For months, Sebastian Rucci said his massive data center project would not take water from the drought-stricken Colorado River.
Rucci is a developer and lawyer based in the Southern California suburb of Huntington Beach. His company, a LLC called Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing (IVCM), is trying to build a massive artificial intelligence complex in the Imperial Valley that he said needs around 750,000 gallons of water per day for cooling.
In the Imperial Valley, the only source of fresh water is the Colorado River. The mighty waterway is facing a climate change-fueled drought and has fallen to dangerously-low levels this year.
Since December, Rucci and his company repeatedly pledged that their project would not need to draw on the beleaguered river and instead would rely on recycled wastewater from nearby cities.
“The facility purchases municipal wastewater that would otherwise be discarded,” read a February blog post on his law firm’s website. “It does not touch a single drop of the Colorado River.”
Now, though, Rucci’s company is going to court for access to far more than a single drop.
Earlier this month, IVCM filed a lawsuit against the powerful Imperial Irrigation District, or IID. The suit, filed in Imperial County Superior Court, seeks access to 260 million gallons of river water every year. That’s roughly equal to the annual needs of 7,300 Imperial County residents.
IID serves as the public utility for both water and energy in the Imperial Valley. The agency oversees generations-old claims of the region’s farmers to water from the Colorado River. It also delivers electricity to more than 160,000 customers throughout the Imperial and Coachella Valleys.
In the lawsuit, IVCM said turning to IID for water was a “last resort.” Rucci’s company had spent months trying to negotiate recycled water agreements with the cities of Imperial and El Centro, the suit said. They had agreed to cover the cost of upgrading the cities’ wastewater treatment plants, to pay millions for the water itself and to route excess recycled water to the drying Salton Sea.
Ultimately, the complaint said, IVCM was forced to turn to IID for water after both cities backed out of those talks. The company said it filed the lawsuit because IID rejected its application for water in May.
Rucci is representing IVCM through his personal law office. He did not respond to interview requests from KPBS last week.
IID General Counsel Wayne Stumpfer declined to comment on the case, citing the pending litigation.
The decision is the latest turn in Rucci’s yearlong effort to secure approval for the data center complex, which has drawn a groundswell of opposition from residents and some local and state officials over concerns about its potential environmental and public health impacts.
That backlash has prompted a growing response from local elected officials. Tuesday, the Imperial County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to consider an emergency pause on data center development. Several Imperial County cities have also moved forward with their own local moratoriums.
IID officials have responded to those concerns too. IID Chair Karin Eugenio wrote an editorial opposing IVCM’s data center project. This month, the agency’s Board of Directors is considering a new pricing structure for data centers and other customers with large-scale energy needs.
IVCM has previously accused IID of treating the company unfairly.
In a separate federal lawsuit earlier this year, the developer claimed IID was slow-walking their application for energy service, imposing unreasonable financial requests and taking part in a coordinated campaign to spark public outrage.
That lawsuit was against the City of Imperial and did not name IID or any agency officials as co-defendants.
Earlier this year, IVCM backed a challenger for IID’s Board of Directors in this month’s primary election. Rucci filed his most recent lawsuit just days after the candidate's overwhelming loss.
The company would still take steps to avoid putting additional strain on the Colorado River system, according to the lawsuit.
In the suit, the developer said they have leased 160 acres of active farmland to the south of the proposed complex, which uses roughly the same amount of water that the data center project needs. IVCM said it plans on letting that farmland go dormant, or “fallow,” arguing that would offset its water needs.
IVCM also argues that fallowing the land gives them the right to divert the water that the farm is currently receiving to its proposed data center complex.
The amount of water that IVCM is seeking is relatively small compared to the vast amount of water that farmers in the Imperial Valley consume each year.
IID oversees legal claims to 3.1 million acre-feet of water from the Colorado River. One acre-foot is equal to 326,000 gallons, roughly enough to meet the annual needs of one to two average California households, according to the Water Education Foundation.
The total amount of water that IVCM is seeking adds to about 880 acre-feet of water per year.
Data center developers, though, are increasingly looking to rural parts of the U.S. — including places where water is scarce. Earlier this month, an analysis by The Guardian found that the majority of new data centers are now being planned on drought-stricken land.
