure to work on the project.
“Information that we’re providing them with is things like workforce development, certain language to include in the agreement,” Pereyda said.
Unions can give their expertise, he said, and the project is a benefit to the local economy.
“We’re the ones that build these projects so they want to ensure that they’re protecting the working class and protecting the work,” Pereyda said.
On Wednesday the Mayor and City Council are going to be talking about Project Blue. Later this month they are going to vote on whether to even consider the project. The mayor said a final vote has not been scheduled.
——-
Andrew Christiansen is a reporter for KGUN 9. Before joining the team, Andrew reported in Corpus Christi, Texas for KRIS6 News, Action 10 News and guest reported in Spanish for Telemundo Corpus Christi. Share your story ideas with Andrew by emailing andrew.christiansen@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook, or Twitter.
