“We are terribly disappointed, but we also understand that we asked the New Mexico Supreme Court for extraordinary relief.” That was Mariel Nanasi, executive director of New Energy Economy, after the state’s highest court on Thursday turned away her group’s petition over Project Jupiter, the hyperscale data center under construction in Doña Ana County.
The justices rejected a second petition too, from the Center for Biological Diversity. Both groups had argued that permitting for the project was unfair. The court’s two orders, issued after it reviewed briefs and responses, gave no explanation. It also lifted the temporary pauses it had imposed on the proceedings last month.
What restarts
Two permits move again. The State Engineer’s emergency permit for a well on the 1,400-acre site in Santa Teresa becomes active, and construction of the multibillion-dollar campus can draw water once more. At the New Mexico Environment Department, the contested air quality proceeding resumes. It will decide whether a natural gas fuel cell system to power the project can release emissions. A hearing had been set for September, but nobody knows yet what the new schedule looks like.
The hearing officer who ran that proceeding resigned the day before the court’s stay took effect in August. Nanasi’s petition said his rulings favored the developers and that he set an accelerated hearing schedule and put unfair limits on sharing evidence. The department will appoint a replacement and follow the new officer’s guidance, spokesperson Drew Goretzka said.
The groups respond
“We went to the Supreme Court because we believed the rules of this proceeding were stacked against meaningful public participation,” Nanasi said. Her group wanted a fair chance to obtain evidence, test the applicant’s claims and make its case. “We hope that what happens next is simple: A fair hearing.”
Colin Cox, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, was blunter. “The Office of the State Engineer has been rubber-stamping the use of our precious fresh water by wildly unpopular data centers, and this ruling will only make things worse,” he said. His petition claimed the agency broke state law by granting an emergency permit to drill a new well, and to use water rights once permitted for agriculture, without holding a hearing. The group provided public records showing the new well had used 103 million gallons of fresh water since April.
State Engineer Elizabeth Anderson called her agency’s process “transparent and fair” and said it would ensure any new use of water along the Rio Grande comes from existing rights. Oracle, one of the project’s main partners, said it would keep working with the department and other authorities so that Project Jupiter meets environmental and regulatory requirements.
The fight arrives as public backlash against data centers grows across the country, with residents pressing for scrutiny of water use, power consumption and pollution.
