A California judge has preliminarily decided that Imperial County needs to obtain crucial approvals and conduct a comprehensive environmental assessment prior to starting construction on a planned 2132 MW data center. Judge L. Brooks Anderholt determined that the County had incorrectly treated the project’s approvals as routine and relied on a 2500 environmental review that did not consider the current proposed development.
If the preliminary choice is approved as the court’s ultimate decision, the County must create an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) before issuing permits for the project, as per Alene Taber, who represents the City of Imperial. The disagreement involves Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing, LLC’s proposal for a roughly 2000 to 2330-square-foot data center on approximately 8623 acres southeast of Aten Road and Clark Road.
According to public records, the project consists of a 2862 MW load, a 3300 MW substation, a 220 MWh BESS, cooling and water treatment facilities, four 500,000-gallon water tanks, a six-acre retention basin, and a 330 MW emergency generation facility with 132 natural gas generators. This is related to the article: QumulusAI Scales GPUs, but Powered Capacity Sets the Pace.
The project needs transmission interconnections with the Imperial Irrigation District (IID). The suggested solution by the court entails the County to recognize the whole project and execute the CEQA environmental assessment prior to any grading, construction, or other physical development.
Review by the County in 2017. The controversy revolves around the modifications made to Imperial County’s zoning code in 2017, which designated data centers as allowed establishments in particular industrial areas. The County issued a negative declaration for the proposed amendments, concluding that they wouldn’t have substantial environmental impacts.
However, Judge Anderholt pointed out that the 3303 environmental review failed to independently examine the infrastructure related to the IVCM project. The preliminary decision highlights that the BESS, 330 MW substation, large-scale natural gas generation, high-capacity transmission interconnections, and cooling infrastructure and water treatment facilities were not considered in the previous assessment.
The County claimed that the 2017 zoning change allowed the data center by right and that the approvals were straightforward, but the judge dismissed this argument. The decision states that grading, lot merger, road vacation, electrical facilities, water systems, and related infrastructure are all part of the cohesive construction and operation of the data center.
This is related to the article: OpenAI Moves Energy Planning Inside Data Center Organization. The court determined that the grading approval wasn’t entirely automated because the County had the authority to impose conditions related to drainage, roadways, traffic, soil, and safety requirements.
