Arizona city defeats massive data center project over water, energy concerns
A massive data center that was slated for southern Arizona may be no more after a city council vote on Wednesday unanimously directed all staff to stop work.
Dubbed "Project Blue," the data center was supposed to be built on 290 acres in Pima County. The county's board of supervisors approved selling the land north of the Pima County Fairgrounds for the center, but the project still required the city of Tucson's approval of a development agreement and annexation of the land, local KOLD reported.
Dozens of people filled the city's council chambers in opposition to the project, which had been proposed by Beale Infrastructure, citing utility usage.
"In addition to the water use, this was a problem because of the energy use," councilmember Kevin Dahl said during the meeting, according to KOLD.
"AWS has previously engaged in standard due diligence processes in Arizona, like we do in any geographic location we consider building and operating our infrastructure," an Amazon Web Services spokesperson said in a statement to FOX Business.
