Locals are challenging a million-square-foot data center that would be the biggest in California

In April, developers of the massive Imperial Data Center cleared a major hurdle after Imperial County Supervisors approved a plan to combine several tracts of land for the nearly one-million-square-foot facility in rural Southern California.

It would be the largest data center in the state; the parent company, Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing, LLC describes it as a hyperscale facility, “designed exclusively for advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning operations.”

Last week, that progress came to a halt when the county board walked back its decision, declaring a 45-day moratorium on data centers and forming a public commission to advise the county on zoning policy for the facilities. Their reversal came after months of backlash, and a more than hour-long public hearing in which residents voiced sharp criticism of the sweeping project and its swift approval.

The developer, Sebastian Rucci, said he’s filing a lawsuit to seek a temporary restraining order against the moratorium today, arguing that the county failed to show a true emergency, explain what harms and impacts it will cause, and what specific concerns residents have raised.

“It’s defective,” he said. “The county wrote a moratorium after one year of the approvals. Moratoriums are not there as a planning tool. They’re there for very specific emergencies.”

The conflict over the massive facility reflects the push to build infrastructure for the mushrooming artificial intelligence industry, and Californians’ growing unease with its effects on air quality, water, energy, traffic and more.

Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing, LLC promises that it will produce 2,500 construction jobs and 100 permanent jobs, and generate $72.5 million in a one-time sales tax and $28.7 million in annual taxes. But many residents and local leaders worry that the public health, environmental and economic costs to their rural, working class community could outweigh those benefits.

Earlier this year, State Sen. Steve Padilla, a San Diego Democrat, introduced a series of bills aimed at data center construction in Imperial County and across California. One of those would revise membership of the Imperial County Air Pollution Control District, to provide stricter oversight of projects that affect air quality in the polluted region. The others would regulate energy use and tighten environmental protections for facilities throughout the state.

This year the City of Imperial filed a lawsuit challenging the data center’s review under the California Environmental Quality Act, known as CEQA. And local voters are gathering signatures for a referendum to ban data centers in the county. Rucci has said his project is permitted under existing zoning for industrial uses, and doesn’t require further environmental review.

“They can’t just come in and claim that they’re exempt and have a right to build the biggest data center in the state without any oversight,” Padilla said at a town hall in El Centro Thursday.

Padilla has been a vocal critic from the outset. In January he urged Imperial County Supervisors to refrain from approving the data center before conducting a thorough environmental review and seeking public input. One of his bills would change the Imperial County air board from its current composition of the five county supervisors to a broader panel of 10 local members, representing the county, city councils, public health, environmental groups, labor and agriculture.

“I think maybe it’s a good idea to have some people with professional training and credentials in environmental mitigation science,” Padilla said of the proposed change.

Some farmers and business owners in the audience were skeptical, arguing that expanding the board would expose them to ever more costly regulations, without addressing pollution from outside the area, originating in Mexico or at the Salton Sea.

“We’re losing our ability to compete because of California specific rules and regulations,” said Lawrence Cox, owner of Coastline Family Farms. “I want clean air. I want clean water. But economics come to the forefront because of some of the rules and regulations that California legislators put in.”

Michelle Hollinger, a vice president for Victoria Homes, said home builders already face complex environmental rules, and argued that Padilla’s proposals would apply the same standards to newer projects such as data centers, while tackling hidden costs of lax regulation.

“Let me tell you what is actually expensive,” she said. “It is expensive when Imperial Valley has some of the highest pediatric asthma rates in California. It is expensive for families to take off work, paying for emergency room visits and watching children struggle to breathe. I do not want to hear that public health is too expensive, while rubber-stamping data centers that dodge CEQA.”

Padilla introduced two other bills to place restrictions on data center development statewide. One would require large data centers to pay the costs of their energy up front, and prevent them from transferring those costs to other ratepayers. Without those safeguards, Padilla said, “You’re going to suddenly create a gigantic sucking sound of electrons, drawing power, and creating scarcity and jacking up prices” from energy-intensive data center projects.

Another would prohibit data centers from receiving exemptions under the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires developers to disclose the impacts of their project, seek public input and propose ways to reduce any harmful effects.

It would also require the project to include zero-carbon energy production and storage, pay for all new grid investments to avoid shifting costs to other power customers, use recycled water, offset any increased air pollution and invest in local workforce development and training programs.

The bill puts developers on notice that “You’re going to do better than what is the minimum. You’re going to set a new standard in California,” Padilla said.

All of those bills have passed the state Senate and are awaiting votes in the Assembly.

The controversy over the Imperial Data Center is playing out in similar battles across the state, where other planned tech facilities are meeting community pushback, and watchdog groups are seeking disclosure of their effects.

Data centers are spreading to areas with overtapped water supplies, but aren’t providing public accounting of their extensive water use, CalMatters reported.

Imperial County is one of California’s most productive agricultural regions, but is exclusively reliant on the Colorado River and is subject to water shortages. So the Imperial Data Center’s projected water use is a key issue.

The company originally pledged to use recycled water from neighboring cities, but when that didn’t pan out, it sued Imperial Irrigation District in Imperial County Superior Court this month, seeking 260 million gallons of river water each year. Rucci stated in the lawsuit that the water would come from 160 acres of adjacent farmland the company purchased, which has an existing right to water service. He has proposed to fallow the land and divert the water to the data center, stating that would not result in any additional water demand.

In many cases, companies are exempt from such disclosure for projects authorized under what’s called ministerial approval, or automatic permits for projects that meet certain zoning criteria.

That’s a big part of the dispute in Imperial County; the data center tract merger and an earlier grading permit were greenlighted under routine city planning rules, without the extensive environmental review normally required for large developments under California law.

The City of Imperial objected to that shortcut in a court complaint that argues that the project is located just a couple hundred feet from homes in the incorporated city, but doesn’t account for its effects on air quality in the region, which already suffers high rates of pollution and childhood asthma, nor for water use, energy demand or other impacts.

“This process lacks the essential safeguards necessary to ensure the public is protected and that the impacts caused by the Hyperscale AI Data Center are mitigated,” the City of Imperial argued.

Some voters want to take data centers off the table entirely. Earlier this month Monterey Park, a city in Los Angeles County, became the first U.S. city to pass a moratorium on data centers, fueled by months of controversy over a planned project.

Rucci maintains that public opposition to data centers has no bearing on the legal status of his project. He argues that county zoning would permit other industrial projects with greater impacts.

“People can’t just emotionally say that I dislike data centers,” he said. “It’s just a building, but with a lot less intensive use than other uses.”

Padilla thinks data center development can be done right, but said it requires guardrails to protect neighboring residents: “We can figure out ways to power this technology without completely destroying and exploiting communities.”

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This story was originally published by CalMatters and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.