Rep. Veronica Escobar presents $1.031M for Texas Tech Health El Paso cancer tech<\/a><\/p>\nEscobar also underscored ongoing gaps in basic service across the county, writing that in El Paso County \u201cthere are still 1,878 individuals who live in colonias and cannot open their faucet for water,\u201d and that residents without wastewater connections must rely on septic tanks, \u201cmany of which routinely fail.\u201d She said some residents still have to truck in water for daily needs such as cooking, drinking, showering and laundry.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Escobar warned that rising temperatures and persistent drought are adding pressure to the region\u2019s water outlook. She wrote that El Paso is \u201cone of the fastest warming communities in the country,\u201d and that alternative water supplies are becoming increasingly costly as residents feel the impact on their budgets.<\/p>\n
Escobar said \u201cadding multiple large volume industrial water users, specifically multiple data centers, threatens to strain our already limited water supply,\u201d and she called it \u201ccrucial\u201d that the Public Service Board and El Paso Water establish safeguards to protect customers from \u201cunexpected and significant demands and water usage that come with data centers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Escobar said she has worked with colleagues on legislation to create federal \u201cguardrails on data centers,\u201d but argued that a broader approach is needed because of how quickly data centers are being built and what she described as limited information and consultation provided to residents.<\/p>\n
As the Public Service Board reviews El Paso Water\u2019s plans to provide water for data centers in El Paso County, Escobar recommended several steps, including requiring AI data centers to use a \u201cclosed loop\u201d liquid cooling system that recycles water; establishing clear metering that can be regularly reported to the board; and adopting transparency and reporting requirements that would provide real-time reporting to the community and full public disclosure of water usage.<\/p>\n
She also urged the board to ensure data centers subsidize infrastructure improvements rather than shifting costs to residential customers, and to adopt protections during drought periods that prioritize residential and existing commercial users over AI data centers.<\/p>\n
Other recommendations included creating a separate rate structure for data centers, including system development fees, charges for peak capacity and up-front capital contributions. Escobar also called for ensuring that investment promised by Meta \u201c(and any other data center) is made and is appropriately deployed to sustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n
Escobar closed by telling the board that protecting El Pasoans is a shared obligation and offered her team\u2019s help as the board considers next steps.<\/p>\n
Sign up<\/a> to receive the top interesting stories from in and around our community once daily in your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 As artificial intelligence data centers expand in El Paso County, U.S. Rep. Veronica…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-290387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}