The last time leadership behind the massive and controversial data center Project Jupiter came to speak to Doña Ana County commissioners, three people were arrested.
Tuesday’s meeting was significantly less raucous — Mahesh Thiagarajan, vice president of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Aman Joshi, chief commercial officer at Bloom Energy, presented environmental plans and new construction data touting an increase in the number of county residents working at the site.
Work is progressing despite a state Supreme Court order Aug. 23 placing two key permitting processes on hold — including its air quality permit proceeding, which was previously set to begin Monday in Sunland Park. Construction is now about 26% complete, Thiagarajan said Tuesday.
Oracle announced a slew of environmental proposals for the site in news releases Tuesday, including $1 million to research the potential for capturing carbon dioxide from Bloom Energy fuel cells, twice-yearly environmental assessments performed by a third party and a public dashboard with information on air quality, noise, heat, light and water use at the site once the project is live.
Thiagarajan also said they are calling for proposals for how to develop two gigawatts of new renewable energy, designed to support “Project Jupiter’s commitment to achieve 100% carbon-free energy matching by 2031.”
Hiring local
As of Tuesday, there were 466 Doña Ana County residents out of 3,686 construction workers on-site, Thiagarajan said, up from 2,755 total workers recorded July 28.
This would appear to be a significant increase from less than a month ago. According to an Aug. 18 email obtained through a public records request, 1,600 records could not be matched to a zip code and only 189 construction workers were Doña Ana County residents.
Workforce information is reported quarterly to the state Department of Workforce Solutions, according to a statement from STACK Infrastructure, another Project Jupiter developer. However, the department told The New Mexican on Aug 19, in response to a records request, that “no responsive records exist at this time.”
Julia Gentin is a reporter for The Las Cruces New Mexican, The Santa Fe New Mexican and Searchlight New Mexico through a partnership with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. She covers the Southern New Mexico region. Learn more about Report for America at reportforamerica.org.
