El Paso Matters reporter Diego Mendoza-Moyers moderated a roundtable discussion Thursday at City Hall about the Meta data center, which Mayor Renard Johnson said he organized to expand the dialogue and enhance the community’s understanding of the controversial project. This is his report on the event.
A roundtable discussion Thursday involving El Paso city officials, Meta Platforms Inc. and critics of the company’s incoming Northeast data center highlighted one thing: the data center’s impacts are too myriad and complicated to hash out in 60 minutes.
“The Meta data center has become one of the most discussed and controversial issues in our community. And it has raised important questions about water, energy, economic development, transparency, and the future of El Paso,” Mayor Renard Johnson said.
“There are still questions that need to be answered, concerns that deserve to be heard, and trust that needs to be rebuilt,” he added. “These conversations must continue, and the community must remain a part of this process.”
Residents who participated in the discussion sought answers about the data center’s noise pollution and other potential nuisances to residents.
“We don’t want Meta in our backyard,” said Cynthia Crouse, a neighborhood association leader in Northeast.
“There are so many things that have not been provided to us. Has any kind of health studies been done on the impacts, long-term exposure of data centers?” she asked, adding questions about acoustic barriers to block the facility’s noise. “These are some of the things that we are demanding and that we want to know what’s going on.”
Other participants included El Paso Electric CEO Kelly Tomblin, El Paso Water CEO John Balliew, District 4 city Rep. Cynthia Boyar Trejo, Deputy City Manager Robert Cortinas, Meta executives Ana Martinez and Darija Cosic, City Attorney Karla Nieman, Northeast resident John Justice, attorney Veronica Carbajal, union leader Eddie Trevizo, El Paso Chamber CEO Ricardo Mora, Greater El Paso Association of Realtors governmental affairs director Ernesto Garcia, and a representative from District 3 city Rep. Deanna Maldonado-Rocha’s office.
“I think we’re not connecting on what really is going on here,” said Trevizo, business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 960, who supports the data center. “And just yelling passionate things back and forth to each other is not going to get us there.”
Carbajal, a longtime community organizer who opposes Meta’s project, said she was disappointed with the meeting “because we have not received any straight answers to questions that we’ve been asking.”
Boyar Trejo and Johnson said they will hold more community discussions with Meta.
“So, we need to make sure that Meta is responsive to the El Paso community and gives them the answers that they need,” Johnson said. “This is not the end of a conversation, this is only the beginning and we need to do this more because El Paso deserves that.”
READ MORE: City of El Paso’s Meta data center incentive agreement to remain in place
The breadth of topics under discussion – and, at times, the lack of clear, defined answers – during the hourlong meeting highlighted the complex nature of the data center project.
Balliew of the water utility said Meta’s water consumption will increase overall water demand by less than 1%.
The utility last fiscal year supplied about 108 million gallons of water to customers per day – and supplied 155 million on the peak demand day last June. Meta’s facility will use somewhere between 400,000 to 500,000 gallons per day on average.
“The Meta water consumption, in the grand scheme of things, is not as large as it is being portrayed,” Balliew said.
Whenever there is a large piece of vacant land in the city, he said, El Paso Water has to plan ahead and contemplate how much water it would need to supply if a developer built a neighborhood, industrial facility or a commercial development on it.
To plan conservatively, El Paso Water assumes the same conditions from the most intense drought period on record – El Paso received a record-low amount of river water in 2013 – will exist every year going forward.
“If we were building houses out there, a normal subdivision, we would be using about the same amount of water. Nobody would be talking about it,” Balliew said.
“Whether this was a residential neighborhood or a basin or whatever, we still have to have the water supply in case of drought. The Pure Water Center, that is our drought solution,” he said referring to the $300 million water treatment plant under construction in the Lower Valley. The plant will convert wastewater into 10 million gallons of potable water daily.
Meta has said it will replenish twice as much water as its facility uses. The company gave examples of water restoration projects such as sensor-based irrigation technology Meta says will allow farmers to use water more efficiently and save 105 million gallons of water annually, as well as drip irrigation to reduce usage by 71 million gallons annually.
Meta will also work with the nonprofit DigDeep to provide first-time running water to 28 homes in El Paso County, as well as bringing “clean water to underserved communities along the U.S.-Mexico border.”
