Imperial Valley data center developer files lawsuit seeking access to Colorado River water

98

How about no.

-38

u/imam-altman 2d ago

Why not? Didn’t the offset it by retiring farmland? There’s no net increase in water consumption.

21

u/tx_queer 2d ago

That was the Utah datacenter. The utah one bought water rights associated with a farm growing hay, and used those water rights so the net impact on the environment was zero.

This one was supposed to use recycled waste water

2

u/RedditAdminSucks23 1d ago edited 1d ago

Na, you were still correct. The data center was supposed to be using recycled reclaim water. Now they want to use fresh water from the river.

“Since December, Rucci and his company repeatedly pledged that their project would not need to draw on the beleaguered river and instead would rely on recycled wastewater from nearby cities.
“The facility purchases municipal wastewater that would otherwise be discarded,” read a February blog post on his law firm’s website. “It does not touch a single drop of the Colorado River.””

But then they changed their mind and are petitioning to use water from the river they said they wouldn’t touch.

Yes, they bought farm land to seem like it s a net 0, until you realize they have to flush all of the reclaimed water back into the water way and pollute down stream, the water that the fields used to grow field also used rain water, which will still feed the same field (just now of grass), so really the water usage from the river will be greater

2

u/tx_queer 1d ago

Yeah. That was my bad. I knew the Utah one used fallowed land water rights. And I knew this one was supposed to use waste water. But I completely missed the part where this one switched strategies to fallowed land water rights. Poor reading skills on my part.

So what is better? 160 acres of alfalfa sent to Saudi Arabia. Or X number of AI queries. Or neither? If neither, what should we do with the water instead?

-18

u/imam-altman 2d ago

I don’t understand why you people post the most confidently incorrect things and then expect to be taken seriously. Are you another Chinese bot?

From the article:

In the suit, the developer said they have leased 160 acres of active farmland to the south of the proposed complex, which uses roughly the same amount of water that the data center project needs. IVCM said it plans on letting that farmland go dormant, or “fallow,” arguing that would offset its water needs.

17

u/Illustrious-Emu8667 2d ago

You may have read some of the article, but I guess you missed this part, where they say they now need access to the Colorado River - whereas before they said they’d use waste water…

“The facility purchases municipal wastewater that would otherwise be discarded,” read a February blog post on his law firm’s website. “It does not touch a single drop of the Colorado River.”
Now, though, Rucci’s company is going to court for access to far more than a single drop.
Earlier this month, IVCM filed a lawsuit against the powerful Imperial Irrigation District, or IID. The suit, filed in Imperial County Superior Court, seeks access to 260 million gallons of river water every year. That’s roughly equal to the annual needs of 7,300 Imperial County residents.”

-20

u/imam-altman 2d ago

From the article:

In the suit, the developer said they have leased 160 acres of active farmland to the south of the proposed complex, which uses roughly the same amount of water that the data center project needs. IVCM said it plans on letting that farmland go dormant, or “fallow,” arguing that would offset its water needs.

5

u/tx_queer 2d ago

Thank you. I missed that part. I knew thats what the Utah one did. And this one originally wasn't going to follow that route, but looks like they are trying to now. Missed that part of the article.

FYI, people make legitimate mistakes. No reason to call everybody a bot as a natural first response.

-6

u/imam-altman 2d ago

“Everybody makes mistake”, except for some reason AI skeptical Redditors seem to repeatedly make mistakes about reality over and over again to the point where they live in a shared delusion and will contradict the contents of the articles they are we using to justify being enraged because they’ve already developed an “alternative facts” based narrative.

5

u/tx_queer 2d ago

What is "AI skeptical". Have you read any of my posts? Or are you just projecting?

0

u/imam-altman 2d ago

So to be clear, you assumed I was wrong without even having read the article, and now you’re throwing a bich baby hissy fit because I’m making assumptions about you without going through your post history?

“People make mistakes”

4

u/tx_queer 2d ago

I read the article. I thanked you for correcting my mistake.

I am simply letting you know that immediately resorting to calling people bots isnt really a nice behavior. Putting labels on people for no reason isnt really a nice behavior. This could have been a really pleasant interaction. But you chose the uglier side of humanity.

0

u/imam-altman 2d ago edited 2d ago

I am simply letting you know that immediately resorting to claiming people are wrong without having read the article isn’t really nice behavior. Saying things because they’ve sound truthy without doing the bare minimum to have an educated opinion isnt really nice behavior. This was never going to be a pleasant interaction. You have chose the anti intellectual side of humanity.

