EL PASO — From engineers to teachers, grandmothers to high school students, El Paso residents have joined a chorus of public outcries across Texas asking city leaders to do more to regulate and stop future hyperscale data centers.
They’ve packed recent city council meetings and called in to share concerns about data centers.
“For how many years can the water underneath this desert support both its people and the new data centers?” said Northeast resident Claire Wells during a call into the city council meeting on May 26th. “If I buy a home here, will the water last as long as my mortgage? Will it last the rest of my life?”
She also asked about future generations. “Is this still a viable place to raise children?
High school student Marcos Sanchez was one of dozens of people who attended the meeting and spoke out. “Our city is not built for this infrastructure that these meta data centers want. he said.
“As a member of Gen Z, this is my city. This is my city's future,” he said. “I want to grow old here. I don't want to be forced to move out because this city has turned bad.”
The public outcry has grown along with the rapid ramp up of three large data centers planned for the region. In El Paso Meta is building one. And the Army has another planned at Fort Bliss. A third center will operate just over the state line in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. A recent study projected Texas will become the largest data center hub in the country.
Rep. Josh Acevedo and Rep. Lily Limon are co-sponsoring an item on Tuesday’s agenda calling for the cancellation of the city’s economic development program agreement with Meta.
“It’s time to break the Meta contract,” Acevedo said in a video on his Instagram. “Our air and water is more important to us than any money the city would make…A bad deal is a bad deal and it should be broken.”
City Manager Dionne Mack and City Attorney Karla Nieman issued a statement in response saying: “Many residents have asked whether the city can simply cancel the Meta agreement. The answer is no…The project was approved through legally binding agreements adopted by the City Council in 2023.”
City Council voted unanimously at its May 26th meeting to no longer incentivize data centers. “Not every project that generates revenue is automatically the best fit for the city,” said City Representative Chris Canales, who pushed to end incentives for large data centers.
“It’s undeniable that the public conversation has substantially pointed in one direction, which is no more data centers in El Paso.”
The city is seeking public feedback by June 9 on a draft for El Paso’s Data Center Policy Framework to guide future data centers that may seek to locate in the region.
The 33-page framework encompasses months of analysis alongside public input from six community meetings where hundreds of residents shared concerns about “water consumption, electricity demand, utility rate impacts, environmental effects, transparency, economic incentives, land use, and long-term community protections.”
The city gave Meta an 80 percent city property tax rebate with the incentives valued up to $550 million dollars. It’s in return for the company’s $800M investment and initial creation of 50 jobs. That number recently increased to more than 300 jobs. The agreement does not require Meta to use renewable energies.
The 10 billion Meta data center project could use a maximum of 2.5 million gallons of water per day, the equivalent of 12,375 homes by the time it’s completed, according to data provided by the city.
In an emailed response to questions by KTEP News, a spokesperson said, “Meta prioritizes water stewardship, and we have the global goal to be water positive in 2030. That means we will restore more water than we consume.
According to Meta the company discloses the water withdrawal for all our facilities on an annual basis atsustainability.atmeta.com and will do so for El Paso once the data center is operational. “In El Paso, we will restore 200% of the water consumed by the data center to local watersheds. We plan to use a water efficient closed-loop, liquid-cooled system that recirculates the same water and will use zero water for a majority of the year,” according to the statement. Meta also projects the data center water use will be “similar to a typical golf course in west Texas.”
Meta also said it pays full costs for energy used by its data centers “and work closely with utilities to plan years in advance so consumers aren’t negatively impacted.”
The company said it’s also “paying hundreds of millions of dollars every year to help pay for new and upgraded grid infrastructure, like power sources, substations and transmission lines, that benefit all consumers. We also match all of our data centers’ energy use with 100% clean energy.”
El Paso Electric is seeking approval for a 366 MW natural gas installation, called the McCloud plant. But according to the city of El Paso’s website, “At this point, it’s uncertain if any new renewable energy resource will be built to power the data center.
The questions about data centers are happening across Texas with residents mobilizing around growing concerns. Commissioners in Hill County voted to temporarily pause any new data center construction, specifically in unincorporated lands while they study and address safety and public health concerns. They rescinded that decision after developer RCM Hill, LLC filed a federal lawsuit alleging Texas counties lack the legal authority to place a moratorium on data center projects.
Environmental advocate Erin Brockovich has also stepped into the fray, creating a new online map to track hyperscale data center projects around the United States and the communities fighting to stop them.
In El Paso the data center backlash includes people of all backgrounds and all parts of the city. “This is my first time being civically engaged,” Yvonne Aguirre said after attending her first City Council meeting where representatives voted to end incentives. I came to crowd the room, to make sure that they knew that at least people care even if they're not brave enough to speak.”
Michael Ramirez, a single father of two boys, rescheduled orientation at a new job to attend the previous city council meeting.
He volunteers with Sembrando Esperanza, one of the community groups opposed to data centers – he said he’s collected more than 1,500 signatures on several petitions opposing data centers. He’s also doing outreach with residents in Chaparral around the issue. He said many residents didn’t know a thing about data centers.
“The people are starting to become aware that this is more serious than it's been made out to be,” Ramirez said, “it's about disclosing these things to us because we deserve to know. We should know. And we should have a say in it.”
