With the secretive Project Blue data center seemingly moving ahead in unincorporated Pima County, all eyes turned again to the Pima County Board of Supervisors on Sept. 2 as the latest opportunity to create safeguards around the project.
Pima County supervisors on Tuesday approved two significant policy reforms: new transparency rules for non-disclosure agreements tied to economic development projects and an expanded framework for environmental impact assessments.
And as with every public engagement of Project Blue so far, the community came out in force against the massive data center proposed to be built in the Sonoran Desert.
More than 75 people showed up in person to express their opposition. Of those, 39 submitted cards to speak during the call to the public session, with almost all of them expressing their unequivocal opposition against the development. No one spoke in favor.
“We need you to protect us,” said Lee Ziesche, a community organizer who has been advocating against Project Blue, to the supervisors. “The community has overwhelmingly and vehemently opposed it.”
The board of supervisors voted 3-2 in June to approve the first step for the data center by selling unincorporated Pima County land near the fairgrounds east of Tucson to Beale Infrastructure.
Community pushback was almost immediate, as details of the proposed data center came to light and Arizona Luminaria revealed that Amazon was the company that would ultimately operate the data center, according to an internal county memo.
Beale Infrastructure is the company that will build the data center. Following the sale, Beale sought for the property to be annexed by the city of Tucson so that they could access enough water to cool the project. After fierce public pushback, the city unanimously rejected the annexation in August.
For a brief period, it seemed that Project Blue was dead in the water. At a previous board of supervisors meeting, Beale signaled that if the city did not annex the property, they would not move forward with the land sale.
Last week, however, Beale and Tucson Electric Power filed a request with the Arizona Corporation Commission to provide power to the project, reigniting public concern about how the project will impact resources in the region.
Beale did not immediately respond to a list of questions about the project moving forward.
At the board of supervisors meeting, community members passionately invoked residents’ dependency on water, the fragility of the desert, the ongoing decades-long drought, and potential impact to a near-extinct firefly, among many other concerns.
One speaker asked the board to put a vote on the agenda to keep the land sale deal from closing. Another called Beale “Jeff Bezos in a trenchcoat.” A different speaker called for new economic studies. One person asked supervisors to “exit this horrible deal now.” At least two people called out the lack of Indigenous representation or voices involved in the discussion around Project Blue.
Others raised ethical issues around artificial intelligence. One speaker pointed out schools within a few miles of the proposed site, with specific concerns with water and noise pollution affecting students. Another worried about power outages and extended blackouts.
One community member talked about how moved they felt being part of the mobilization opposing the data center. “I want to ask you about the human part of it. I believe you’re a human before you’re a politician,” the speaker said.
Many held signs, including “ecosystem over economics,” “Rex Scott You Suck,” “Stop Project Blue,” and “Don’t sell our future.” One woman asked for a moment of silence for other communities across the country who have suffered from “environmental racism.”
Local artist and educator Logan Phillips asked: “Economic development for who? Because this is not for us.” He called Project Blue “a uniquely bad idea” and asked supervisors to vote “like your political futures depend on it, because indeed they do.”
Jenny O’Neill called herself a concerned citizen who has been to all of the public meetings about Project Blue. “I’m very impressed with how my community is showing up,” O’Neill told Arizona Luminaria before the meeting.
“It’s obvious there’s a lot of care and thought to how the community is responding” against Project Blue, O’Neill said. “It seems to be working.”
O’Neill added that the fight against the data center is “setting a precedent for other cities and states.” She said Beale, and maybe the county, seem to be pursuing “some shady ways trying to slip through” the data center.
None of the supervisors directly addressed any of the public comments, but Supervisor Jen Allen, of District 3, thanked the people for coming, and for the extensive organizing. “You persisted, you demanded, you showed up. This is what good governance looks like. I appreciate you, what you have done, the time you have taken, the research you have done. Thank you for standing up.”
Rex Scott, who was called out during the public comment portion of the meeting for his vote in favor of selling the land where Project Blue may be built, told Arizona Luminaria after the meeting that he did not regret his vote. The vehement public opposition “didn’t cause me to reconsider my decision to support the project,” he said.
And yet, he added, “It did give me additional insight into concerns the community holds.”
