Finally a D6 staffer asked Project Marvel attendees to skiddaddle to the plaza peripheries to continue their conversations and interviews. With the support of multiple environmental justice and labor organizations, District 6 Councilman Ric Galvan then took the mic. He called for a pause on data center construction in San Antonio until a community benefits agreement is in place, a call supported by at least two other council members.<\/p>\n
His hope is that the reforms might curb the all-you-can-eat buffet that data center construction has made of Galvan\u2019s Westside district. According to Galvan, District 6 today has \u201cthe highest concentration of data centers in San Antonio and Bexar County.\u201d<\/p>\n
The action comes several days after Texas Governor Greg Abbott\u2019s own call for a state-level data center pause<\/a> to facilitate a review of all data centers seeking to connect to the Texas power grid.<\/p>\n Growing Groundwork<\/p>\n Galvan described some of the groundwork building since last October toward the day\u2019s moratorium call. At that time, Galvan issued a Council Consideration Request<\/a> seeking to require that \u201call new data centers come before City Council for a vote of approval,\u201d as he described it on Friday. <\/p>\n This process would also require community consultation and \u201cfull site plans\u201d to be disclosed to the public showing \u201cwhat this project is, how it will impact our energy and water resources, [and] how it will address environmental and neighborhood concerns.\u201d Such modifications would empower Council \u201cto push back\u201d on plans if impacted residents had concerns, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Co-signed by four other council members, Galvan\u2019s CCR requested city staff research the water and energy demands of data centers in San Antonio; \u201cthe scope of the City\u2019s authority to regulate\u201d these demands via zoning, permitting, Unified Development Code regulations (UDC), and state laws; and how other cities have crafted policy responses to the data center rush. <\/p>\n While the CCR didn\u2019t mention public disclosure or community consultation requirements, it does ask staff to explore how the City might amend the UDC to require a \u201cspecial use authorization for regulating the location and development of data centers, along with strategies to mitigate impacts[.]\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Beyond this CCR, Galvan added that his office also requested in May of this year that the city\u2019s Economic Development Department<\/a> and Workforce Development Office form a stakeholder group, comprised of representatives of local unions, school districts, and higher education \u201cto develop a Community Benefits Agreement framework for data centers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur zoning and land use codes should benefit working class residents of San Antonio,\u201d Galvan said to applause, \u201cnot tech billionaires here in our city.\u201d But to develop the new zoning and land use regulations that would make up a Community Benefits Agreement, Galvan is now seeking to pause new data center construction within city limits. This is expressed in a new memo signed by Councilmembers Galvan (D6), Teri Castillo (D5), and Ivalis Meza Gonzalez (D8).<\/p>\n In it they request City Manager Erik Walsh schedule a special Council session this month to vote on a 90- to 180-day temporary moratorium “on all applications for concept plans, site development plans, and permits, and on the issuance of any site permits… .”<\/p>\n The pause, Galvan said at the press conference, is necessary \u201cuntil we can ensure that this industry does not damage our environment, creates local benefits for community, is built by union labor, and does not raise our residents\u2019 bills.\u201dOn Water & Power<\/p>\n Significantly, this new regulatory capacity would include the city\u2019s two public utilities, Galvan said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI call upon CPS and SAWS to develop plans to require all new data centers utilize clean energy and recycled water for operations here in our city.\u201d<\/p>\n Texas state Senator Jos\u00e9 Menendez<\/a> (D-26), speaking after Galvan, offered support, agreeing that all new data centers should be built by union labor, powered by renewable energy, and cooled with recycled water or alternatives to water.\u00a0<\/p>\n Menendez cast as opportunistic recent opposition of Republican state legislators to rural data centers, which are now also reviled by their voter base in spite of President Donald Trump’s full-throated embrace<\/a> of data centers and personal enrichment<\/a> from crypto. This shift has come, Menendez noted, even as these legislators hamstring cities from making their own regulations via efforts like the so-called \u2018Death Star\u2019 bill<\/a> \u201cwhere we take away local control from cities and counties to evaluate what\u2019s best for their communities.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n A deeper problem, however, is the speculative purpose of the data center \u201cgold rush\u201d itself, which \u201cseem[s] to be lining up to suck up all the power and the water in our state.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNo one\u2019s opposed to data centers that we need for health benefits, health records,\u201d Mendendez said. \u201cBut what I am opposed is all these cryptominers that have decided that Texas is a place [where] they can come in under the guise of being a data center, and then use the Industrial Demand Response Program to make millions more from taxpayers.