We’ve come a long way since Tucson was in an uproar over Project Blue.
Opposition to data centers has grown from people holding signs at Tucson City Council meetings a year ago to Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes calling for a statewide moratorium on data centers yesterday.
Along the way, another huge problem snuck its way into the conversation: The new deal for the Colorado River will cut Arizona’s already dwindling water supplies, which is a big reason why Mayes called for the moratorium.
Also, it’s an election year and ragging on data centers has turned into a bipartisan feeding frenzy.
As hilarious as it is to watch Big Tech get hamstrung by local zoning laws, the backlash to data centers has created an anti-backlash movement that’s gaining steam.
Now, the pro-data center lobby is saying developers have solved many of the problems that were brought up when large-scale data centers first came on the scene. They claim the newest data centers won’t raise the cost of electricity, use much water or cause air pollution.
In fact, some of those tech shills, like former U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema — who is now getting her paychecks from the AI and bitcoin industries — are even claiming opposition to data centers is the result of misinformation from foreign governments.
All the while, the AI industry that depends on data centers keeps growing. It now accounts for a huge portion of national GDP growth and the Trump administration is pushing as hard as it can against local efforts to rein in data centers.
The same day that Mayes called for a moratorium, President Donald Trump said any community that opposes data centers would “end up being backwards and poor.”
While Trump framed the rise of data centers as a “golden goose,” Mayes called it a “gold rush.”
“I think most Arizonans are worried about this data center gold rush that is happening in our state and are worried that it's going to impact the long-term health and prosperity of Arizonans,” Mayes told us on Monday.
And while local elected officials argue they have a duty to protect their constituents (and water supplies), Mayes says she believes a moratorium would give Gov. Katie Hobbs and the Legislature time to hammer out a single set of rules for the entire state.
Although Mayes would prefer them to be built somewhere else.
“There is a place for these things, I'm sure, but it's not in a desert that is already facing a potential water crisis,” Mayes told us.
That’s where Pima County officials come in.
A long-awaited report
As is often the case when local bureaucracies have to deal with big, sudden shifts in the political and economic landscape, Pima County officials are only now catching up.
The Tucson City Council recently passed new rules for data centers and the Pima County Board of Supervisors is about to craft similar rules for the county.
That process is going to lean on a report that Pima County officials released last week — a year after partnering with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health amid the Project Blue kerfuffle — detailing the negative health impacts data centers have on the people living near them.
The Pima County Board of Health reviewed the findings back in May, but the board only made the 20-page report public when the citizen-run commission met last week.
Air quality degradation was a major concern raised in the report, alongside the massive amounts of water that data centers use and their staggering energy demands.
Not to mention, the scientific studies showing data centers in other communities can raise ambient temperatures by as much as four degrees.
We’ve touched on this before, but the report makes it clear that the kind of on-site backup diesel generators that data centers use emit nitrogen oxides, which contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone.
While the report shows that Pima County’s ozone levels are just below the national standard set by the EPA, it doesn’t mention that one of Pima County’s monitoring stations that records some of the highest ozone measurements is down the street from Project Blue.
Critics argue vehicle emissions along the nearby Interstate 10 are the main contributor, but Pima County cannot regulate the tailpipes of each car, truck and semi that passes by the monitoring station.
Officials privately worry that additional air pollution could push Pima County into “non-attainment” under EPA standards — setting off a new series of actions designed to lower ozone pollution that would be shouldered largely by the business community.
Maricopa County could be a cautionary tale of what happens next, as it is already in non-attainment. The county relies on heavy regulation of private businesses, regular inspections and a system that allows emission-reduction credits to be bought, sold or traded between businesses.
And the air is still dirty.
One thing that isn’t addressed in the report is how Tucson Electric Power and other electric companies will source the additional power needed for each data center.
Whether that power is generated in Pima County or somewhere else on the grid, environmentalists are concerned about the amount of greenhouse gases that could be generated to power data centers.
So far, our unofficial count is that developers have proposed at least five data centers somewhere in Pima County.
When the gold rush finally fades — or the goose stops laying golden eggs — the final tally could be much higher.
A republic, not a democracy: For the first time in 12 years, Arizona ballots won’t have any citizen initiatives, KJZZ’s Camryn Sanchez reports. That absence is largely due to restrictions enacted by Republican state lawmakers, such as banning the practice of paying signature gatherers per signature. Republican Sen. John Kavanagh says he’s “not losing any sleep over this” and claimed the only people who can get citizen initiatives on the ballot are “well-funded groups or individuals, often out of state.” Still, we can’t help but notice Republican lawmakers haven’t been shy about putting initiatives they themselves crafted on the ballot.
“It's a policy. It's not just a coincidence. It is a policy that has been adopted by, largely, the Republican legislature, and supported by Governor Ducey at the time, and the Arizona Chamber,” political consultant Chuck Coughlin said.
Will they, won’t they?: At least one female jaguar has been sighted just a few miles south of the Arizona-Mexico border, per the Star’s Tony Davis. It’s been decades since anyone saw a female jaguar that far north in Sonora. The hope is the female jaguar will meet up with one of the male jaguars that live in Southern Arizona. But biologists are worried the Trump administration’s border wall will block the jaguars from consummating their hoped-for relationship. That wall also is a concern for elders in the Tohono O’odham Nation, who are worried wall construction will destroy sacred sites like Quitobaquito Springs, Stephanie Casanova reports for the Arizona Luminaria.
Lots to ponder: Willcox residents got a first look at a 250-megawatt solar farm that will cover 2,300 acres outside the city limits, Hector Acuna reports for the Eastern Arizona Courier. The proposed Copper Rose Energy Center is being developed by Adapture Renewables and would also have a battery energy storage system. But first, the project needs to make it through a city annexation and permitting process, as well as alleviate concerns from residents about the impact of construction, how the project will look and whether the electricity generated will be used locally or sold elsewhere.
All roads lead to TUSD: Public school districts in the Tucson area will be able to send special education students to Tucson Unified School District schools, Sierra Blaser reports for the Arizona Daily Star. Under a deal approved by the TUSD governing board last week, the sending districts will pay TUSD a state-set tuition rate. The students would remain enrolled in the sending district. If costs run over, state officials would decide whether the sending district or the Arizona Department of Education covers the extra costs.
Border business: Democratic U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego has a long list of priorities for Nogales and the Arizona border, the Nogales International’s Alessandra De Zubeldia reports. Right near the top of the list is one that usually gets forgotten: making sure ports of entry have enough staff. That’s a big one in border towns like Nogales, which depends on cross-border trade that runs through the ports. Gallego also sounded off on the Trump administration’s tariffs that are raising prices for imported goods, calling the president’s willy-nilly trade war “the dumbest war.”
If you were wondering why Pima County officials are banning county employees from using insider information to make money on prediction markets, it’s because of people like George Santos.
The infamous former congressman from New York made $17,000 by betting on whether he’d attend the State of the Union address in February, per the Wall Street Journal.
Santos didn’t just make a bet, either. As severe weather rolled into D.C., he juiced the odds with social media posts about whether he’d attend.
His gambit earned him the first-ever lifetime ban from Kalshi, one of the most prominent prediction markets.
Now imagine all the inane stuff a Pima County employee could bet on, and what kind of weird antics they’d pull to win that bet.