Project Jupiter open house draws packed crowd as protesters demand transparency

SUNLAND PARK, NEW MEXICO (KFOX14/CBS4) — A proposed data center project that supporters describe as an economic opportunity drew both job seekers and protesters Wednesday evening as Project Jupiter held its first public open house and career fair at the Sunland Park Sports Complex.

Residents from across southern New Mexico and El Paso packed the event, where food trucks, family activities, and informational booths were set up for community members to learn more about the project and potential employment opportunities tied to it.

Beatrice Fallon, Oracle’s community relations representative, said the goal was to hear directly from residents.

“Most importantly, we are here to listen. We want to engage directly with the community, hear about what opportunities we have to partner together,” Fallon said.

Fallon said partners were present to discuss topics including energy plans and water use.

“So we’ve got a number of our partners here to talk about everything from our plans related to energy, our responsible water stewardship, and then we’ve got our trade partners talking about construction, electricity, and other trade opportunities,” she said.

Companies including Oracle, OpenAI, Stack Infrastructure and Bloom Energy were on hand to answer questions about the proposed project, its impact on the region and the jobs it could bring.

Outside the event, dozens of protesters gathered to raise concerns about water use, environmental impacts and transparency, including potential effects on water resources, air quality and long-term growth in the Borderland.

Annie Ersinghaus, who is against Project Jupiter, said the community still lacks key information. “We still have very little information and the community was steamrolled and that’s the biggest issue here,” Ersinghaus said.

Ersinghaus also questioned whether job promises outweigh potential costs.

“So no matter the jobs, no matter what promises come from this, and that’s what they are promises. It is coming at the cost of our futures, our water, our land, and so even if you were to get a job, and even if that’s temporary, and not promised again, that is nothing compared to the cost of our futures,” she said.

Inside, some attendees said they came specifically to explore career paths.

Eric Guzman, a community member who said he recently graduated from UTEP with electrical engineering, said he attended to look for opportunities.

“The reason why I came to come out and do the project is that I just graduated from UTEP with electrical engineering. I thought this would be an opportunity to resource and see what opportunities I could find, especially here in big tech companies, open a G-card, especially open AI’s here and then, um, I think that would be something like stack infrastructure,” Guzman said.

Another attendee, Fabien Miranda, said he was focused on electrical work. “I came out more towards the electrical wise job searching, but they have plenty of open career areas here,” Miranda said. He added, “We got a lot of good information here from them. I’m going to school right now at CET for electrical.”

Some residents said they left still seeking specifics.

“Still no numbers, like something that was very interesting, like the percentage of the maximum number of questions, and that’s something that I still haven’t gotten any real numbers on, but hopefully,” said Era Edmister, a community member.

Project Jupiter representatives said they plan to continue engaging with the community as the project moves forward. Opponents said they will keep pushing for more transparency before any final decisions are made.

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