Rethinking non-disclosure agreements
After initial backlash against the county’s use of non-disclosure agreements, supervisors requested the county administrator to reconsider the use of the agreements for economic development projects.
An Aug. 28 memo from Lesher spells out a list of proposed changes, including specifying how long NDAs should last (initially 180 days, with possible extensions); requiring a confidential list of NDAs to be shared with the supervisors on a quarterly basis; requiring a confidential report to be shared with the supervisors about the project’s scope, user and other characteristics; and creates a template for NDAs.
The memo also proposes “public disclosure of the project details shall occur no less than 90 days prior to any requested approval or vote by a County public body.”
It creates a 90-day sunshine period, before any public body has a decision, the NDA will expire and there will be full disclosure about details and “what potential impacts” there are on land, water, air and communities.
Allen said of adjusting NDA policies that it was important that government bodies, as well as the public, have all the information necessary to make informed decisions.
The reforms are meant to add “some clarification about who is in and out [of NDAs] and what that means,” Allen said.
“Those clarifying pieces are incredibly important” to informed decision making, she said.
Supervisor Steve Christy, of District 4, said the proposal was a “farce,” and that more private sector stakeholders should have been consulted in the process.
Christy said the new NDA process was in danger of sending the message that “Pima County is not open for business.”
“There aren’t that many industries out there that would even consider coming into Pima County,” he said. “If we put more hurdles in front of companies that want to move into Pima County, it’s just going to make it that much more difficult.”
Supervisor Andrés Cano, of District 5, objected to Christy’s characterization. He said private sector stakeholders have had a week to reach out about the proposal. He asked county staff to explain how they developed the new NDA policy and confirmed that there was no opposition from the Chamber of Southern Arizona.
Speaking in favor of the new policy, Cano said, “Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant.”
Supervisors voted 4-1 in favor of adopting the new policy, with Christy voting no.
Environmental impact
County supervisors also requested staff to reassess how the county conducts environmental impact studies for proposed economic development projects. The proposed procedure includes not only an environmental impact study, but also reviews of cultural resources and historic preservation; species protection and conservation; resource impact evaluation; and impact on public health.
Allen said that the proposal for a new policy was “another one that falls into the category of lessons learned from Project Blue.”
She said details were missing about water and energy uses, as well as scope and scale and potential impact on air quality and public health. She said it was important that the public have more knowledge about these impacts, as well as“ample time for the public and the board” to make decisions about major development projects.
Saying she was proud to introduce the policy proposal, she called it “an enduring commitment to see our community holistically. We cannot consider impacts in isolation.”
The policy change passed 4-1, with Christy voting no.
Arizona Corporation Commission to consider power for the project
Beale Infrastructure and Tucson Electric Power filed a special agreement request with state regulators to lock in energy for the first phase of Project Blue.
The application, filed Aug. 25 with the Arizona Corporation Commission, outlines plans for Tucson Electric Power to begin supplying energy to the center in May 2027. No hearing date has been set yet, and the commission is currently accepting public comments at this link.
The application to the Arizona Corporation Commission says TEP will provide 286 megawatts of capacity by 2028. The agreement is in the public interest, the application argues, because it protects other local power users from cost or reliability impacts. That includes a 10-year agreement with minimum monthly billing requirements, a provision that requires multiple years of notice before the agreement is terminated and a gradual increase in energy load over 18 months.
Since the request was filed on Aug. 25, residents have sent in more than 140 pages of comments to the Arizona Corporation Commission opposing the application. Their reasons echo the concerns residents shared around Project Blue as a whole: a lack of clear information about the project as a whole as well as the data center’s plan to use significant amounts of energy and water.
“Tucson residents cannot afford more of these rate hikes and certainly not to subsidize a data center in a region that is in drought and where heat levels and length of heat above normal are increasing each year,” wrote Yvonne Reineke in a comment.
“I’m a constituent in Tucson, Arizona deeply disturbed by the actions of Tucson Electric Power and Beale Infrastructure,” wrote Daniel Hunt in an email to the commission, saying that Beale was circumventing the will of Tucson residents by moving to make a state-level agreement with TEP. “Our wonderful A.C.C. is the only chance we have to put a stop to it.”
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