02 July 2021

BRAVO! Jennifer Duff. . .6-1 Stand Out Break In The Mediocre Mesa City Council "Group-Think Mentality"

It takes a lot of courage to speak up on an issue that is vital to Sustainability in one of the most-conservative large cities in America - one of the "fastest-growing suburbs" where rampant speculation comes with a growth-at-any-price consequences.
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Refreshing to see this report yesterday in a major mainstream media ABC15:

Data centers consume millions of gallons of Arizona water daily

MESA, AZ — Massive buildings are sprouting from our desert landscapes, their footprints normally more than a million square feet. The structures are filled with computer servers processing and storing huge amounts of data.

“This recent one is on 196 acres, it’s going to be divided into three phases,” said Mesa Vice Mayor Jenn Duff.

Vice Mayor Jenn Duff | City of Mesa

Duff is the only city council member to vote no on a recently approved $800 million data center - rumored to be for Facebook - after discovering the facility would eventually use 1.75 million gallons of water every day for cooling their rows of servers once fully operational. This as state reservoirs like Lake Mead and rivers like the Colorado are so low that federal restrictions are likely to be triggered on Arizona’s water allocation as early as next year.

“So, when I think about that and I think about the huge impact of a data center that uses water for cooling, it’s something I felt wasn’t a good use of water for our city,” said Duff.

She says it’s the eighth data center approved in the City of Mesa and while they do generate millions in state taxes and fees for the water and electricity, the newest facility, like many others, will only employ around 150 people.

“They’re not high-income jobs and they don’t employ a lot of people that’s for sure,” said Duff.

Drought Status | Arizona Department of Water Resources

“If you want to bring in new businesses and industries that are going to be water use intensive, that should be more heavily scrutinized,” said Dr. Christopher Castro, Professor of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Arizona who agrees with Duff’s apprehensions. “So, my question to them is where exactly is this water coming from? Is it sustainable? Are you accounting for our conditions of being in a long-term 20-year megadrought?”

Right now, that water source would be drawing from the same one soon to be requiring cuts from our agriculture industry and possibly others in the future. That’s not to say companies running these data centers aren’t trying to reduce their water footprint.

Some use air conditioning systems while others are experimenting with using methods like free-air cooling, which uses fresh outdoor air to cool a space. However, it only works in cooler climates.

“If you want to talk about things like maybe using reclaimed or recycled water, treated wastewater, then those are perhaps more viable solutions,” said Castro.

As of now, that’s not the case with this latest approval or a Google data center currently under construction in Mesa. Once completed, the new facility alone will use the same amount of water on a daily basis as 9,200 homes. Duff says it was something she just couldn't ignore.

To the Last Drop: Planning for Water Shortage - AZPM

“If we weren’t in this cut back already, it might be different, but we are in a danger zone in my opinion,” said Duff.

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ADWR Field Services manager discusses recent “Water Level Change Map” for the Phoenix AMA

Published: Fri, 06/11/2021
ADWR is committed to making data about Arizona’s water resources as accessible to the public as possible. And, for that matter, as quickly as possible. Water analysts outside the Department often need fresh information about, say, groundwater conditions in certain regions of Arizona quickly

Quarterly Drought Status Update: JANUARY - MARCH 2021

             Home          Source: https://new.azwater.gov/drought/drought-status

January-March 2021 Long-term Drought Status Map

Dry conditions during the January through March period led to the expansion of Exceptional Drought (D4) through northern Navajo and eastern Apache and Coconino counties, as well as through east central Arizona.

Additionally, Extreme Drought (D3) expanded across northern and central Arizona and throughout Pinal and Pima counties.

The few pockets of no drought or Abnormally Dry (D0) conditions were replaced by Moderate (D1) or Severe Drought (D2). 

While snowpack accumulated throughout a few locations, it was short-lived, and any potential run-off from the early melt-out was reduced by the already dry soils.

Streamflows and inflows into reservoirs are low as a result of the dry conditions.

 

This report was prepared by the Arizona Drought Monitoring Technical Committee, April 14, 2021. Arizona's long-term drought status map is updated quarterly and the next update in early July, it will reflect the conditions of April, May and June. The long-term drought status for each watershed is determined by comparing the precipitation and streamflow percentiles for the past 24, 36, 48 and 60 months to a 40-year historical record.

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RELATED CONTENT ON THIS BLOG

 

1 2019 Bill Jabjiniak, Mesa’s economic development director, said the boom is no coincidence and represents eight years of planning to lure the high-tech companies and their high-paying jobs to Mesa.

