California's largest AI data center is suing for access to 287 million gallons of Colorado River water a year

Critics fear the lawsuit could shift water from farms to AI

by · TechSpot

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A hot potato: Once again, an AI data center is embroiled in controversy. This time, it's not land, electricity, or tax breaks under the spotlight, but water – specifically, water from the Colorado River. And the company behind the facility is suing to get it.

Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing (IVCM), the company behind what could become California's largest AI data center, is suing the Imperial Irrigation District (IID) after the publicly owned utility rejected its application for water.

The proposed $10 billion, 950,000-square-foot, 330-megawatt facility would require roughly 750,000 gallons per day for cooling, or about 287 million gallons annually.

That amount equals around 880 acre-feet, just 0.03% of IID's 3.1 million-acre-foot annual entitlement. However, the Colorado River is Imperial Valley's only source of fresh water and supplies between 35 million and 40 million people across the West. Federal officials are preparing new operating rules as reservoirs remain under pressure from prolonged drought and weak runoff.

Developer Sebastian Rucci argues that the project wouldn't increase overall demand. IVCM has leased 160 acres of nearby farmland and plans to stop irrigating it, redirecting roughly the same amount of water to the data center.

The company says the facility would create 1,688 construction jobs, more than 100 permanent positions, and nearly $3 billion in economic impact over 30 years in a county where unemployment reached 17.6% in June.

That pitch might sound enticing, but it hasn't won over the project's opponents. Water rights in Imperial Valley are held in trust and administered by IID rather than belonging outright to individual landowners. Critics fear that allowing private deals to shift agricultural water toward data centers could weaken public control and encourage more farmers to sell access to water instead of growing crops.

Imperial County has imposed a temporary moratorium on new data center projects while a commission reviews its rules.

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While fallowing 160 acres is unlikely to threaten America's food supply, what's worrying people here is the potential precedent. Agriculture supports not only landowners but farmworkers, equipment suppliers, repair shops, transport companies, and other businesses. Once water becomes more valuable for powering AI than growing produce, the economic effects could spread beyond the fields being taken out of production.

The lawsuit arrives amid rapidly growing hostility toward data centers, especially over water use. There were the Georgia residents who blamed nearby facilities for water problems, a Fayette County data center that consumed 29 million gallons before receiving a bill, and Virginia's soaring data center water use. In Chile, facilities have been accused of worsening a 1,000-year drought, while wastewater from Meta's unfinished Cheyenne site recently introduced a rare bacterium into the city's reclaimed-water system.

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