Doña Ana County agrees to community meeting over Project Jupiter

LAS CRUCES — Doña Ana County leaders agreed to set up a community meeting in the coming weeks with residents who have questions or remain upset about the county's support for the massive AI data center complex under construction in Santa Teresa known as Project Jupiter.

March 19 will mark six months from when commissioners voted to approve a $165 billion industrial revenue bond and other incentives to land the project, consisting of four data centers, power generation facilities and an office building to be leased to Oracle for providing computing power to OpenAI.

Opponents of the project, critics who have called the approval process rushed and opaque and citizens wanting clear answers about the project's water and power demand have addressed commissioners at all of their public meetings since. Residents have used public comment periods to raise questions, demand the withdrawal of public financing and sometimes to shame the commissioners, heckle and lob insults. Several have raised complaints about the fact that county staff signed nondisclosure agreements with developers BorderPlex Digital Assets and Stack Infrastructure ahead of the approval process.

Speakers have recently called for a town hall with county officials and developers to address questions and hear their concerns.

"Are you willing to sponsor a meeting about Project Jupiter or will you continue to play into the hands of these tech giants?" Neeshia Macanowicz asked the commissioners Tuesday.

After hearing public input, Commissioner Susana Chaparro said it was time to grant the meeting.

"I don't think that it is the job of this commission to keep our constituents guessing or having them live with questions," Chaparro said, adding that some residents who contacted her expressed fears about air pollution and water supply.

She also acknowledged a recent campaign-style mail and digital campaign touting the project's purported economic benefits to the community produced by an entity called Elevate New Mexico, with no information about the organization or how it is funded.

Commissioner Susie Kimble, who was appointed to the board last month by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham following the resignation of Commissioner Shannon Reynolds, supported a community meeting and said she had unanswered questions of her own. Reynolds, her predecessor, was a vocal advocate for the project.

Chairman Manny Sanchez and Vice Chair Gloria Gameros, whose district includes the project area, expressed support for the meeting as well but asked project opponents for civility.

"If you want answers and you don't want people to shut down, you have to be open minded and you have to be listening, just like we do," Gameros said. She recommended the meeting take place in the Santa Teresa and Sunland Park area, which was met with nods throughout the gallery.

As of Wednesday, a date and location had not been set. Sanchez told the Journal the county was contacting the developers to solicit their participation. "I don’t think this works without them, because it’s their project and they can provide details directly," he wrote.

Annie Ersinghaus, a Las Cruces filmmaker and opponent of the project, said community members would seek documentation such as construction permits and environmental assessments as well as water demands, chemicals used in the center's closed-loop cooling system and estimated construction and operational jobs at the site.

She said residents would continue to call for voiding the industrial revenue bond or other subsidies for the project and to avoid agreements allowing the facility to access municipal water, among other demands.

Algernon D'Ammassa is the Journal's southern New Mexico correspondent. He can be reached at adammassa@abqjournal.com.