TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — When Tucson City Council rejected the data center code-named Project Blue, concern about heavy water use in the desert was a big part of the reason; but there may have been a way to use less water and still have the project and the jobs it would provide.
Protestors turned out in force to oppose the data center. They did not see the project’s promise of job and tax revenue as a fair trade for something that would use millions of gallons of water a day in our desert environment.
It did not win them over that developers planned to stop using drinkable water once they completed an 18 mile pipeline to bring reclaimed water to the data center.
Pima County Supervisors sold Beale Infrastructure 290 acres for Project Blue, but the plan also required the City of Tucson to annex the county land and provide the water hookup.
Everyone on Tucson City Council voted no to the city’s part of the plan but a news release from Beale Infrastructure hints that the company will try to build the data center anyway.
The release includes this sentence: “We continue to believe there is a win-win solution to bring this record-breaking investment to Tucson.”
The release also says Beale Infrastructure could have offered a plan with cooling systems that would use less water but says the city was more interested in the company’s offer to build that 18 mile pipeline for reclaimed water—and build it oversized to give the city the ability to deliver reclaimed water for Project Blue and other uses the city might want.
The release says, “Alternative cooling designs have not yet been prioritized for Project Blue based on the City’s feedback and desire to see reclaimed water infrastructure expansions, but they are a viable path for data centers to operate in the region with minimal water use.”
Councilmember Nikki Lee has a background in computer and information technology. She says no one from the city ever told her Project Blue had an option to build a system that would use less water. She says in an in-person briefing she asked Beale Infrastructure why it wasn’t considering a closed loop system that would use less water. She says she was told if they used a system like that it would require more electricity.
