EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14/CBS4) — As three major data centers are set to operate in the Borderland, stirring concerns about their environmental footprint, a University of Texas at El Paso engineering professor said she does not believe the projects will threaten residential water supplies — but she urged residents to keep pressing for transparency and enforceable oversight.

On Friday, KFOX14/CBS4 spoke with Yvonne Santiago, an associate professor in UTEP’s Department of Civil Engineering, who said that while data centers use water, projections for the Meta project planned for Northeast El Paso show it would increase the city’s water use by less than 0.5 percent.

Based on those projections, Santiago said, the Meta facility would rank about 11th among large water users in El Paso.

“Water is being used. There’s no discussion about this,” Santiago said. “What is important is to discuss the fact that we do not want these water resources to be in competition with the resources used for drinking water for the community.”

Santiago said the Meta data center is not expected to affect people’s access to water, pointing to long-range planning that extends beyond 50 years. Still, she cautioned that even a small impact can add up if more facilities follow.

“We don’t want 10 data centers,” Santiago said. “Every drop counts in the desert.”

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Santiago said city officials and residents should focus on holding data centers accountable by requiring them to document how much water they use and where it comes from.

“There has to be a meter that measures how much water they’re using, and they need to report this to the community,” Santiago said.

Santiago pointed to El Paso’s conservation history as part of the broader context, saying “the water consumption has reduced by 40 percent in the last years.”

In the end, Santiago’s message to El Pasoans is this: stay informed and push for enforceable rules.

“Become well-informed and make Meta accountable for the water usage to make sure that we have the regulations in place,” Santiago said.

RELATED: Meta vs. Painted Dunes: What the numbers and water sources show

In a statement to KFOX14/CBS4, El Paso Water said Meta will use 2.5 million gallons of water per day at the most– when temperatures are high– and on average 480,000 gallons per day.

To put that into perspective, the President and CEO of EPWater, John Balliew, said Painted Dunes, the golf course, used 532,000 gallons of water per day in August 2025 and 558,000 per day in June 2026.

Both figures are higher than Meta’s projected annual daily average of about 480,000 gallons per day.

RELATED: Project Jupiter says new partnership will save 21 million gallons of water a year

Meanwhile, Oracle said Project Jupiter in Santa Teresa will first pull 11 million gallons of water and then use 168,000 gallons per year, boasting that their center will save and use water more efficiently due to new technology.

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