New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced in 2025 a partnership with BorderPlex Digital to create the "Digital Infrastructure Campus" in Santa Teresa.
But Santa Teresa residents are being joined by environemental adovcates and nonprofits to decry the project as a water and energy guzzler and threat to local communities.
While the project breaks ground in 2025 near Pete Domenici Highway, with $5 billion in construction spending over the next 10 years, those living and working in southern Doña Ana County have questions about its environmental impact.
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What is the BorderPlex Digital Infrastructure Campus project?
A February 2025 press release from Lujan Grisham's office announced the partnership between the state and BorderPlex Digital Assets, an Austin, Texas-based firm.
"The campus integrates power and water infrastructure with advanced manufacturing, logistics, and data center facilities," the news release stated. In short, the campus would house a data center and water treatment, power generation and manufacturing projects.
“By securing digital infrastructure today, New Mexico is investing in its economy to build a more prosperous tomorrow," Lujan Grisham said in the news release.
Lanham Napier, chairman of BorderPlex Digital Assets, said the company was thrilled with the Memorandum of Understanding with New Mexico."We firmly believe that the next wave of frontier tech belongs on the American frontier," he said.
Among the parters in the campus' development are El Paso Electric, Orion Digital Infrastructure, EPCOR and locally NMSU and DACC.
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How does Doña Ana County's Project Jupiter fit in?
On Aug. 26 Doña Ana County Commissioners voted 5 to one to publish a notice of intent to issue $165 billion in Industrial Revenue Bonds (IRB). The money would finance the construction and installation of a "hyperscale, artificial (AI) data center campus," called Project Jupiter by the county.
Christopher Muirhead with Modrall Sperling Law Firm said the comission's vote is only the first step in considering the bond issuance. A public hearing is expected to be scheduled Sept. 19, with large-scale public meetings and information sessions in the interim.
"Our belief is that your county's really special," Napier said to Doña Ana commissioners. "What makes this county so special? It sits in the intersection, in the nexus, of two countries and a couple states." The data center would be located in BorderPlex Digital Infrastructure Campus.
"This is going to be tranformative for this community," said Commissioner Shannon Reynolds.
In response to dozens of concerns voiced during public comment, he said: "If anybody feels like this is a losing proposition for this community we want to hear about it."
Data centers and jobs
Lujan Grisham's office said the project in Santa Teresa would create 1,000 jobs in New Mexico.
Those jobs would likely be in the construciton, logisitics, IT and manufacutirng industries. Lujan Grisham's administration said that would in turn drive the economy of southern New Mexico.
New Mexico Environemental Law Center Staff Attorney Kacey Hovden, who opposes the creation of a data center, said the actual number of permanant jobs created by such projects is much lower than advertised. She said construction jobs would make the bulk of the intiail job market, but dwindle once the campus construction was complete, with the remaining jobs going to constractors and out-of-state employees.
Water at center of protestors' arguments in data center development
New Mexico Environment Law Center said the plan would "place an enormous strain on the region's power grid and water supply," in a news release.
"We can't survive without the water," Virginia Harrick, a Las Cruces resident, said in a public comment at the Aug. 26 Doña Ana County Board of County Commissioners meeting. "When you're considering AI please keep in mind the use of water because we could lose our water and then we couldn't be here anymore."
Napier said the water consumption for the project would be minimal, and pointed to its closed loop system. He also denied that it would increase costs for local users or be a burden to the energy grid.
Detractors say there's no science behind the claim by BorderPlex that its closed loop process wouldn't impact local water supplies and quality.
"We have a finite amount of water left in New Mexico, and Sunland Park and Santa Teresa residents have been asking for decades for reliable and consistent access to clean and safe drinking water. And yet, local and state leaders are now considering committing New Mexico’s limited water and funds to an out-of-state business venture that cannot promise long-term revenue or employment for New Mexicans, but is guaranteed to run New Mexico dry and jeopardize the lives of Santa Teresa and Sunland Park community members," said Hovden.
Hovden said Santa Teresa and Sunland park "are not sacrificial zones," and deserve to have local and state lawmakers secure clean drinking water for the communties.
"We have already been faced with many water quality challenges here. To bring a data center into our area would only bring us more challenges. There is not enough water in the first place to even think this is a good idea," said Vivian Fuller a resident of Santa Teresa in a news release.
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What's the price of data center?
A fact sheet provided by New Mexico Environemnt Law Center alleged that data centers across the U.S. consume an average of 1.8 billion gallons of drinking water per year - that's 5 million gallons per day. It pointed to a data centers' expected lifespan of 10 to 15 years, operated often without remediation plans to address the water loss.
It said desalinated water is not a solution for data centers which must operate with "clean" potable water - otherwise known as drinking water. That, it said, often led to increased water prices for consumers in areas where data centers are located.
The fact sheet alleged that New Mexico's limited water supply - impacted by prolonged drought - would be drained by data center operations. In Los Lunas, where Meta's data center is located, direct water use increased by 300% to 74 million gallons over a five year period, according to NMELC.
Vic Kolenc of the El Paso Times contributed to this reporting.
This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Data center raises water concerns in Santa Teresa
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