Sierra County has New Mexico’s newest moratorium on data centers, unanimously enacted by the county commission on Tuesday before its largest audience in recent memory. More than 60 people attended the hearing with about half of them speaking against data centers due to their needs for electricity and water, and the potential for environmental and economic damage.
Commissioner Hank Hopkins originally had moved for a resolution seeking study of a moratorium on large data centers. But after the hearing, Hopkins moved for an 18-month moratorium blocking any data centers on private land. This would not prevent a data center at Spaceport America on land owned by the state via the New Mexico Spaceport Authority which has looked at building a small data center and possibly more. But Commission Chairman James Paxon said the authority would need commission approval for such a project. Commissioner Sandy Jones said he had concerns about how the moratorium was written, but nevertheless supported it because of his concerns over water and electrical power.
Alice Hutchins of Truth or Consequences said Jason Bak, whose Canadian-based Green Data’s plan for a data center was rejected in Socorro County, is now trying to switch to Spaceport America in Sierra County by using “stonewalling, misinformation and blatant lies.” When state Rep. Rebecca Dow asked about water availability, energy sourcing and economic impact, Hutchins said, Bak did not respond. “It is insulting that these wealthy, powerful corporations expect us to remain uninformed and uneducated about projects affecting our environment, livelihoods and quality of life,” said.
David Mooney, the Democrat challenging Republican incumbent Dow in the state House District 38 contest in November, said he has had a front row seat to Project Jupiter in Doña Ana County. “They don’t want to build these to help New Mexicans or even because this is a good place to build these centers,” he said. “They’re here because they think they can take advantage of us. If we come together, we can absolutely stop these corporations from taking advantage of us. I would happily team up with my opponent Rebecca Dow if she would join the fight against data centers. This is bigger than party politics.”
One of the few people speaking in favor of data centers at the hearing was Joan Baker, who lives in Los Lunas and works for the construction trade union Local 412. She said she has formed a nonprofit that aims to train “disengaged youth” from Sierra and three other New Mexico counties to work on construction projects. “Once I come into town and I train them, where will they work?” she asked. They are likely to work in Santa Theresa, El Paso or Pecos Texas, where data centers are being built. “Please don’t add the hype or misinformation of the anti data center movement,” Baker said. “Table this resolution.”
Connie Brown told the commissioners that grandiose development projects often destroy local economies. In China, 42 percent of the country was destroyed by desertification during the last half of the 20th century, due to overgrazing, clearing farmland and industrial development. “Twenty eight thousand rivers and tributaries disappeared from the map in that 50 years,” she said. Brown said similar disasters are now happening in California’s Imperial Valley with developers promising residents economic benefits.
“Promises, especially from strangers, can be empty,” she said. “We were promised huge financial benefits from Spaceport and instead Sierra County taxpayers fund them with a .25 percent Spaceport tax. We pay them over $16,000 a month. … We are expendable. The investors are playing a long game and counting on us to gamble our land, our children’s inheritance and our way of living.”
Several people said the Rio Grande and Elephant Butte Reservoir’s low levels prove Sierra County has no water to spare. Others pointed to falling groundwater levels. Steve Green, a former Truth or Consequences mayor, said the town’s thermal water aquifer in the Hot Springs District is also endangered,
Suzanne Carlstedt said she has supported Spaceport America, “but I want to convey today a sense of betrayal that I have for them to learn they’ve been negotiating with this company since 2021. I’m no water expert, but I think you can just look at the lake and say we have an acute water shortage and water is everything. I don’t know why I should give this Spaceport the assumption that they’re not going to blithely negotiate away the water that supplies our faucets, our agriculture, our hot springs and our vegetation.“
Nate Stephens, a Truth or Consequences developer, urged the commission to reject the moratorium and consider instead forming a resources task force. He said Las Palomas gap has geothermal energy, deep brackish water and valuable minerals that could be the foundation of a new kind of industrial district. “A moratorium is not a strategy, it is a pause,” he said. “It does not answer the question before us, it postpones it. The responsible path is not to say yes or no before we understand the opportunities.”
But the vast majority of Tuesday’s standing-room-only crowd wanted to block data centers now. “Who makes the decision about this ultimately?” asked Monica Miller. “Is it going to be y’all? Or is it going to be us? Will we vote on this? Will you make it so we vote on this? Where everybody in the county has a say? Or is this futile? Have y’all already made up your minds? They said this has been going on, the study, since like 2021. It’s been five years. Sounds like it’s almost a done deal. We should have a vote on this. It shouldn’t be just a handful of folks that have got money on their minds. We’ve got life on our minds.”
Dawz Cochran, a farmer, said he had come to the hearing mainly to ask for help in protecting his farmland from flooding. “As far as this AI (artificial intelligence) thing goes, I think it’s ridiculous. I don’t even know where this data is even going,” he said. “Why are we building all these things in New Mexico? What’s to say it’s not AI telling us to build them?This is ludicrous and we don’t have the water. I don’t think we should build them at all. I think we should put more money into our tourism, into our economy, into our small businesses.”