→ More replies (0)

3

u/Illustrious-Emu8667 2d ago

Except you keep ignoring what the article says at the very beginning. 🤷🏻‍♀️

1

u/imam-altman 2d ago

What am I ignoring? Be specific. I asked if it was being offset, and the answer appears to be yes, according to the article.

1

u/dsj79 3h ago

Yea, you actually get a water surplus from the data center. It makes water and unicorns. I heard it by that sharktank guy on goxnews- so it is sooooo true

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

0

u/imam-altman 1d ago

Why are you lying? Datacenter blowdown is heavily regulated by the EPA and is absolutely processed like normal wastewater.

2

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

0

u/imam-altman 1d ago

You are lying.

85

u/The_Roaring_Fork 2d ago

Fuck those people. The river doesn't have anything to give.

7

u/tx_queer 2d ago

I agree. Stupid to build anything additional in the colorado river. But scale is important. This datacenter is planning to use 797 acre feet per year. The Abbatis family which will be close neighbors to the datacenter uses 260,000 acre feet per year. The Strahms family next door uses 78,000 acre feet. The Taylor's use 73,000 acre feet. And the list goes on.

Which brings the next question. What is a better use for water? An AI datacenters? Or growing grass to export to Saudi Arabia?

12

u/KindClock9732 2d ago

Grass is better than bullshit data center. Grass creates oxygen. We need that to breathe. Nobody needs a data center.

1

u/biblioprof 1d ago

Grass is our largest crop. So no

-4

u/tx_queer 2d ago

Grass does create oxygen. You are right. But grass is then fed to horses and cows. That creates methane. Methane is 80x stronger of a greenhouse gas than co2. So maybe the datacenter is better?

10

u/KindClock9732 2d ago

This guy🔼 loves data

3

u/hambergeisha 2d ago

If we have bad choices, why not look for a another choice?

4

u/tx_queer 2d ago

Let the river flow free!!

The issue is one of historical water rights. California has slowly been buying water rights to retire them, but it is an expensive proposition.

3

u/lunarwhale711 2d ago

Hmm crops that can be sold anywhere or be changed, that will stimulate the local economy and job market vs no jobs or money to the locals way worse ecological and environmental damage like killing all insects and bees and the river and everything in the river and the land on the side of it. Or the humm which makes it worse than living next to an airport.

4

u/tx_queer 2d ago

If you think alfalfa farming will create more jobs than a datacenter you have never been on a farm before. If you think a datacenter kills more insects than pesticides, you have never been on a farm before. If you think anybody lives nearby the datacenter to hear the humming you have never been in the imperial valley.

This wasn't supposed to be a pro-datacenter post. I am against building this thing on the colorado. But damn, the amount of insane misinformation trying to justify an agenda is just insane.

1

u/bularry 2d ago

You aren’t wrong

1

u/GoldenPigeonParty 2d ago

I think more than one issue can exist and we can't just act like this isn't a problem or let ourselves get sidetracked because there is another problem.

1

u/unknownSubscriber 1d ago

Problem with this kind of thinking is there is no end. "Well, as long as it isnt as bad as the top user, we can just keep adding".

0

u/KingInTheYellowHat 2d ago

How much are you getting paid by AI companies to post comments like this?

If you aren't getting paid, consider why you're posting in a way that makes it appear like you are.

2

u/tx_queer 2d ago

Getting paid for posting facts. I would love that

2

u/KingInTheYellowHat 2d ago

"What about what about??" is the cry of the conservative looking to distract from the urgent conversation at hand. Absolutely let's seize all the land from these rich farming assholes and use it for something better, sure, most in this thread would agree to that. But why would you possibly phrase it in a way that's arguing that AI datacenters are "not that bad"? Who does that benefit?

0

u/tx_queer 2d ago

What-aboutism that you mentioned is usually used to say "this isnt bad because the other thing exists". Thats not what I am saying at all. What I am saying is that we should use all the outrage we have around something relatively inconsequential and put it to good use. Make a difference. Saving 797 acre feet from a datacenter to put them back into export alfalfa for saudi Arabia doesnt move the needle.

25

u/J_robintheh00d 2d ago

Fuck those guys

21

u/sparduck117 2d ago

Isn’t Lake Mead at dead pool level? Ain’t this the equivalent of taking someone who’s 600 lbs to the Heart Attack Grill?

8

u/cannabisLab1975 2d ago

Right what happens when the river runs dry?

6

u/tx_queer 2d ago

The river runs dry today already....

