Walt Rubel Commentary: Skids were greased for Project Jupiter

I feel like we just got suckered into buying a timeshare based on the sales pitch that it’s a one-day-only deal and if we don’t act now we’ll never have this chance again.

I don’t know enough about Project Jupiter, an AI data center campus to be built in Santa Teresa, to have a well-informed opinion as to whether the benefits will outweigh the obvious dangers to our air and water. And, I don’t think I’m alone.

During a recent community radio interview, I repeatedly asked County Commissioners Shannon Reynolds and Manuel Sanchez why this needed to be rushed to a vote, especially given that the Sunland Park City Council had just voted unanimously to request a delay. After all, they are going to be impacted by this a lot more directly than people living in Las Cruces.

It seems clear they buckled under to threats of, sign now or else.

To be fair, there's a lot to like with this proposal. Latham Napier, chairman of the group heading the project, said they plan to spend $165 billion, making it the largest private investment in state history.

He said they will provide 2,500 jobs during the construction phase and 750 new jobs after that, paying between $75,000 and $100,000 a year. And, the county will be guaranteed $360 million in new tax revenue during the next 30 years.

The question is, at what cost?

Data centers traditionally use far more water than our parched desert could provide. Organizers say they will use a new “closed loop” system to recycle water. But, even if this new technology works exactly as expected, it will still require 10 million gallons of water during the first two years to fill the system, and 7.2 million gallons every year after that.

Residents in Santa Teresa and Sunland Park who learned recently that their water supply had unacceptably high levels of arsenic now have to worry about a massive depletion of their supply.

Plans also call for construction of a new gas-fired power plant for the facility that will increase greenhouse gas emissions and undermine state efforts to switch to renewable sources.

The $404 million budget passed by County Commissioners in July was the largest ever. And so, a guarantee of $12 million a year for the next 30 years is a significant windfall.

But, given the massive initial investment and the anticipated salaries after that, it is clear that Napier has much larger profits in mind. By taking the guaranteed money, the county likely will lose out on millions that could have been collected under traditional taxes.

And, as Rep Micaela Lara Cadena asked during the same radio interview, how did they come up with that figure? Can they show us the metrics that were used to arrive at it?

The skids were greased during the legislative session with HB 93, which will exempt the new power plant from the state’s Energy Transition Act, and was passed when residents weren’t aware of what was being planned.

The argument by commissioners that this project required no more public scrutiny than any other funded through the IRB process is absurd and insulting. This was rushed through without the proper vetting or transparency because commissioners felt like they had to.


Walter Rubel can be reached at [email protected].

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