Imperial County considers data center moratorium as proposals multiply in the area

After more than half a year of mounting community pressure, Imperial County officials will consider putting a temporary pause on data center projects in order to revise the county’s building policies.

That’s after those same officials advanced a massive data center on county land that could bypass the state’s most rigorous environmental review, a proposal emerged for another data center on nearby Quechen tribal land and other plans surfaced for a new data center that could be built without a full environmental review.

The Imperial County Board of Supervisors discussed creating new guidelines for data center construction on Tuesday, and the board decided a draft of the guidelines was insufficient to adequately address community concerns over lax regulation.

“I think we need to look at the resolution as presented and bring it back with more teeth,” said Supervisor Jesus Eduardo Escobar.

Escobar also suggested the board create a committee to advise on the new rules.

“That’s why I also recommended a moratorium of six months to give us time to be able to fully figure this out,” he said.

Data centers have become a contentious issue in the county as two of the five board members are up for reelection this year. The seats of Escobar and Supervisor John Hawk were on Tuesday’s primary election ballot.

As of Thursday afternoon, unofficial results show Escobar trailing Enrique “Kiki” Alvarado in the District 1 race, and Alvarado on the cusp of getting 50% of the vote with Escobar in second place. If Alvarado falls short of half the vote, the two would square off in a runoff election in November. Given their early totals, Hawk is already set to face Patricia “Patty” Lizarraga in the District 5 race because the two candidates got the most votes in the primary.

Community members have been calling on the county to impose a moratorium for months – and saw Tuesday’s conversation as a step in the right direction.

“It does set in motion something that we’ve been trying to do for a really long time now,” said Chris Scurries, a resident and member of NIMBY Imperial.

Dozens of community members voiced their opposition to a proposed resolution at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, saying it would not address health and safety concerns, and that it was creating loopholes rather than regulations.

“Protections that can be waived are not protections, they’re suggestions,” said Gina Snow, a resident and member of NIMBY Imperial. “And perhaps the most frustrating part of this resolution is not what it says, it’s what it doesn’t say.” 

U.S. Rep. Raul Ruiz, who was also on Tuesday’s ballot and advanced to the fall election, weighed in at the meeting as well, submitting a letter which Sara Solorzano, one of his aides, read aloud during public comment.

“The people of Imperial Valley have been clear about where they stand,” Ruiz’s statement said. “I agree with them. I am asking local officials to act and protect the health, the water, and the future of every family who calls this valley home.”

Community members have been insisting that at the very least, all data center projects should have to undergo an environmental review through the California Environmental Quality Act. While the draft would allow for that possibility, it also carved out exceptions for some projects, including a new data center proposed on unincorporated county land.

The project proposed by Tomcat Development, a company run by John and Tom Moiola, who also run Moiola Brothers Cattle Feeders, is situated on industrially zoned land within the Mesquite Lake Specific Plan area in between Brawley and Imperial.

The developers filed a request to build a data center without undergoing CEQA review on the property, contending that their project is a permitted use.

Neither developer responded to a request for an interview.

The project could be on a similar trajectory as the proposal by Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing to build a data center on unincorporated county land lined by homes near the city of Imperial. The project is entangled in numerous lawsuits over its rollout.

The county’s counsel Geoffrey Holbrook said that if the board chose to write the ordinance to include projects in the pipeline it could do so.

In an email to inewsource, Sebastian Rucci, the developer behind that project, said that he feels comfortable moving ahead despite a possible moratorium because the county “cannot retroactively stop projects that have already been approved.”

The disagreement seems to hinge on the word approval.

In April, the county voted to approve a lot merger on the proposed site of Rucci’s project, a pivotal step to moving the project forward.

Chairperson Peggy Price issued a statement following the vote saying her vote to approve the merger was not an approval of the data center project.

“I want to be clear that the action before the Board was limited to the lot merger itself and did not approve, authorize, or commit to any future development,” Price wrote in a commentary in the Calexico Chronicle on April 14.

Last month, the Sierra Club sued the county over the approval process of Rucci’s project.

Talk of data center moratoriums has rippled City Council meetings throughout the county. The city of Brawley ultimately struck down a temporary moratorium last month. This week the city of Imperial successfully passed its own. Calexico is also considering one.