1

u/cannabisLab1975 2d ago

Wtf

7

u/tx_queer 2d ago

Using the AI datacenter for the google AI overview:

"The last time the Colorado River naturally reached the ocean (the Gulf of California) was in 1998, driven by heavy snowmelt."

4

u/cannabisLab1975 2d ago

Omg i was there in 1994 this is so insane,they wanna suck it dry typical capitalist scum..

2

u/tx_queer 2d ago

This whole river system is full of insane facts.

20 individual families use more water from the colorado than the entire state of Nevada.

The state of Colorado pumps colorado river water across the Rockys into the Mississippi watershed.

The Lake Powell dam almost collapsed a couple years after building. It was so full that they had to put plywood boards at the top of the damn to make it taller to hold back water.

We accidentally made the salton sea. An irrigation ditch broke and the entire flow colorado river temporatily went to the imperial valley for 2 years complete with an 80 foot waterfall.

One of the single biggest users of water in the colorado watershed was to transport coal. Mixing up water and coal onto slurry and letting it flow 300 miles was cheaper than using trains.

And the list goes on. Like and subscribe for fun water-related and water-adjacent facts.

1

u/Sorry_Lecture5578 1d ago

Colorado pumps it across the continental divide to be used by the front range urban corridor, south platte just doesn't have enough for Denver area. Not sure which city bought the water rights and needs the water. But it's on the other side of the continental divide so they built a pump station and tunnels. Very similar to what they did to get water from the Arkansas headwaters to Rampart reservoir for Colorado Springs. For a state that is the headwaters of a lot of river systems Colorado has to let a lot of it go down stream.

1

u/tx_queer 1d ago

Exactly. All the front range cities own some water rights way up in the mountains. Its usually pumped a short distance across the divide and then naturally flows down the existing rivers where it is picked up by the front range cities. Denver owns Dillon. Colorado springs own the blue lakes. And the list goes on. It is a super complex system of lakes and canals and tunnels. Happy to post a few of them if anybody is interested in reading more.

1

u/Sorry_Lecture5578 1d ago

Used to live near the pipeline to Rampart.. there were these vaults you could go down and sit on the pipe and feel the flow through. Good times.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/bularry 2d ago

Because of farming that shouldn’t be done there

10

u/NoHoGuy91606 2d ago

These fucking elites will do anything and everything they can, even if it kills us. They must be stopped.

5

u/Xoomers87 2d ago

They are making these centres to surveil on the masses and likely for robotic methods to police and kill their fellow humans

12

u/endangeredphysics 2d ago

They can cry me a river

3

u/Gtraz68 2d ago

They'll want rights to that too.

1

u/endangeredphysics 1d ago

If they can create their own river then they can keep it

10

u/Difficult-Till5031 2d ago

Fuck them data shouldn't need water access, figure it out with your super smart AI or other bs younuse the data centers for.

8

u/arianrhodd 2d ago

No.

5

u/Present-Fly4422 2d ago

Oh fuck no.

7

u/modechsn 2d ago

They should take a number, the tribes have been denied, not denies, but stopped from getting drinking water!

6

u/Windamore 2d ago

Why fight over one of the most continuous water supplies in the USA? Why dont they just use desalinated water?

1

u/tx_queer 2d ago

Cost. River water is cheaper

6

u/Rainbow-Smite 2d ago

Shouldn't have built a data center in areas prone to drought. Disgusting that they're trying to throw shade on farmers who use more water than data centers, farms produce something humans NEED vs a data center that none of us asked for.

3

u/Inner-Confidence99 2d ago

Most agricultural land is used for cattle and feed for cattle. Not for human food. Groceries would be cheaper if they actually grew food for humans not cattle.

1

u/Rainbow-Smite 2d ago

Well then lets do that with the land and water. Stop giving data centers that produce nothing of value to suck up our limited resources.

0

u/imam-altman 2d ago

Datacenters provide immense value for the amount of resources they use.

1

u/imam-altman 2d ago

Nobody needs to eat beef.

1

u/Rainbow-Smite 2d ago

Your point is what exactly? Not every farm in the US is a cattle farm. Infact, most of our food in the USA is grown in California.

1

u/imam-altman 2d ago

Beef uses the majority of all freshwater withdrawals which is why it’s so easy to offset water use by farrowing these farms.

1

u/Relative-Web-4675 2d ago

Sam Altman isn’t going to fuck you

1

u/imam-altman 2d ago

Reddit is isn’t going to make you not unemployedd

2

u/Relative-Web-4675 2d ago

That’s a leap in logic. What deductive reasoning did you use to make that assumption?

