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COURTS✒ EDITORIALABSURDITY:
California judge halts state’s largest data center
Filed 1h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk
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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0
Photo: Dietmar Rabich · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
An Imperial County judge halted what would be California's largest data center, ruling the nearly 1-million-square-foot Imperial Valley Data Center project must undergo full environmental review under the state's environmental quality law rather than proceeding on 2017 zoning alone.
Judge Brooks Anderholt found the county improperly approved the project piecemeal, breaking a 330-megawatt facility that would use natural gas generators and 750,000 gallons of water daily into separate permits to dodge scrutiny. The city of Imperial and the Sierra Club sued after a lot merger advanced without full review; the developer says it will seek a new trial or appeal, while touting an estimated $2.94 billion in regional economic benefits over 30 years.
The full dispatch is available from the source below.
✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK
Slicing one big project into little permit-sized pieces so nobody has to look at the whole thing is a trick as old as zoning itself, and it usually works until a judge decides to count the pieces back up. The developer's now shopping for a lot with no neighbors, which tells you plenty about the neighbors he had. A million square feet and 750,000 gallons a day is not a rounding error, whatever the spreadsheet says about tax revenue.
