{"id":4367,"date":"2025-10-15T06:28:31","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T06:28:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/4367\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T06:28:31","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T06:28:31","slug":"water-use-figures-unveiled-for-controversial-new-mexico-data-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/4367\/","title":{"rendered":"Water use figures unveiled for controversial New Mexico data center"},"content":{"rendered":"

10:30 a.m. Sept. 12: This story has been updated to include information and statements provided by El Paso Electric.<\/p>\n

SUNLAND PARK, New Mexico \u2013 Developers behind Project Jupiter, the proposed $165 billion data center campus in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, shared numbers about its water consumption publicly for the first time Tuesday at a rowdy community meeting \u2013 figures that, if accurate, suggest the facility\u2019s usage would be comparable to other industrial operations in the area.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The campus, which would include four data center facilities, would feature a \u201cclosed-loop\u201d system of pipes to cool the computer servers inside the buildings, which developers say would require a one-time fill-up before the water is recycled over and over. Filling up the four data centers would require about 10 million gallons of water, and the developers said the campus\u2019 ongoing consumption would be\u00a0 7.2 million gallons of water every year that it\u2019s operating.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand the water scarcity issues here,\u201d said Kevin Greer, a director at the company Stack Infrastructure, which would build and operate the data centers.<\/p>\n

The meeting was the third of five forums that backers of Project Jupiter held to let the public ask questions and learn about the project. The next two meetings are Wednesday and Thursday this week. The Do\u00f1a Ana County Board of Commissioners will take a final vote on the project Friday, Sept. 19, in Las Cruces.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Greer spoke during the public meeting at the Do\u00f1a Ana Community College campus in Sunland Park. He said Stack has designed and built three data centers that utilize the same closed-loop system in Oregon, Chicago and Virginia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Several people involved with Project Jupiter sat on stage at the Sunland Park campus of Do\u00f1a Ana Community College and answered questions from residents, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025. (Diego Mendoza-Moyers\/El Paso Matters)<\/p>\n

The closed-loop system \u201cis not a new technology. It\u2019s well-proven. We have experience designing and building that,\u201d Greer said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The project would use a daily average of 20,000 gallons when it\u2019s up-and-running, with a maximum consumption capped at 60,000 gallons in a day, according to figures provided by the developers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By comparison, El Paso Water supplies about 221,000 customers with 110 million gallons of water per day on average, and the Marathon Petroleum refinery in Central El Paso used an average of 1.1 million gallons daily last year, according to El Paso Water.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A Meta-owned data center that\u2019s set to be built in El Paso has an agreement to use 750,000 gallons daily initially, although El Paso Water officials have said the facility is unlikely to reach that level of usage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Camino Real Regional Utility Authority, or CRRUA, the New Mexico water utility that serves Sunland Park and Santa Teresa, said it produced an average of 2.6 million gallons of water daily from its wells in March.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"A map shows where the $165 billion data center campus \u2014 dubbed \u201cProject Jupiter\u201d would be located in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. (Do\u00f1a Ana County Board of Commissioners) <\/p>\n

Community members at Tuesday\u2019s standing-room only meeting shouted concerns over water usage and expressed other worries about the massive project that residents in Do\u00f1a Ana County only became aware of in recent weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Residents said the lack of trust on display from Sunland Park and Santa Teresa residents toward the project\u2019s developers stems from the fact people living in the area for years have lived with low-quality drinking water supplied by CRRUA that has contained unsafe levels of arsenic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The bad drinking water is the result of operator failures and mismanagement at the utility, according to a report<\/a> issued by the New Mexico Environment Department, as well as long-running underinvestment in the area\u2019s system of water infrastructure. The county government and city of Sunland Park oversee CRRUA, but they\u2019re splitting the utility up and each forming new water providers for Sunland Park and the surrounding area.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The utility under new leadership has reported improved water quality over the last year, and earlier this week said tests it conducted showed water with levels of arsenic below the allowable threshold<\/a>. But the lack of trust persists.<\/p>\n

