Hudspeth County Judge Joanna MacKenzie says the group and the property owner shared "very little" information with government officials before the work started. She heard rumors of a proposed data center in Desert Haven on Thursday, Oct. 8, and met with contractors. Planners acknowledged the gap and apologized.
The campus will put dome-like structures on about 24,000 acres of desert land. It will draw water from a well connected to an aquifer under the property, MacKenzie says. Planners told her the water comes out one time, during initial setup, and a water catchment system takes over after that. "It'll be a closed-loop system," she said. ServerDomes, a Boise-based company, is also on the project.
For people in Hudspeth County, the questions are power and water. MacKenzie told KTSM 9 News that a project that "could potentially impact locals by way of use of power and water source" should include local government in the conversation. She also said there is "a fine line here between private property rights and projects." The planners told her those conversations "should have started sooner" and committed to better communication. The campus adds to the budding data center cluster in the region.