LOCAL COLUMN
OPINION: Socorro County still needs a data center moratorium
New Mexico Tech announced a hold on moving forward with Canadian company Green Data Center鈥檚 proposal to build the 鈥渨orld鈥檚 largest鈥� data center and a 10 gigawatt solar array over the La Jencia Basin. This comes in response to Socorro County residents鈥� opposition to the project and sheer outrage that Tech would even entertain the shoddy, half-baked proposal lacking any real substance. The email from President Michael Jackson was not conclusive, leaving open the door for moving forward. Therefore, the community will remain vigilant in its opposition.
The better, more beautiful story is the power of the people. Our small, rural and diverse community of ranchers, farmers, conservationists, generational Socorroans, scientists, students, all coming together to protect our most precious values 鈥� our water, land, wildlife, dark skies, beautiful landscape, our culture and our way of life.
We applaud the Socorro County Commission's immediate response to our outcry for a moratorium ordinance to ensure all we value is protected. The ordinance establishing a one-year moratorium on data centers will be voted on Tuesday.
Data centers are an extractive, exploitive industry. They are the new colonizers 鈥� taking resources from rural areas with no regard for the people living there. New Mexico is facing water bankruptcy; we do not have a drop to share for outside corporate profits. Green Data touted their project as 鈥済reen energy," but covering the La Jencia Basin in solar arrays is not 鈥済reen鈥� or environmentally sound.
Renewable energy is a top priority. Many people would like solar panels on our rooftops powering our homes and businesses, shading our parking lots, reducing our carbon emissions. We do not want massive solar arrays to blight our landscape just to provide power to Arizona and California.
We have all seen the mega solar array near Interstate 25 in Valencia County, which grew from 2,000 acres to 4,000 acres. There are windy days where a dark haboob looms over the solar array. Most of us have experienced a frightful, white-knuckle drive through the dust storms there 鈥� enough dust to slow and sometimes stop traffic on I-25. The dust from the bladed desert poses safety risks 鈥� creating hazardous driving conditions, health risks for asthmatic individuals and the potential for valley fever, a fungal infection from dust.
The airborne dust can hold in the heat causing a heat dome. The dust is carried in the airstream, covering mountaintops and causing early and rapid snowmelt. There are concerns about the impacts of a summer monsoon hitting the denuded landscape, where runoff could destroy infrastructure and dump heavy sediment into the Rio Grande.
Our arid landscape is fragile. We can still see the ruts from the Camino Real imprinted in the desert. The impact of tens of thousands of acres of solar fields on our landscape is irreparable.
The community is concerned about any exploitive business coming into our community touting jobs and money. We are concerned about the amount of water used for construction and the daily function of a data center. We are concerned about the noise and light pollution, the environmental and cultural impacts, the viability of other operations like the Very Large Array, Langmuir Laboratory, farming and ranching operations. We are concerned about the health and welfare of our people. Our list of concerns goes on and on.
New Mexicans want leadership that doesn鈥檛 put our state up for sale for corporate profits. Ensuring we have sound, enforceable, defensible regulations in place to protect the health and future of our people and environment is a win-win for all, now and for future generations.
Cecilia Rosacker is a Socorro County farmer.
