Dozens of people spoke out this week against a major new data center planned for the city of Coachella.
Over more than an hour at a city council meeting on Wednesday, the speakers requested the city place a moratorium on data center construction and questioned the city’s motivation behind considering the project, which is called the Coachella Valley Technology Campus.
“This has the opportunity to threaten our access to clean water and agricultural land,” said one speaker who identified himself as Jonathan Becerra, of Indio. “Your agricultural land is what’s going to keep my future kids fed.”
The public outcry came despite the item not appearing on the meeting’s agenda. In fact, the city says no meetings are scheduled in which the project will come up. Instead, the interest appeared to start with a video circulating on social media with hundreds of thousands of views.
It was posted on April 7 by East Coachella Valley No Se Vende, a group dedicated to restoring land to indigenous people. The video urged viewers to push back against the data centers, which the group claimed would harm the community.
On Wednesday, everyone who spoke before the council was against the project.
“We are facing a data center project in Imperial County which is going to devastate tens of thousands of residents,” said Tomas Oliva, a candidate for the California State Assembly District 36, which includes the east Coachella Valley. “It’s going to create emissions. It’s going to damage your water; it’s going to damage your land.”
An environmental study has not yet been completed for the Coachella Valley Technology Campus, although it will be necessary before it is approved.
Preliminary plans indicate the project would take up 240 acres of agricultural land on the east side of Coachella. The first phase of the project would include the construction of six data center buildings totaling nearly 1 million square feet.
Three 100-megawatt electrical microgrids would be needed to power the buildings, enough to power tens of thousands of homes — up to 300,000 by some measures.
The data centers are just one part of a multi-year effort by Coachella to create its own municipal utility that would provide electricity for future development. In that effort, the city has partnered with Stronghold Power Systems Inc., one of the developers of the data centers.
The debate over data centers comes at a troubling time for Coachella leadership: Then-Mayor Steven Hernandez pleaded guilty to a felony conflict-of-interest charge in late March and resigned. And the council fired City Manager Gabriel Martin in January with no reason given.
On Wednesday, the council named Councilmember Frank Figueroa to fill the rest of Hernandez’s mayoral term, which ends this year. The vote was 3-0, with Figueroa abstaining due to the conflict of interest.
But the effort to name a permanent replacement for Martin stalled. The council appeared to have decided to give the job to the interim city manager, Gabriel Gonzalez, but a vote to appoint him was tabled Wednesday, with Councilmember Denise Delgado citing “serious concerns” that had been brought to her attention, which she would not detail.
Meanwhile, the council now only has four members, since Figueroa’s council seat is open with him moving to the mayor’s post. A replacement must be found within 60 days.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Dozens protest planned data center in Coachella
Reporting by Sam Morgen, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
