A majority of Pima County supervisors rejected efforts to weigh the health and water impacts of Project Blue, a last-ditch effort by public officials opposed to the plan to conduct more oversight of the proposed massive data center.
On Nov. 19, Supervisor Jen Allen, of District 3, added the discussion to the Dec. 2 board of supervisors meeting, following a unanimous vote by the Pima County Board of Health recommending the supervisors utilize an ordinance for heavy users of water and power prior to any final decision on Project Blue.
According to Pima County Chief Civil Deputy Attorney Sam Brown, because there are only weeks left before the final closing date on the land sale, there would not be time to conduct a public health analysis. In June, Pima County supervisors voted to sell a plot of land to Humphrey’s Peak Properties, the company working with Beale Infrastructure to develop the data center.
County Administrator Jan Lesher echoed the difficulty of timing: “I don’t think we have the ability to get this done on time.” The county has until Christmas Day to close the deal.
The problem with timing didn’t sit well with Supervisor Andrés Cano, of District 5.
“I am disappointed — but not surprised — that we face another roadblock from our lawyers and from county administration on trying to mitigate what we know will be unprecedented impact to our region because of the data center we are considering,” Cano said.
Cano and Allen were the sole votes for further impact study of Project Blue.
Cano added that various stakeholders, including officials and community members regulating and studying public health and environmental impacts, should be involved up front on economic development projects.
“That did not happen,” Cano said. “It is my opinion that we continue to do this in reverse order.”
He said the message from the county is: “Too late, too bad, so sad. I believe the public deserves better.”
The brief discussion about health impacts took place on the same day news broke that Amazon was pulling out of Project Blue. According to reporting in the Arizona Daily Star, Amazon will no longer be the ultimate user of the data center.
Ongoing community opposition — and a potential lawsuit
Before the supervisors officially took up the discussion of Project Blue, more than a dozen community members, many of them with the No Desert Data Center Coalition, spoke out during the call to the public. They took turns lambasting the project and threatening the political future of the supervisors who voted in favor of it.
One speaker addressed the Democratic members of the board: “I remind you you are public servants and your constituents feel poorly served.”
Multiple speakers, one of them reduced to tears about the impact on the environment, called out the lack of transparency around the project.
Reed Spurling was one of the speakers. “They lied to you,” Spurling said of the developer, Beale Infrastructure. “They cannot be trusted.” They and other speakers threatened a recall campaign of Democratic supervisors Rex Scott and Matt Heinz.
Adriane Hofmeyr, an attorney representing No Desert Data Center, told Arizona Luminaria they may soon be filing a lawsuit against Pima County for failing to follow open meetings laws, specifically around the planning and zoning issues of the project.
Beale told Arizona Luminaria that its commitments to clean energy and community benefits are “goodwill community contributions and world-best practice commitments.”
“We have made these commitments publicly, precisely because we value accountability and we fully intend to deliver on our promises. We are working with Pima County in good faith on an MOU to memorialize these commitments to the extent permissible by Arizona law,” the company said.
The Arizona Corporation Commission is meeting tomorrow, Dec. 3, to discuss Tucson Electric Power’s consideration of a special agreement to provide power to the proposed data center.
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