Community backlash over the secretive planning of Project Blue — a massive data center development — is prompting Tucson officials to reconsider how and when non-disclosure agreements should be used in public projects.
As officials in Pima County and the City of Tucson discussed and planned one of the region’s largest development projects in history, for at least two years not a single hint about the project was released to the public, largely because of non-disclosure agreements, commonly referred to as NDAs.
Before the proposal was considered by the Pima County Board of Supervisors and Arizona Luminaria reporting revealed the company behind the data centers to be Amazon Web Services, important details had been unavailable to the public.
“At the request of the Board, the County’s process for entering into an NDA is under review,” county spokesperson Mark Evans told Arizona Luminaria in an email.
The public, as well as public officials, still have many unanswered questions about the project.
Pima County Supervisor Jen Allen, of District 3, said she found navigating a consequential decision with an NDA in place was “challenging and shocking.”
She questioned the logic, she said, of “protecting the interests of an entity that wants to profit off of our water, our energy — profit off the backs of sustainability — that their interests in privacy, protecting their name, supersedes our obligation as policy makers about the long-term interests of our community.”
“I have no idea who’s behind all this,” said one speaker at the July 23 Project Blue information meeting held by Tucson. “We don’t have transparency and accountability.”
In a statement to Arizona Luminaria, a spokesperson for Amazon Web Services said the company did not have any specific commitments or agreements in place to develop Project Blue, but has considered Arizona as a location for an AWS data center.
“AWS has previously engaged in standard due diligence processes in Arizona, like we do in any geographic location we consider building and operating our infrastructure,” the spokesperson said. “We do not have any commitments or agreements in place to develop this project and will continue to assess all potential geographic regions to ensure our data center developments provide the best possible product and value for our customers, while bringing positive benefits to the local communities where we operate.”
Beale Infrastructure, the development company that bought the land from Pima County, said they had chosen Tucson as a site for the proposed data center because its sustainability goals aligned with the company’s own.
“We’ve chosen this community precisely because of its access to abundant clean energy resources, proactive commitment to sustainability, as outlined in the city’s Climate Action and Adaptation Plan,” they said in a statement.
As the tense discussions around Project Blue continue, here is a breakdown of how NDAs have been used to keep the project out of public view, how local officials are navigating NDAs, and what they want in the future.
NDAs should be “very limited”
Supervisor Matt Heinz, of District 2, was also concerned — and surprised — about how the county used NDAs to provide cover for Project Blue.
He told Arizona Luminaria that he was bound by an NDA that he didn’t even know existed. Questioning the legality of that situation, he said clarification might need to come from the courts. “Someone has to decide if local officials can be bound by an NDA they didn’t sign,” Heinz said.
As for adjusting NDA policy, he said future use of NDAs should be “very limited.” They should typically only be in effect during early discussions about projects.
“And then at any point when something is coming up for government approval, that has to be fully transparent. The NDAs cannot continue through the government approval process. That makes no sense,” Heinz said it makes elected officials seem like they’re either being complicit or ignorant.
Evans told Arizona Luminaria that the former procurement director, Teri Spencer, signed an NDA and was authorized to sign NDAs on behalf of the county.
“The Board of Supervisors has delegated that authority to Procurement,” Evans said in a July 31 statement to Arizona Luminaria. “The Procurement Director signs NDAs and other contracts on behalf of the County.”
The city has also faced pressure to be more transparent about major economic development projects.
Tucson Mayor Regina Romero was aware of Project Blue as early as March 2023, according to county documents obtained by Arizona Luminaria via public records requests and confirmed by the mayor in an interview. She says she was not beholden to an NDA.
“Mayor and council do not sign NDAs,” Romero told Arizona Luminaria. She directed further questions about NDAs to City Attorney Mike Rankin.
Rankin confirmed that neither the mayor or council members sign NDAs. He said non-disclosure agreements — as signed by non-elected city officials — are “standard practice in connection with city economic development project proposals.”
Romero said that while she met with leaders of Project Blue in 2023 to tout the city and region, she did not know the project was a data center or that it would be run by Amazon.
She said the economic initiative teams in both the county and the city could have given “more information in terms of data centers and the lessons learned from Valley cities,” she said.
“I wish by now we could have been much more prepared,” Romero added.
While city council members did not sign any non-disclosure agreements, Ward 4 council member Nikki Lee said an agreement was signed by Barbra Coffee, the director of Economic Initiatives for Tucson.
“I was told that one was signed on behalf of the City of Tucson and that it applied across the organization,” said Lee, whose ward would house the proposed data center.
Lee was briefed on the draft development agreement from Beale Infrastructure in May, but couldn’t share information publicly until July. “It was uncomfortable to have more information than the community but not be able to talk about it,” she said.
Beale is the developer that would build the data centers.
