Tucson leaders have approved a city ordinance that will place regulations on high water users. The vote comes a little over a week since the mayor and council rejected Project Blue — a proposed data center that would have used millions of gallons of water.
Mayor Regina Romero and the Tucson City Council were supposed to vote this week on whether to annex the land to allow both potable and reclaimed water to be used, but instead they voted unanimously last week to kill the project. This week, they voted unanimously again to introduce an ordinance requiring customers who want to use large quantities of water to apply with the city.
“It forces a mayor and council vote on any large water use application in the future, that helps to close a loophole that was in our existing regulations at the city level,” said Michael Bogan, an associate professor at the University of Arizona’s School of Natural Resources and the Environment and a member of a local coalition opposing Project Blue.
The new ordinance will also require those requests to become public records so that community members can access them. Bogan says that’s a positive change — especially after Project Blue developer Beale Infrastructure had early non-disclosure agreements with Tucson and Pima County leaders, along with representatives from Tucson Electric Power.
A July report drafted by Bogan found a 3 to 5 mile stretch of the Santa Cruz River would go dry if the project was greenlit.
“To some degree it was surprising that the guardrails weren’t in place, only because Tucson has been such a leader in water conservation and water policy, for the last 30 years,” he said. “But at the same time, the whole field of data centers is a new field, so it’s something we’re all kind of learning about as we go.”
Bogan says similar regulations in the town of Marana, just northwest of Tucson, were informed by the city of Chandler and its experience with data centers. He says Tucson’s ordinance is a good first step, but he hopes to see more regulation specific to data centers.
“We’re kind of building and flying a plane at the same time,” Romero said during the mayor and council meeting Tuesday night. “Hopefully making sure that we continue putting together the ordinances and land use codes and all of the changes we need to do to protect Tucsonans and our resources from any future data centers or any other water gobbling industries in our community.”
Romero said the city would also seek community input over the next several months on updated zoning requirements for industries like data centers.
