Navajo leaders raise alarms about planned AI data center near Horseshoe Bend

Filed 15h ago · Via Arizona Mirror · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Jeff Hitchcock from Seattle, WA, USA · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Page, Arizona officials approved a land sale framework last fall for a 500-acre parcel near Horseshoe Bend to Huntley LLC for $7 million, intended for a 1-gigawatt data center a mile from the Colorado River landmark.

The site borders the Navajo Nation's LeChee Chapter, which passed a resolution opposing the sale after residents raised concerns about the water needed to cool the facility's servers amid ongoing severe drought.

Tribal advocates say data center developers increasingly target tribal land precisely because it is less regulated and economically constrained, prompting some nations, including the Seminole, Kickapoo and Cherokee, to enact bans or moratoriums, while others explore tribally owned partnerships instead.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Water gets called precious right up until somebody offers seven million dollars for the land next door, and then it becomes a line item. Drought doesn't care whose servers need cooling, and a river doesn't get a vote on the sale. The tribes saying no first are the ones who've read this contract before under a different name.

Source: Read the original at Arizona Mirror → Scored: Meatball Parade · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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