Why this matters
Imperial County supervisors are pumping the brakes on data center projects as they come under increased scrutiny nationwide.
Imperial County’s Board of Supervisors has unanimously paused pending and future data center projects for at least 45 days following months of community opposition amid concerns about energy and water consumption as well as environmental and public health impacts.
The supervisors will also form an advisory committee to bring them recommendations on zoning and building policies related to data centers by January 2027.
The moratorium — imposed under an urgency ordinance — could be renewed after 45 days for 10 months and 15 days, until the committee delivers its report — although one developer has already said he will challenge the county’s decision in court.
Tuesday’s vote came as a surprise.
Just three months ago, the supervisors had voted 4-1 with only Supervisor Martha Cardenas-Singh in opposition — to advance a nearly 1 million-square-foot data center project that its proponents say would be the largest in the state.
And at least two board members had been vocal about the need to diversify Imperial County’s economy by developing more tech infrastructure.
Those two supervisors — Ryan Kelley and John Hawk — said at the end of a three-hour hearing Wednesday on a potential moratorium that the county could benefit from more information and a pause on building.
“The foot, the hand, the head, the parts of the body, they all need to be working together, they can’t work alone,” said Kelley, paraphrasing biblical script. “And so this committee is an opportunity for all different parts of the body to work together to try to find how this could be a possibility.”
“I never wanted anyone within their homes to feel unsafe or feel that they were not in their castle and feeling safe, so in my mind there’s been a lot of turmoil,” Hawk said.
Kelley and Hawk had joined Supervisor Jesus Escobar and Chairwoman Peggy Price in April to approve a land merger for a data center project that became a focal point for community opposition. That vote was a pivotal step in the project’s approval process.
The Huntington Beach developer behind that project, Sebastian Rucci, had said he was not concerned about a moratorium after supervisors first floated the possibility of one at a meeting two weeks ago. He told inewsource then that the board “cannot retroactively stop projects that have already been approved.”
But county counsel Geoffrey Holbrook said during Wednesday’s meeting that in his estimation the county currently has no data center projects approved.
“To my knowledge, and the facts that I have, no current pending application has vested rights,” Holbrook said.
After the moratorium vote, Rucci wrote in a text message to inewsource that the vote “sends a very bad signal for the outside world that things can change even after 18 months of effort.”
“I fully respect the board and understand the pressure they were under,” he continued. “However, and with respect to Board and County Staff, we will file suit in the morning and address our issues in a courtroom, not in the political arena.”
Recently, following community pushback, Rucci published a letter to the editor of The Desert Review to “propose a compromise” that would move his project farther from homes and closer to a fuel storage facility.
The project is now being challenged in court by the Sierra Club.
Mark West, the director of the Sierra Club’s San Diego chapter, spoke at Tuesday’s meeting in support of applying CEQA to data center projects.
“As this process moves forward, we urge the board to ensure that environmental considerations, community perspectives and public transparency remain central to the panel’s work in any recommendations that may emerge,” West said.
Environmental review has been a point of contention.
Many residents have been attending board meetings consistently over the past year, to pressure the board to subject data center projects to the California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA, which Rucci said is not necessary based on how county regulations are written.
Other developers have also submitted proposals for data center projects on industrially zoned land across the county that they claim are not subject to state environmental review.
The new 19-member ad hoc committee will discuss the issue after it is selected by the board.
Chris Scurries, a member of NIMBY Imperial, which opposes data center construction in Imperial County, called the moratorium “a step in the right direction.”
“Honestly, pretty surprised, but it feels good,” he said. “I’m glad it happened, and we got a lot of work to do, though.”
The ad hoc committee will include two members of the Board of Supervisors, a member from each incorporated city in the county, and representatives from environmental advocacy, labor, healthcare and education sectors. It will also include two “representatives of community interests” and representatives from the business and energy sector.
