Socorro County became the first county in New Mexico to approve a temporary moratorium on data centers after months of community organizing in opposition to a 10,000-acre data center, the largest in New Mexico so far. The plan was withdrawn a few days before the Socorro County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the year-long moratorium on June 9th.
Board members and community members alike expressed concern about the data center’s water usage, electrical needs (2 gigawatts, the equivalent of powering 1.7 million American homes), the limited economic benefits for local residents, and the environmental repercussions it could have.
The yearlong moratorium will prohibit data center projects from being started and create an advisory committee of experts and community members to study regulations for similar development projects.
“As our resources are precious, our people are also precious. We hold this ban now but it’s for the future generations,” said Val Thomas, a resident who gave public comments when the moratorium was approved and volunteered to be a part of the blue-ribbon committee.
Nearly 5,000 residents signed a petition rallying support against the data center, which is a large portion of a county with about 16,000 people. The moratorium even drew support from US Representative Gabe Vasquez (D-NM) who said in a statement to Source NM, “I’ve heard it loud and clear from folks in Socorro County: they don’t want one of the world’s largest data centers in their backyard.”
The ripple effects from Socorro County’s data center moratorium are having ripple effects throughout the state. While there’s no active proposal for a similar data center in Santa Fe County, county commissioners are considering a preemptive temporary moratorium on data center development on June 30 where the public will be allowed to submit comments.
In Valencia County, Meta has already established a huge AI data center outside of Los Lunas where it’s continuing to buy up surrounding land for expansion.
And in Doña Ana County, the Project Jupiter data center for Oracle and OpenAI is already under construction despite public outcry. According to the data-center tracking website Cleanview, two other data centers are being proposed in Chaves and Lea counties.
Other states like Maine have considered statewide moratoriums on data centers, but they all failed to pass. Currently New Mexico doesn’t have any statewide restrictions on data center development and usage.
Five advocacy groups from New Mexico have signed an open letter to Congress calling for a nationwide data center moratorium. In their letter they demand for a pause to AI data centers “until adequate regulations can be enacted to fully protect our communities, our families, our environment and our health from the runaway damage this industry is already inflicting.”
