More questions for Project Blue

There are unknown unknowns … Dems spar in Ward 5 … And Monsoon Bingo is depressing at this point.

Yesterday, Tucson City Councilwoman Nikki Lee spilled the tea on Project Blue in her newsletter.

Lee, who has more than 25 years of experience in the tech industry and holds an MBA in IT Management, used her newsletter to publish a 2,118-word essay on the subject. Honestly, it’s longer than some of the county’s Project Blue memos.

Data centers fall squarely within her professional and political wheelhouse, as the 290-acre site that would be annexed into the city (if the Council approves it) sits within her east-side ward.

While other members of the Council have spoken publicly about the proposal since the Pima County Board of Supervisors decided to sell county land to a developer tied to Project Blue earlier this month, no one from the City of Tucson has offered this level of detail in terms of their questions for the developer.

The city is the next crucial next step for Project Blue, as the still-unnamed end user needs the Council’s approval to annex the land into city limits in order to access a massive amount of treated wastewater to cool the data centers.

Lee said her hands were tied on how much she could share, since the city’s economic development officer signed a non-disclose agreement (NDA) that extends to the entire city — including members of the Tucson City Council.

Lee said she was only briefed after the NDA had already been signed, giving her no chance to object.¹

“While I’m limited in what I can share due to a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), I want to speak directly to you, not in vague generalities, but with real clarity about what I know, what I’m asking, and how I’m showing up in this process,” Lee wrote.

With dozens of data centers in Phoenix and thousands more across the country, Lee said the level of secrecy tied to Project Blue goes too far.

“I fundamentally reject that the amount of water they will use should be a highly classified piece of information,” Lee said. “I think that the public has a right to know.”

Under the header “The questions that still need answers,” Lee asks: “How many total sites and phases are planned for this project? What is the estimated total water demand at full build-out across all sites and phases.”

We’re speculating here, but this seems to suggest that the Council may be asked to approve the project in phases rather than all at once. Lee is signaling publicly that the developers must disclose their entire plan, not piecemeal critical information.

And that was just one of the many questions that Lee raised about the project.

Other unknowns include its total water use, environmental and public health protections, including air quality, energy infrastructure, who will pay for those upgrades, and the long-term economic benefit the data centers will have in the community.

Neither Lee nor city officials could comment on what the initial development agreement will contain — citing, of course, the all-powerful NDA.

An excerpt from her newsletter on Thursday.

When we called her this week, Lee couldn’t answer some of the more highly technical questions we asked — but said it’s because she, too, is in the dark.

Even Lee doesn’t know who the end user of the four data centers planned for Phase 1 will be.

She also doesn’t know how many data centers will ultimately be built on the site. Ten seems to be the most common answer, but we’ve heard it could be as many 20 from some people inside City Hall.

Just like in Pima County,² Lee said she wants to revisit how and when NDAs are signed, saying the Council should have more power to make these decisions rather than city administration.

Project Blue is expected to come before the Council in August, although Lee said she won’t support the development until her questions are answered and local residents have had enough time to weigh in on the proposal.

We know Tucson and love it here. Help us continue to cover how Project Blue will (or will not) shape Tucson’s economic and environmental future by upgrading to a paid subscription today.

A forum for the southside Ward 5 seat had an empty chair on Thursday night, leaving candidates Selina Barajas and Christopher Elsner to convince voters to back them in the August primary.

The third candidate, Jesse Lugo, was not able to attend due to an acute health issue, a moderator for the League of Women Voters of Greater Tucson told the audience at the Valencia Library.

While the pair were asked questions from both the League and audience members, the issue they seemingly clashed over most was political endorsements.

Barajas focused some of her comments on now-retired City Councilman Richard Fimbres, who stepped down earlier this year after representing Ward 5 for 16 years. The comments were a subtle dig at the absent rival Lugo, who has been endorsed by Fimbres.

She accused Fimbres of being absent from the community and not campaigning for re-election for over a decade.

“For y'all that don't know, our Ward 5 hasn't had anyone knock on doors in over 16 plus years. So when I'm listening to the community, I'm really hopefully reactivating our Ward 5 neighborhoods,” she said.

With a long list of endorsements from former Congressman Raúl Grijalva and Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, Barajas said she was proud to have so much support from Democratic leaders.

But Elsner used those endorsements to suggest that Barajas is beholden to local leaders in the Democratic Party.

“I don't owe anything to anyone in power. I'm not the chosen candidate of the mayor, of the council, any of our Democratic officials and the Democratic Party here. I'm not endorsed by the incumbent. I'm not bankrolled by wealthy donors. I am not here as a representative of any of those in power,” he said. “I'm an independent voice here to serve you.”

