In the small desert community of Inyokern, a developer’s plan to build an AI data center is drawing skepticism from residents and concern from officials in nearby Ridgecrest, largely because of water use in an already water-stressed area.
Ridgecrest resident Jennifer Slayton said locals are worried the project could drive up costs for residents.
“We can't afford hundreds of thousands a year to be added to our water bill so we can subsidize a large business that wants to come here,” Slayton said.
Ridgecrest City Councilman Skip Gorman also raised concerns about how much water the facility could require, particularly for cooling.
“The water issue has to do with many things you read about how thirsty data centers are. And data centers are particularly thirsty,” Gorman said.
Gorman said it is still unclear how much water would be needed to cool the data center, but he has heard estimates of up to five million gallons of water a day.
He also pointed to existing local conditions as an example of how limited water already is in the area.
“You can drive through town you won't see any front lawns. Water is becoming precious now. The quality of the water has never been very good,” he said.
The developers have created a website outlining responses to concerns about the project, saying it will use 98% less water than traditional data centers and 57 times less water than local mining operations.
The developers also claim independent technical studies have confirmed “less than significant” impacts across all 20 CEQA environmental categories, including water, air quality and noise.
But Iris Stewart-Frey, a professor of water resources at Santa Clara University, said there is a lack of transparency about water use at existing data centers in California.
“And we studied in our recent report every single data center in California and found that there is so little actual information about the water use of them,” Stewart-Frey said.
Stewart-Frey also questioned the project’s approach to environmental review.
The developers have opted for a small power plant exemption that, if granted, would allow them to move forward with the permitting process without conducting a full environmental review.
“The question I would ask is why is it then not possible to pass a full environmental review or why is the developer so hesitant to pass a full environmental review for the community to be able to obtain that necessary data,” Stewart-Frey said.