The deal between Do\u00f1a Ana County and developers with BorderPlex Digital Assets would likely run for 30 years. In exchange for not having to pay property taxes, the company said it would provide about $300 million in payments to the county over the term of the deal. After 30 years, the company\u2019s shareholders \u2013 not the county \u2013 would take ownership.<\/p>\n

The project\u2019s developers said that in addition to that $300 million, they would provide \u201ctens of millions\u201d of dollars to improve water infrastructure in southern Do\u00f1a Ana County.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need clean water in Sunland right now,\u201d Jose Salda\u00f1a, a Sunland Park resident, said during the meeting. \u201cWe need the help here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

At times, Salda\u00f1a and many other audience members shouted that county officials\u2019 priority above all should be ensuring safe drinking water for residents in Santa Teresa and Sunland Park.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s exactly the plan \u2013 to invest in clean water first,\u201d said Stephen Lopez, a recently appointed assistant county manager. \u201cThis funding source is very important to being able to quickly make improvements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other people at the meeting suggested the project came out of the blue and is progressing rapidly. There hasn\u2019t been enough time for the community to understand the project\u2019s implications and whether it truly won\u2019t be an unsustainable drag on the area\u2019s water and electricity resources, others said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a great PowerPoint presentation. It\u2019s nice and fluffy, and it says nothing,\u201d one resident told a panel of the project\u2019s developers as they sat on a stage. \u201cWe don\u2019t have the water here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Organizers protest a proposed $165 billion data center campus that BorderPlex Digital Assets wants to build in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. (Diego Mendoza-Moyers \/ El Paso Matters) <\/p>\n

Project Jupiter is backed by a collection of companies, mainly Austin-based BorderPlex Digital Assets, but also Stack and construction and infrastructure firms such as Orion Digital Infrastructure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Who exactly is putting up $165 billion \u2013 a sum that would be among the biggest private investments ever made \u2013 to fund the project\u2019s construction is unclear because the developers haven\u2019t identified the eventual tenant of the data centers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But only a handful of global technology companies, such as Oracle, Meta, Alphabet, OpenAI and Microsoft, have the financial might to develop such a sprawling and costly data center campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, putting a deal like this together is \u2013 we have to bring about eight different entities together,\u201d said Miguel Fernandez, an El Paso businessman and co-founder of the fiber company Flo Networks, which will build the fiber optic cable to serve the data centers. He\u2019s also listed on the \u201cleadership\u201d page of BorderPlex Digital\u2019s website.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not quite as straightforward as you might think, because you have the data center operators, you have a construction company, you have the compute power company, you have the software company, you have the developer. And then, on top of that, you have the government,\u201d Fernandez said. \u201cSo, we\u2019re talking about negotiating between eight to 10 entities that have to come together and organize this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the lack of clarity over the source of funding, an employee with Stack Infrastructure said the project cost is so colossal because computer equipment used for the artificial intelligence-training data centers is expensive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The majority of the $165 billion investment will go toward paying for computer equipment such as graphics processing units. And that investment cost factors in three refreshes of the computer equipment every five to seven years, said Nicholas Minor, director of public affairs for Stack.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s how you get to that $135 billion, I think, just in server equipment. Then, you top on to that the construction of the power facility, and then on top of that construction of the data center facilities,\u201d Minor said. \u201cIt\u2019s an AI arms race right now, so this equipment is extremely expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO: As drought, climate change pressure El Paso water supply, farmers innovate to sustain orchards in one of nation\u2019s biggest pecan-growing hubs<\/a><\/p>\n