Lane Mandle, a spokesperson for the city of Tucson, said signing NDAs is part of Coffee’s role at the city, and how the agreement around Project Blue was dealt with is “standard practice in connection with City economic development project proposals.”
Ward 5 council member Rocque Perez echoed the discomfort of struggling to be transparent while not knowing key information.
“Since I was not under any NDA, my public commentary has been informed by official briefings, city documents, and, eventually, public reporting, which is the same information disclosed to the public,” Perez said. “However, the absence of one key detail — the identity of the end user — did limit what I could confidently consider and comment on.”
City and county reconsider NDA process
After the county supervisors voted in June to sell the land on which the data center could be built to Beale, Allen asked Pima County administrators to propose revised NDA policies, which they intend to do by September.
At the July 15 Board of Supervisors meeting, Allen said “We are seeing and will continue to see the fallout of the NDA and Project Blue as it’s related to our decision.” She said the fact that information was not shared with county supervisors was problematic. “We have heard from our constituents that it is not acceptable.”
Chair Rex Scott told Arizona Luminaria that the board will discuss NDAs in regard to Project Blue at the Aug. 5 supervisors meeting.
On the city side, Lee said she has begun conversations with City Attorney Rankin to review the NDA model used in Tucson.
“Companies should be able to protect proprietary information, but anything that directly impacts the public, like water and energy use, should not be withheld,” Lee said. “A project of this scale should be handled differently from the start.”
How other communities have fared
Secrecy is not uncommon for data center projects, but Eric Bonds, a professor of sociology at University of Mary Washington, said it raises concerns about what the use of non-disclosure agreements means for the democratic process related to massive projects like data centers.
“Part of due diligence for elected officials is to know the company so they can scrutinize how it can behave elsewhere,” said Bonds, who has written for several news sites on his concerns about data centers in Virginia, where he is based.
Virginia has become a major hub for data centers. It’s also become a bellwether for how companies engage with local communities and potential long-term risks associated with data center growth. A report from the Virginia legislature estimates that the data center industry will double the power demand in the state over the next 10 years.
Experiences with data centers in places like Virginia have some Tucson residents worried — and Project Blue’s rollout, they say, has hurt their trust in local officials.
“We’ve heard repeatedly through this process, both at the county and city level, that these NDAs are normal for these kinds of land deals. Just because they’re precedented doesn’t mean they’re right for us or any other community,” said Vivek Bharathan, who organizes with the No Desert Data Center coalition.
“Community members like us who oppose the harm these agreements bring are left to perform the unpaid labor of organizing against them, while the people who are paid to represent us are engaged in, and trust, a process that’s engineered to betray us,” Bharathan said.
NDA breach
As first reported by the Arizona Daily Star, when County Administrator Jan Lesher gave Arizona Luminaria requested records about Project Blue — one of which named Amazon Web Services — she may have breached the NDA.
Shawndrea Thomas, spokesperson for the Pima County Attorney’s Office, told Arizona Luminaria, “we cannot provide any legal advice or analysis to the public” about NDAs in general or specifically around Project Blue.
Thomas referred Arizona Luminaria to the county’s Board of Supervisors Policy, which generally defines an NDA as “a binding agreement by which one or more parties agree not to disclose to others confidential information that they have shared with each other as a necessary part of doing business together. NDAs cannot exceed 5 years.”
Lesher told Arizona Luminaria she had no comment about NDAs.
What’s next
In the weeks following the outrage over the county’s vote to sell land to Beale Industries, Tucson shared a facts and information page about Project Blue. The city has also put together three public meetings related to the project ahead of a series of city council meetings where they will publicly discuss the project.
Organizers have continued to push back on the data center, holding sign-making parties, virtual meeting watch events and reaching out to find local artists to create posters and Instagram images sharing their concerns about the use of water and energy proposed for the project.
Around the country, resident opposition has become an increasingly vocal part of the public debate. This week, in Louisa County, Virginia, Amazon Web Services pulled out of a proposed data center following a surge of resident opposition.
“We have heard the community and appreciate the desire for more robust input in any future projects that may be brought forward in the county, and we are confident that this is a goal that can be accomplished.” Charles W. Payne, Jr., an attorney representing AWS, said according to local news site Virginia Mercury.
On Wednesday, the Arizona Daily Star reported that Tucson Electric Power would need to build a new natural gas plant to meet the power demands to serve the second complex currently under consideration as part of Project Blue.
City council members will next discuss the project at a study session on Aug. 6, and hold a public hearing on Aug. 19 where they will consider continuing the process to annex the land.
Council member Perez said the public attention on Project Blue was unlike anything else he had seen.
“Project Blue has generated more public attention than any project in recent memory, and for good reason. Its scale, environmental considerations, and the initial lack of transparency understandably heightened public concern,” he said.
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