“I would tell you this is a vision that started eight years ago,’’ Jabjiniak said, saying it was back then that he and his colleagues started assembling the infrastructure vital to data centers. . .OK What about the water??
. . .that's the most precious commodity here in the desert and The East Valley - it's not mentioned, left out!
 
 01 June 2021
It's about time Rogue Columnist Jon Talton warmed-up his pen and hit on this subject:
May 31, 2021
 
"Data centers becoming dominant force in Mesa," reads the headline on a recent East Valley Tribune story. The lede: "It may never rival Silicon Valley, but Mesa is fast becoming Data Center Alley." 
 

This "Alley" isn't transforming struggling west Mesa and it's nowhere near the light-rail line. Instead, it's centered on the "Elliott Avenue Technology Corridor" in far southeast Mesa, the location of agriculture, desert, and the former Williams Air Force Base. Now, with abundant concrete, gravel, and asphalt, it will expand the increasingly dangerous Phoenix urban heat island. The "Corridor" is entirely car dependent.

Data centers are lowest on the ladder of the tech economy: necessary, but bringing few jobs — much less high-end jobs — and several headaches. This is why they are usually found in rural areas desperate to replace their lost millwork, manufacturing, or railroad jobs. States and localities shell out huge incentives and disappointment follows. . .

Another problem with Data Center Alley: These massive server farms are water hogs. Elsewhere, they contribute to climate change because of their enormous appetite for electricity. Maybe Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station helps Mesa here. It's only built upwind of the nation's fifth most populous city.

And no evidence has emerged that data centers are a gateway to more advanced tech work. Metro Phoenix got nowhere in its bid for Amazon HQ2.

Read more closely and it's clear that Mesa's "technology corridor" is yet another Arizona real-estate hustle, dependent on cheap farmland and tilt-up buildings, plus a heapin' helping of tax breaks — in a state that ranks second from last in per-student funding. . .

After All These Years The Time Is (Almost) Right To Hit Pay-Dirt: City Planner Tom Ellsworth + The 4-in-One Zoning Case

< Here's one picture that's worth more than just a few thousandwords, two hours of your time watching a video-on-demand, and history going back to a bygone era in the 1880's. It's the next step in the development process after passing through the Mesa Planning & Zoning Board. It's been years in the making
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Here's City Staff Planner Tom Ellsworth making a presentation on Water Asset Management in front of a public Mesa City Council Study Session earlier this month on October 7, 2019.

There's $800,000,000 on-the-table and on the agenda for Capital Improvement Project for discussion . . .
Christened the "inner loop" by those in the planning effort, it's the area near Loop 202 around Elliot and Hawes Road. Much of the land falls within  Maricopa County and will require annexation into Mesa before development could take off. . .
The group of dairy farmers plan to take their zoning application to Mesa later this year, according to Jordan Rose, the attorney representing the farmers. The group wants to work with city officials to refine the plan for approval by the City Council next year. The proposed land-use plan so far includes residential, urban mixed-use, commercial and office space areas

BRIEF                

Mesa, AZ lands $1B Google data center
Published July 3, 2019


 

Dive Brief:
Google will bring a new $1 billion data center to Mesa, AZ after the city council approved the move in a vote Monday, according to the Arizona Republic
The data center will be built on 187 acres of farmland in the Elliot Road Technology Corridor, which already has five existing or planned data centers. Construction is expected to begin within five years, with the first part of the data center projected to be in place by 2025. 


 

As part of the agreement, Google will get a $16 million break in property taxes over 25 years.
Dive Insight:
Google’s arrival boosts Mesa's reputation as a hub for data centers, which tech giants are increasingly building outside of the traditional base of Silicon Valley. Mesa is also home to a 1.3 million-square-foot Apple data center, open since 2016, and has used the facilities to build out its Technology Corridor. The development is growing across Arizona, with Microsoft recently purchasing three plots of land there for new data facilities. 
It’s unclear how many jobs the data center will create, since most operations at those facilities are automated, though construction will create new jobs. Even with the tax break, the city’s economic development director estimates the project will bring in nearly $157 million in revenue, according to the East Valley Tribune, including $10,000 in annual rent.
That led Mayor John Giles to declare the deal a "home run."
Bringing in data centers is also a way to potentially attract tech giants to relocate more operations there. Google has touted its "major expansion" in data centers as a way to spread its investments outside of California; in February, the company announced $13 billion in data center investments across 14 states. As cities look to attract big tech firms away from the coasts, Mesa’s recruitment could pose as a model on how best to bring in the industry. 

 

 

 

 

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