TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — The company behind that Project Blue data center says the project will go ahead even after public protests and a Tucson City council vote against it.
Advocates say the center will bring jobs and boost local businesses, while opponents say they’ll continue to fight.
Tucson’s City Council refused to annex the Project Blue site into city limits after critics said it would use too much water for cooling and use too much electricity.
Now Beale Infrastructure says it’s going ahead with Project Blue anyway with a different design—a closed loop liquid coolant system that mainly relies on air cooling though the air cooling could use more electricity.
City Councilmember Paul Cunningham says Project Blue was evasive about how much water the water cooled design would use and if they had a water saving option why didn’t they propose it in the first place?
“So I really have some questions, and they really haven't been as transparent. For me, it's made it really difficult to trust them.”
Pima Supervisor Matt Heinz was part of the Supervisors three vote majority to support selling county land for the data center. He thinks it will be good for the local economy.
Critics contend the contract for the land sale said the deal’s off if Tucson failed to annex the land or provide water.
Heinz says the contract gives Project Blue the option to waive those requirements but does not give Pima County the ability to call off the deal.
“There is, in fact, a clause that the conditions for closing can be waived by the buyer. That is pretty typical language, as I understand it. That is how the contract was written.”
Pima 3 Supervisor Jennifer Allen opposed the land sale. She hopes to stop Project Blue with that contract language and by intervening in Tucson Electric’s Corporation Commission request to provide power to the site.
Organizers who fought the data center say they’re not going away. They say that contract does let the County cancel the deal and they may go to court.
Vivek Bharathan of the No Desert Data Center Coalition says, “You can bet that we'll take this statewide if it comes to the Corporation Commission, and we'll be there. We'll be there to meet TEP and Beale at the Corporation Commission, and we will make sure the entire state of Arizona knows this is a bad deal for all of us.”