\u201d<\/p>\n Such grifts as Menendez described are then shouldered by those who can least afford them. Referencing residents like his own 90-yr-old mother, who routinely sets her thermostat to 79 during the summer, Menendez recalled:<\/p>\n \u201cI walk in and I go, \u2018Mam\u00e1, hace muy caliente.\u2019 The house is too hot. And she says, but, \u2018es que, suben mucho la luz.\u2019 The bill\u2019s gonna be too high,” Mendendez said. “Why shouldn\u2019t those residents who are willing to sacrifice their comfort \u2026 get paid back, just like these cryptominers [who] have really gamed the system. There are so many reasons why we need to pause.\u201d\u00a0What About Bexar County?<\/p>\n According to some press conference attendees, however, Bexar County is a critical voice missing from the emerging local regulatory tangle seeking to govern data centers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mattie Rom\u00e1n grew up in D6 and now lives just outside city limits\u2014as does the growing Vantage Data Center investment off Omicron Drive\u2014where city efforts alone cannot reach.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rom\u00e1n described some of the public health risks of living near unregulated data center construction in their community, which began without notification of area residents. \u201cWhen the first one popped up in my community, it\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s there.\u2019 And now we\u2019re having to deal with the effects.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of these public health effects have included \u201cenergy disruptions that we\u2019re seeing on a regular basis, which were never an issue. Now \u2026 we\u2019re continuously seeing power outages. And just even how intensive the construction processes were. Where there\u2019s dust blowing into the area, because these are just massive construction sites.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Rom\u00e1n also described a “significant heat effect,\u201d which public-health researchers<\/a> (and Deceleration<\/a>) have begun to document. <\/p>\n \u201cThe difference in heat [around the Vantage data center] is absolutely insane and exhausting,\u201d Rom\u00e1n said.<\/p>\n Data Centers Generating \u2018Heat Islands,\u2019 Compounding the Hazards of Rising Global Temps<\/p>\n 112 Degrees?! Deceleration investigation supports findings from two studies into data center heat islands, measuring downwind temps from a major data center complex at six degrees higher than upwind areas.<\/p>\n As far as Rom\u00e1n has seen, the County has not publicly responded to concerns about data center construction.\u00a0<\/p>\n Deceleration Video<\/p>\n AI data centers are driving a surge in new gas power plants\u2014and the pollution is landing on nearby communities. Follow Deceleration on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n Heat Emergency MIA<\/p>\n Deceleration\u2019s reporting on extreme heat has noted similar complications requiring but not receiving a coordinated city-county response, specifically around efforts to count and track heat-related deaths. <\/p>\n In May 2026, City Council Council members were informed that Metro Health will once again include heat-related deaths<\/a> as part of its public health dashboard, but the deeper issue is that the Bexar County Medical Examiner\u2019s Office itself doesn\u2019t utilize a standard methodology<\/a> for determining when a death is heat-related. So while the City can and should make this data publicly available, what it shares is still an undercount\u2014until and unless the City can pressure the County to bring its heat mortality accounting into a new era that increasingly recognizes that climate change poses a public health emergency.<\/p>\n A similar regulatory complexity is at work on the issue of data centers\u2014at least, the ones beyond city limits\u2014which are fast becoming another front in the struggle for climate justice.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think we cannot be satisfied with a moratorium. I think what comes next is, what does it mean to recover these communities?” Rom\u00e1n said. “What does it mean to have justice for these communities? If these data centers go, what is the process of decommissioning [them]? I believe that our representatives need to be creative with their use of power[.] \u2026 Because it is not enough to incrementally change things.\u00a0\u201cThese [data centers] are already having immediate impacts on people I grew up with in the communities I grew up in\u2014and am in right now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At 9:30 a.m. Friday, the previous press conference had run over\u2014a phalanx of San Antonio movers and shakers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-401961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401961","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=401961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/DSCF1234.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/storage.ghost.io\/c\/7f\/2d\/7f2dabed-9f2b-4cc0-a743-c6844b857278\/content\/images\/thumbnail\/data-center-heat-islands-san-antonio-texas--1--1-fb2274e6-39c2-4a7a-879a-d4861cf3802d.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n