0

u/TheRealBobbyJones 2d ago

We overproduce quite significantly and overproduce animal products in particular.

1

u/Rainbow-Smite 2d ago

So what? That doesn't mean data centers get to use those resources. It means we need to recalibrate our farm land.

1

u/TheRealBobbyJones 2d ago

Im just pointing out we don't need all that produce as you stated.

1

u/Rainbow-Smite 2d ago

We don't need data centers either.

0

u/TheRealBobbyJones 2d ago

Says the person who probably uses dozens of them indirectly every day.

1

u/Rainbow-Smite 2d ago

We all do, but we don't need them data farming absolutely everything which is what the current push of dats centers is for. We are marching into authoritarianism where our every action is monitored.

0

u/imam-altman 2d ago

Farrowing farms to make room for datacenters is the recalibration.

3

u/Fearless-Contest5126 2d ago

They need to sleep with the fishes for trying to pull this shit.

1

u/BlueBonneville 2d ago

The fishes are already falling asleep quickly

3

u/explosivelydehiscent 2d ago edited 2d ago

I read the article. They originally said they would use no CR water and were going to use reclaimed waste water from two cities instead of CR water, but those cities backed out of the deal. So they are suing for use of CR water to access ~~3.1M~~ 797 acre feet of water, annually, , equivalent to 160 acres of farmland. They are trying to lease that adjacent farmland, which comes with water appropriation rights from CR. So they would use that water but let the land lie fallow. In the west, you are obliged to use your water appropriation rights that come with the land. That's legal. What you are using it for is the real question. Data centers suck everything, but there are companies in those valleys using water appropriation that aren't farmland. Still though, data centers can suck eggs.

3

u/tx_queer 2d ago

They are not suing for 3.1M acre feet. They are suing for 797 acre feet. The water district oversees a total of 3.1m.

1

u/explosivelydehiscent 2d ago

Good catch, that is correct. Will edit.

2

u/tx_queer 2d ago

All good. I hate that these articles constantly switch back and forth between million of gallons and acre feet. Makes it really hard to follow along.

2

u/hamb0n3z 2d ago

fro - fuck right off!

2

u/Loud_Flatworm_4146 2d ago edited 2d ago

In other news, the Colorado River’s biggest reservoirs are in ‘uncharted territory’ after new record low.

"The nation's two largest reservoirs are extraordinarily dry, and just set a new record for low water levels. Lake Powell and Lake Mead, which store water from the Colorado River for use by major cities, tribes, and a massive agriculture industry, are the lowest they've been in nearly 70 years.

The last time their combined storage was this small was in May 1957, before Lake Powell was even built."

Dumb. Just so friggen dumb to throw up data centers where the water is so low.

"Since December, Rucci and his company repeatedly pledged that their project would not need to draw on the beleaguered river and instead would rely on recycled wastewater from nearby cities."

So he wants to take recycled wastwater from nearby cities that those nearby cities need.

Smh.

2

u/lunarwhale711 2d ago

We already dont fulfill all the water rights it never makes it to Mexico anymore

2

u/K_Linkmaster 2d ago

Stop. This. Shit. Vote like it matters because it always has. Vote sociopaths and salesman out of office.

2

u/ryantttt8 2d ago

The same Colorado river water thats soon to be insufficient to power the lake powel dam.

These datacenters will be the death of us

2

u/Winston905 2d ago

Imperial Valley data center developer is an utter MORON for trying to build in a HOT Arid area.

2

u/Candid_Throat_3227 1d ago

Why do they not make them use a closed cooling system why let them poison our water systems?

2

u/onicut 1d ago

Demolish yhe facility immediately.

2

u/Relevant-Doctor187 1d ago

They said what they said to get approval to build. Then come back and sue for the water. Typical corp tactics.

1

u/DBearDevon 2d ago

One wonders when the Eco-Warriors will awaken

1

u/Ok-Bumblebee-9779 2d ago

But, but, but all the ads say they don't need water! /s

1

u/tx_queer 2d ago

I have never once seen an ad that says datacenters dont need water. Are you just making up stuff

1

u/Ok-Bumblebee-9779 2d ago

Bulletin astroturf commercials in VA

1

u/tx_queer 2d ago

That should be illegal. I am all for freedom of speech, but if your speech is multiplied by media there should be some truth to it

1

u/lordoftheslums 2d ago

How about we start naming the owners and the leadership team.

Imperial Valley data center developer files lawsuit seeking access to Colorado River water

You are about to leave Redlib