Kacey Hovden

At the Southern tip of our state, community members of Sunland Park and Santa Teresa have been fighting for clean and safe drinking water for years, plagued with high levels of arsenic contamination in their drinking water, and a water authority that chronically fails to address this issue.  Residents now face yet another battle for that fundamental right: BorderPlex Digital’s “Project Jupiter,” threatens to deplete what little usable water is left. Project Jupiter is a hyperscale, multi-data center project proposed in Santa Teresa, and at this time, one of the largest data center projects proposed in the nation. 

Data centers require massive amounts of water to operate, while also using unfathomable amounts of electricity. In response to water usage concerns in a region that’s been in extreme drought for decades, Project Jupiter claims it will utilize a “closed-loop” system, supposedly requiring only a “one-time” draw from the local groundwater. However, the concept of a “one-time” draw of water for a data center just isn’t real. “Closed-loop” systems still require additional water supplies, due to the necessary recycling of the water over time, as well as the evaporative cooling processes utilized to cool the used-water. “Closed-loop” systems also use significantly more electricity than other data center cooling-systems, ultimately misusing more water in the process.

Organizers protest a proposed $165 billion data center campus that BorderPlex Digital Assets wants to build in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. (Diego Mendoza-Moyers / El Paso Matters)

Data centers, like Project Jupiter, are springing up across the nation and, once built, quickly become the largest consumer of water and electricity in each locality. A large data center can consume up to 5 million gallons of drinking water a day, totaling up to 1.8 billion gallons of water used in just one year. Currently, BorderPlex Digital plans to have at least four large data centers in operation for Project Jupiter. 

Data centers are water guzzlers, and in a region like Sunland Park and Santa Teresa, where it is unclear how much groundwater remains, a development like Project Jupiter is untenable. Especially when we know that Project Jupiter has named the Camino Real Regional Utility Authority (CRRUA), the public utility serving Sunland Park and Santa Teresa, as the water and wastewater provider for the project – placing the local public water supply at risk.

 Sunland Park and Santa Teresa caught national attention in late 2023, when local and state officials issued a week-long Do Not Drink Order for residents. A state investigation later uncovered that CRRUA had bypassed its arsenic treatment systems for at least a year and a half; dumped an “unknown” amount of caustic soda into the public water supply in November 2023, and ignored, community complaints of slimy, smelly, and discolored water with  children, adults, and pets becoming ill from consuming the water – until a week later when CRRUA issued the Do Not Drink Order. Since then, CRRUA has struggled to come into compliance with federal and state water regulations.

But the failure of CRRUA, the City of Sunland Park, Doña Ana County, and the state of New Mexico to ensure Sunland Park and Santa Teresa residents have clean and safe drinking water started long before the water crisis of 2023. Sunland Park and Santa Teresa’s public water supply has exceeded the federal health limits for arsenic for decades, and CRRUA has intermittently shut off its arsenic treatment facilities and bypassed its treatment systems, sometimes for years at a time –  while consistently failing to notify the public when their water is unsafe to drink and consume.

Since the days of the ASARCO-smelter plant, which operated nearby and  left centuries-worth of toxins and arsenic in the soil and groundwater of Sunland Park and Santa Teresa, and the local landfill and a medical waste incinerator in Sunland Park that became a key environmental justice case in the 1990s, extractive and polluting industries have targeted Sunland Park and Santa Teresa. This has left  community members without critical access to clean drinking water. Now, Project Jupiter threatens to repeat that harmful and discriminatory history and take advantage of what little usable water Sunland Park and Santa Teresa have left. Local community members have questions that remain unanswered, while local and state officials rush to push Project Jupiter forward quickly for the potential approval of tax breaks.

Project Jupiter is a threat to New Mexico’s scarce water supplies and if it goes through, is yet another act of systemic violence and injustice against New Mexico’s southernmost communities. 

What you can do: Take action in support of Sunland Park and Santa Teresa communities by submitting a letter to the Doña Ana County Commission by the upcoming September 19th Public Hearing when $165 billion in Industrial Revenue Bonds for Project Jupiter will be voted on. Urge commissioners to vote no. Click here to send a letter which you can personalize. Thank you!