One of the nation’s oldest environmental groups is suing the Imperial County Board of Supervisors over its decision to greenlight a massive and deeply controversial data center complex earlier this year.
This month, the San Diego Chapter of the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit challenging the supervisors’ April decision to allow several parcels of land to be joined together so the project can be built.
The suit, filed in Imperial County Superior Court, alleges that the supervisors are taking a fragmented approach to approving the nearly one-million-square-foot project, which could obscure its true environmental impact. The suit alleges that this violates the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
The “county is trying to avoid environmental review by breaking the project down into small pieces and approving them piecemeal,” Sierra Club attorney Kathryn Pettit told KPBS in a statement. “That’s classic segmentation, which is absolutely prohibited under CEQA.”
The environmental group also accused the county of other procedural infractions, including overriding the planning commission before it had a chance to make a formal decision.
Imperial County officials did not respond to a request for comment.
The Sierra Club has no official chapter in Imperial Valley, but it does have around 1,000 members in the region and has been active there for years.
The organization’s legal challenge comes as a separate lawsuit over the data center project, brought by the City of Imperial, could be headed to trial as soon as next month. Local officials there have also argued that the project needs to undergo a full environmental analysis.
Since it came into public view last winter, the planned data center complex has become a source of intense controversy across the Imperial Valley.
The project would be located next to several residential neighborhoods in the cities of Imperial and El Centro and is intended to serve one of the so-called hyperscale AI companies, which include Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft.
The giant air-conditioned warehouse packed with computer chips could need more power than the entire County of Imperial used last year, along with 750,000 gallons of water per day, according to the project’s developers. It would also include a large battery system and a bank of natural gas generators for backup power.
The developer, a brand-new Huntington Beach-based company called Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing (IVCM), argues the data center complex will bring a burst of construction work, along with new tax revenue and some longer-term jobs.
The company has said in court filings that it stands to make billions of dollars on the facility. They are trying to build it as fast as possible, including by designing it to avoid an in-depth environmental review.
Across the Valley, though, a fierce coalition of neighbors, environmental advocates and local officials has united to fight the project.
Many residents worry the data center complex will strain the valley’s water and power supply and pollute the surrounding neighborhoods. Because county officials have not yet analyzed the project through a formal environmental review, neighbors said they will not find out about those impacts until they are already underway.
Other data center projects are also facing pushback in the Coachella Valley to the north, which also relies on the Imperial Valley’s public utility for power.
Mark West, the director of the Sierra Club’s San Diego chapter, said the group did not entirely oppose the data center. But he said their intent was to force Imperial County to undertake an in-depth environmental analysis of the project.
“We just want to make sure that, when they are built, that all of the environmental impacts that they're having are analyzed and mitigated,” West said. “It's the same with the warehouse or a housing development.”
Their ultimate goal, West said, was to make sure that the county and the developers were taking community feedback into consideration.
The last time the Sierra Club took the Imperial County government to court was in 1999.
That year, the environmental group sued the county over the expansion of a gypsum manufacturing plant and quarry between El Centro and Ocotillo. Gypsum is a soft mineral, often appearing clear or white, that’s commonly used in drywall.
The Sierra Club and the county were in litigation over that case for two decades, finally reaching a settlement in 2019.
The environmental group has also intervened in higher courts on behalf of the county.
In 2001, the environmental law firm Earthjustice sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on behalf of the Sierra Club, accusing federal officials of unjustly waiving stronger clean air protections in parts of the Imperial Valley.
A federal appeals court eventually ordered the EPA to reclassify the Imperial Valley as “serious” for particle pollution.
The Sierra Club is currently engaged in a separate lawsuit against the Imperial Irrigation District, the Valley’s power and water agency.
The group has accused the utility of entering a Colorado River conservation deal, it said, would put communities around the Salton Sea in greater danger of breathing in toxic, chemical-laden dust.
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Kori Suzuki/KPBSCounty officials tightly restricted access to the building, and armed sheriff’s deputies removed at least three people who had come to oppose the project. -
Kori Suzuki/KPBSThe Imperial Irrigation District is already in the midst of several key elections and a high-stakes negotiation over the future of the Colorado River.