Lanham Napier, chairman of BorderPlex Digital Assets, in mid-July told New Mexico legislators during a presentation that the data center campus his company is proposing would cover between 1,000 and 1,200 acres.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It would also require about one gigawatt of electricity capacity. By comparison, El Paso Electric owns about 2.8 gigawatts of generation capacity across its entire system, according to the utility\u2019s corporate sustainability report.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Where will electricity for Project Jupiter come from?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Where the electricity will come from to supply the data center campus isn\u2019t entirely clear. But the project\u2019s developers have said they\u2019ll pay to develop their own \u201cmicro-grid\u201d that\u2019s essentially separate from the main regional power grid to ensure that \u201cnobody\u2019s power prices are going up,\u201d as Napier said during a meeting in Las Cruces on Aug. 26.<\/p>\n

\"\"BorderPlex Digital Assets included this rendering of Project Jupiter in a presentation to a legislative committee in New Mexico in July. (BorderPlex Digital Assets) <\/p>\n

\u201cWith this independent power source delivering electricity to the data centers in our buildings, there\u2019s a guarantee of reliable power going to the data center buildings. But it also insulates the opportunity for rate impacts,\u201d said Jennifer Bradfute, a consultant for BorderPlex Digital Assets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to be starting out with natural gas\u201d as the primary source of electricity, said Bradfute, who was formerly an in-house attorney for Marathon Petroleum.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She also said Project Jupiter will have \u201cone of the world\u2019s largest battery storage projects out at the site\u201d and that the site will gradually shift to rely largely on cleaner sources of electricity.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason why you need battery storage backup power is because you plan to have intermittent sources there that need that,\u201d she said, referring to solar power sources.\u00a0<\/p>\n

LISTEN: Podcast: Things to know about El Paso Electric and its push to raise rates<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear whether El Paso Electric will construct a natural gas-fired turbine or a solar farm dedicated to Project Jupiter, and how or whether use of a natural gas plant would phase out over time. The project will have to be net-zero \u2013 meaning produce zero carbon emissions \u2013 by 2045 to comply with New Mexico state law.\u00a0<\/p>\n

El Paso Electric said it doesn\u2019t plan to construct a generation source for Project Jupiter. The project will have to be net-zero \u2013 meaning produce zero carbon emissions \u2013 by 2045 to comply with New Mexico state law.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOur agreements and negotiations with our customers in general, and Project Jupiter in particular, are subject to nondisclosure agreements,\u201d El Paso Electric said in a statement. \u201cAt this time, we do not anticipate building any generation for this project.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meta project in Northeast El Paso<\/p>\n

As Project Jupiter is set to go to a vote by Do\u00f1a Ana County commissioners Sept. 19, Meta is moving forward with a separate data center project in far Northeast El Paso. The company will spend at least $800 million to build the initial phase of that campus, although El Paso city officials maintain Meta\u2019s investment could reach $14 billion over time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And the Meta data center will require 100 megawatts of electricity capacity that El Paso Electric will provide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, Meta\u2019s investment \u2013 which former Mayor Oscar Leeser said<\/a> would \u201ccompletely transform\u201d El Paso \u2013 by comparison is a small fraction of what Project Jupiter\u2019s developers say they plan to spend. And Meta\u2019s site will use just one-tenth as much electricity as the proposed Santa Teresa campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A big question looming over data center developments in El Paso and across the United States is whether utility ratepayers are paying higher power bills to fund construction of infrastructure to serve data center customers \u2013 such as poles, wires, substations or sources of power generation if the data center is big enough.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a paper published in March<\/a>, electricity researchers at Harvard Law School wrote that some U.S. utilities are \u201cforcing the public to pay for infrastructure designed to supply a handful of exceedingly wealthy corporations.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUtilities tell (public utility commissions) what they want to hear: that the deals for Big Tech isolate data center energy costs from other ratepayers\u2019 bills and won\u2019t increase consumers\u2019 power prices,\u201d the authors wrote. \u201cBut verifying this claim is all but impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