The pair largely agreed on topics like economic development, gentrification, and housing, but had different answers on whether to ban camping in washes.

If he had been on the Council at the time, Elsner told the crowd that he doesn’t think he would have supported the ordinance.

“It was, you know, preemptive to deal with property tax claims associated with Proposition 312. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't understand how creating more ordinances lessens our liability for not enforcing ordinances,” he said.

Barajas didn’t fully commit to a yes or no, but said she could have supported it if the Council had done more to offset the issues caused by the ban.

She was concerned the city has few resources to get everyone into shelters, but said she has talked to homeless individuals while campaigning who told her that a one-size-fits-all solution won’t work for everyone.

“Leaving folks in our streets and moving them around, that's not a sustainable solution for the community,” she said.

Early voting for the Tucson City Council election for residents in Wards 3, 5, and 6 starts July 9.

We wanted to give this week’s verticals a cinematic kick, so we had our art intern, ChatGPT, make movie posters about them.

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The self-driving car company Waymo has big plans for Arizona. They’re planning to double production of autonomous vehicles at their new facility in Mesa.

But riders are a little hesitant. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that a Waymo vehicle was caught driving the wrong way on a Tempe street.

Meanwhile, Waymo’s competitors, like Tesla and Amazon’s Zoox, are trying to get ahead.

Is that what Mesa is going to look like? ChatGPT seems to think so.

Want to know the latest on the self-driving car race? Don’t miss this week’s edition of the A.I. Agenda.

Meanwhile, a Japanese company wants to invest $1 trillion in Arizona’s robotics and AI industries, and University of Arizona researchers are trying to take the uncertainty out of pregnancies.

Plus, if you’re looking for some thoughtful discussion, and a little dark comedy, we’ve got two great short films to show you.

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Arizona lawmakers were trying to crack down on troubled school boards — until Gov. Katie Hobbs stepped in.

She vetoed a bill that would’ve forced school board members to resign if their district’s finances fall apart, calling it “blatant legislative overreach.”

Our art intern, ChatGPT, really keyed into the drama of the debate and made an over-the-top movie poster.

The Isaac Elementary district’s financial crisis sparked the debate, but lawmakers say it’s up to local voters to decide who sits on school boards.

And, really, who are lawmakers to point the finger at school districts’ financial troubles? The Legislature is still bumbling through the process of passing its own budget.

Elsewhere in education, Arizona’s school voucher program finally got a new handbook, but not all parents are thrilled about it. And federal funding cuts are hitting everything from tribal colleges to school lunches.

Want the full scoop? Check out this week’s edition of the Education Agenda.

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The mysterious “Project Blue” promises high-paying jobs and tax revenue from new data centers. The project could also give Southern Arizona a shot at competing with Phoenix in the burgeoning artificial intelligence industry.

But it raises big questions about water use and power consumption, not to mention public trust.

The actual data centers will probably look more like warehouses, but this is much more cinematic.

Pima County officials already approved the land deal, and now all eyes are on the City of Tucson and Tucson Electric Power to see what they do.

Catch up on one of Arizona’s biggest — and most controversial — economic development deals in this week’s edition of the Water Agenda.

Also, President Donald Trump tapped an Arizonan to lead the agency that oversees the Colorado River, and that agency has given the basin states a deadline for their river-sharing negotiations.

Someone at the University of Arizona looked at the near daily disappointment when it comes to monsoon season and thought, “You know what this needs? A fantasy league.”

Southwest Monsoon Fantasy Forecasts doesn’t let you guess when the skies will finally open up, but it does let you compete over how much rain will fall in Tucson — and, if you’re into that kind of thing, Phoenix — each month.

Zack Guido, the assistant professor behind the project and principal investigator at the Arizona Institute for Resilience, says the goal is to sneak some science in by wrapping it in a friendly little competition. Think Fantasy Football, but with fewer friendship-ending fights and more humidity.

"People always want to know what the monsoon will be like, and we have a really hard time answering that question," Guido said. "Much like our weather forecasts, we may know that the conditions are right for rainfall – we just don't have a great idea of where it's going to hit. So, we turned it around and made it a game where we ask the public to play fantasy sports with the weather.”

Joe joined the fray — hoping for at least 2.5 inches of rainfall in July. We will let you know how he feels about his guess in August.

1. This is the case for the county too. Individual Pima County supervisors didn’t sign an NDA but were bound to the one signed by a county official.

2. Pima County Supervisor Jennifer Allen told us earlier this week that she plans on revisiting how and when Pima County signs NDAs.