County names committee to monitor Project Jupiter data center
Doña Ana County Commissioners have formed an 11-member citizen monitoring committee to investigate the environmental and technical impacts of the Project Jupiter data center in Santa Teresa. The committee will provide reports to the commissioners amidst ongoing public opposition to the project, which is being built for Oracle and OpenAI.
The Doña Ana County Commissioners in New Mexico have established an 11-member citizen monitoring committee to study the environmental and technical impacts of the massive Project Jupiter data center under construction in Santa Teresa. The committee, proposed by Las Cruces resident Lynn Moorer, is tasked with fact-finding regarding the 1,400-acre facility, which is being built for Oracle Corp. and OpenAI. Its areas of focus will include water usage, heat island effects, noise levels, and air pollution from the data center's microgrid power station.
The resolution forming the committee, which supersedes an earlier August resolution, was passed after a 90-minute discussion. A contentious point was whether a county-paid attorney should serve as a "parliamentarian" for the committee, a proposal by Commissioner Susana Chaparro that Moorer argued would compromise the committee's independence. Ultimately, the attorney requirement was dropped.
The establishment of the committee comes amid ongoing and intense public opposition to the data center project, which has been supported by the county through industrial revenue bonds and tax incentives. During Tuesday's meeting in Las Cruces, more than two dozen speakers denounced the county's support, with some calling for Chairman Manny Sanchez to resign and at least three individuals removed for disruption. The committee, which includes Moorer among its first nine appointed members, has not yet set its inaugural meeting.