El Paso Electric established specific rates<\/a> for the Meta data center near the Texas-New Mexico state line. Before the rate schedule was finalized, a member of the Public Utility Commission of Texas flagged that El Paso Electric customers might be paying for infrastructure that will serve only Meta\u2019s facility.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy concern remains, however, that there is no explicit protection against the burdening of other customers with the costs to add such an unprecedented load to the local power grid,\u201d Commissioner Courtney Hjaltman wrote in a memo.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a result, El Paso Electric guaranteed in writing that the next time it seeks to raise customers\u2019 rates, the utility will \u201cprovide evidence\u201d that Meta\u2019s El Paso data center is \u201cnot being subsidized by other customers and that the rates contained therein do not constitute discounted rates,\u201d according to filings submitted to the PUC.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whether El Paso Electric will offer a similar guarantee \u2013 that its New Mexico customers won\u2019t cover the cost of providing power to Project Jupiter \u2013 won\u2019t be clear until a power supply agreement between the utility and the data center campus works its way through the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In its statement, El Paso Electric said data centers entering the utility\u2019s service area won\u2019t lead to higher bills for customers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEl Paso Electric is committed to ensuring that residential customers do not subsidize infrastructure costs associated with large-load customers, including data centers,\u201d El Paso Electric said in a statement. \u201cAny new infrastructure, whether transmission, distribution, or generation, required to serve large loads is attributed to and paid for by those customers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe data centers we are in discussions with are not asking to nor do they need to be subsidized,\u201d the utility said.<\/p>\n

When a data center or other big power users want to connect to El Paso Electric\u2019s system, it requires a detailed study that \u201censures that the costs and responsibilities for infrastructure enhancements are clearly assigned to the large load customer,\u201d the utility said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

El Paso Electric is incentivized to welcome data centers to its service territory. For one, data centers that run constantly are steady customers. The utility can more easily predict revenue and cash flow from data centers compared with less-predictable residential electricity consumption.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In general, data centers are also likely to bring bigger profits for the utility. That\u2019s because El Paso Electric makes money based on how much money it spends on capital projects \u2013 physical, tangible things such as power plants, substations or transmission wires, for example.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, when a company builds a big data center in El Paso Electric\u2019s service territory, the utility can justify to regulators spending a lot of money on capital investments that serve the data center, and then it can earn a profit margin on whatever it spent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are excited to incorporate a larger footprint of industrial users into our system that will help remedy the problem of the majority of infrastructure costs being borne by residential customers,\u201d El Paso Electric said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are studying other communities that have data centers to learn the best contracting methodologies to accomplish our goals of attracting large loads to our area and ensuring we maintain affordability,\u201d the utility said. \u201cThese large loads could significantly bolster economic development in a number of ways. Importantly, any rate changes go through a rigorous public review process with regulators in both Texas and New Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n

Final vote on Project Jupiter<\/p>\n

The debate over Project Jupiter will play out over the next week ahead of the vote by the Do\u00f1a Ana County Board of Commissioners in Las Cruces. Residents showed up Tuesday at the commissioners\u2019 regular meeting arguing they should deny tax breaks and kill the proposed deal for the data center campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Southern New Mexico residents speak out against a proposed $165 billion data center campus in Santa Teresa during a Do\u00f1a Ana County Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025. (YouTube screengrab)<\/p>\n

The commissioners have largely supported the proposal. At a meeting Aug. 26, they voted 4-1 to advance the project to a final vote. District 4 Commissioner Susanna Chaparro voted against moving the deal forward.<\/p>\n

Near the end of the packed, raucous meeting Tuesday, Sunland Park resident Albert Ibarra was jeered by the audience and argued back and forth with Salda\u00f1a as he expressed his support for Project Jupiter and the employment its developers said they\u2019ll create.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want jobs. The water is my concern \u2013 my kids live here, my wife, my dad, my mom,\u201d Ibarra said. \u201cWhat are we going to do about it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Project Jupiter Community Meetings<\/p>\n

6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10: New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum, 4100 Dripping Springs, Las Cruces<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

LISTEN: EL PASO MATTERS PODCAST<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"10:30 a.m. Sept. 12: This story has been updated to include information and statements provided by El Paso…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139,4695],"class_list":["post-4367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news","tag-project-jupiter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4367","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=4367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}