“We primarily look for water restoration projects that are related to conservation, irrigation efficiencies, ecosystem restoration, water supply and reliability to local watersheds,” Darija Cosic, a public policy manager with Meta for infrastructure and energy, said at the meeting.
She added that an independent third-party firm would verify Meta’s water restoration project data.
“Within our sustainability report, we will also report on water consumption for each of our operational data centers. And we’ll also have a volumetric water benefit accounting report, which will measure that specific progress towards the water goal.”
Another big question is the impact of air pollution resulting from the power generation facilities supplying Meta. The data center will require 1 gigawatt of electricity, much of which will be supplied by natural gas generators that will emit pollutants as well as greenhouse gas emissions.
El Paso Electric didn’t immediately respond to questions about the climate emissions the utility expects the McCloud facility to release. The power plant is permitted by Texas’ environmental regulator to emit particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and other pollutants – although not at very large volumes.
“Our facilities comply with all federal, state and local air quality and primary requirements, which are designed to protect public health,” Cosic said.
The city earlier this year adopted a Climate Action Plan for El Paso, a collection of policies and programs designed to slash local greenhouse gas emissions and address rising average temperatures.
The plan said that the El Paso region emits 7.3 million tons of greenhouse gases annually. And by 2050, the city’s target is to reduce those emissions by 71% compared with current levels.
So, if the McCloud power plant emits hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide annually, the city may be hard-pressed to meet its own climate and energy goals it spent multiple years and millions of dollars sketching out.
“Anytime that a new user is coming into the community and it’s going to change the climate plan that the city is already putting in place, we have strong concerns about that,” Johnson said. “This is something we’ve got to look at as a city to make sure that we’re still in compliance with what we want to do as a climate action plan for the city of El Paso.”
Beyond hosting talks, Boyar Trejo is proposing a community benefit agreement between the city and Meta Platforms Inc., seeking to coax additional investment from the multi-trillion-dollar company on things such as water infrastructure, air pollution controls and utility bill assistance for customers.
Boyar Trejo last week voted against terminating the city’s economic development agreement with Meta that was approved in late 2023, citing concerns that the city could face massive legal damages.
The proposals within Boyar Trejo’s community benefits agreement call for Meta to invest in:
Water capital expenditures
- Fund, build or upgrade localized water recycling and advanced purification infrastructure, and/or repair old infrastructure. Establish a phased timeline to engineer pipeline design and infrastructure connecting to El Paso Water’s brackish groundwater lines or untreated desalination loops. This would guarantee Meta’s long-term water supply security for the data center cooling towers while physically leaving more potable water in the local aquifer for residents.
- Futureland neighborhood: Fund sewer infrastructure for 214 homes about one mile from the data center.
Environmental Protection
- Emissions reduction fund: Develop and install solar generation and battery storage infrastructure to reduce carbon and localized pollutants.
- Nature-based air quality solutions: Fund localized, low-water native xeriscaping and urban forestry initiatives (utilizing native, particulate-filtering desert canopy like Honey Mesquite and Desert Willow) surrounding the campus to mitigate localized temperature and improve neighborhood air quality.
- Fund local grid resilience (solar + battery microgrids): Upgrade old electrical infrastructure or fund local community solar and battery storage microgrids for El Paso’s critical infrastructure (like hospitals or emergency shelters) to ensure that if the local grid faces strain, the community doesn’t suffer brownouts
- Ratepayer protection fund: Meta would establish a localized escrow fund or direct subsidy program administered by the city to assist El Paso Electric ratepayers from any indirect monthly bill increases.
- Localized workforce and education pipeline: With the expanded job projection to 300 permanent roles, ensure these are focused on Hire El Paso First Program. (The current Chapter 380 agreement requires 50 employees.)
- Advanced training center: A workforce development pipeline established in partnership with local school districts, Workforce Solutions and El Paso Community College to create an advanced training center that prepares students and workers for high-demand careers, including fiber optic technicians, utility professionals, engineers and server technicians.
The proposal by Boyar Trejo comes after a highly contentious daylong City Council meeting June 9 in which the council in a 5-3 vote declined to terminate the tax break agreement with Meta. Over 180 public speakers called to end the deal even in the face of potential litigation, with numerous tradesmen and construction workers and others supporting the deal.
It’s not clear whether Meta will engage in negotiations over the community benefits agreements.
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