The following is an AZPM original production.

From the radio studios of AZPM, welcome to this latest edition of The Press Room.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

Coming up, a massive data center development called Project Blue has generate mixed feelings in Pima County, optimism over possible economic development and job creation, and deep concerns over potential water and energy usage.

We'll talk to an opponent and a supporter of Project Blue and learn which powerful company is behind all of it.

Those conversations next on The Press Room.

♪ UPBEAT MUSIC ♪ Hello and welcome to The Press Room.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

If approved by elected officials in Tucson and Pima County, the plan known as Project Blue would bring at least four large data centers to a 290 acre site.

Opponents of Project Blue have expressed concerns about, among other things, how much water and energy the data centers would use.

They've also wondered about the level of secrecy attached to the plan.

Supporters believe that Project Blue will be a boon for economic development in the region and it will be a job creator.

And advocates have cited an effort by developers to make the overall project water positive.

With me to talk about Project Blue in more detail are Pima County Supervisor Jennifer Allen, who voted against the plan when it came before the Board of Supervisors.

Welcome, thank you for being here.

Thank you.

Also with us is Ian McDowell, Vice President and Regional Director of Sundt Construction.

Ian, thank you for being here as well.

Thank you for having me.

Ian, since you're here as our supporter, let me just start off with sort of a CliffsNotes version.

Why do you think Project Blue would be good for the area?

Who would benefit in the area from this?

Yeah, I think you hit it at the open.

It's from the pro side, I would say.

I love the idea of the jobs, right?

So the jobs in the construction side, that's my backstory.

And then of course the permanent jobs as well.

I think the tax revenue is one thing I don't think you mentioned, but I think that there's lots of different angles there for different beneficiaries of the tax revenue.

I think there's even some other potential revenue sources there, especially with the extension of some of the potable water line.

And I think my last bit is that I really like it as sort of a proof of concept about what we can actually do here in Southern Arizona.

Every time you hear about these big projects, it feels like they go to our cousins to the north.

And I like the idea that we could all stand back at the end of this and say, look what we did.

Okay, Supervisor, I want you to dig into some of that, but before we get to it, you already voted against the project as a member of the Board of Supervisors.

So I do have a lot of concerns.

Give me your top couple before we dig in a little bit more.

Well, what's interesting is that when the Board of Supervisors took the vote on it, we had close to zero information about what we were actually voting on.

So that in and of itself was a primary concern then.

But you're looking at data centers because this would be the first time we would be opening up for data centers in Pima County, but they have proliferated elsewhere across the region.

So in looking at others, we saw that they consume up to 2 million gallons of water a day, that the energy consumption to be able to fuel the data center as well as to get the water and the water required to generate the electricity is also massive.

So those are some of the primary concerns and then just thinking about these precious resources that we have in a desert, in a drought-ridden desert, that we need to be able to think multiple generations down the road when we make economic development decisions along with other decisions.

Okay, yeah, let's dig on the water issue because it is a desert anyway, and we're in the midst of a couple-decade drought and who knows when that's gonna end.

So what about this concept of the potential for water positivity?

How can people, considering the situation we're in, how can people believe that's truly a possibility?

Yeah, I think the balance that they're doing, and by the way, I'm more of a construction guy as opposed to an expert per se on all the things in there.

I brought myself some notes, so I can hopefully not misquote anything.

No, I will, but I think the idea in a nutshell, is to do the extension of the non-potable line.

So the extension of the non-potable line then opens up lots of different uses for that non-potable line.

Like the one people like to talk about is turning on the landfill, right?

So the landfill right now is using somewhere on the order of 100 million gallons a year of potable water just for dust suppression and compaction and things like that.

So there's one way to actually flip it over onto the non-potable side.

So I think there's a number of exchanges that they'd wind up doing, right?

But it's kind of a swap to a large degree.

And then of course they plan on actually treating that non-potable water at some point during the construction cycle and then making the flip to non-potable water, doing a treatment of the water that's been used in the system and then discharging it down into the sewer.

But do you understand what people would have concerns about it considering our situation?

I think the thing that lots of people are struggling with and frankly, I understand why you struggled with some of the lack of information.

I don't think there's a known user right now.

I've seen some things in the news obviously, but I don't think that they have an exact user.

In fact, I would imagine that until the city votes on annexation, they probably wouldn't be able to sign a lease for a project that doesn't have a guaranteed source of water.

So I think that's the part that's hard and frankly understandable, I think, for people who are struggling with some of the things.

I don't think everything's known right now, so it's hard to make a leap of faith.

Supervisor, let's talk a little bit more about the potential environmental impact, including water, but overall, again, these are things where I think a lot of people would love to be positive about, say, if this project were to come to fruition in the ways that it's being talked about, that would be great, but obviously, as you said, with lack of information, there are reasons for concerns about that.

So I don't wanna say beyond water, because that's so important.

What about energy usage?

What about potential environment impact?

Well, the first thing I wanna say around water is that water positivity isn't a thing, right?

That's a marketing term that is used to-- But if technology advances, maybe people-- It's just made up.

Well, I think what they're trying to argue is that they will use potable water, so they will use reclaimed water after the initial phase of construction that'll last for at least two years, so that's all drinking water, groundwater, and then reclaimed water.

And then they'll do some investments in trying to support conservation and other things, and then if you add all that up, you might be able to get to a number that is not a negative, but trying to get to a positive.

But again, I think it's sort of like a term like clean coal, of which coal is not ever clean.

So water consumption is still water consumption, and it is a finite resource of which we have not enough to survive for generations to come, and so it is concerning no matter how it is sort of painted and packaged.

In other areas, so we think about energy.

I was talking to somebody just yesterday, who was experiencing outages in the Foothills across District 3 that I represent, is about 70% of Pima County, and we have outages across the region.

We are looking at the data center, and I guess maybe even before going down that path, one other piece I just wanted to touch on is that in your introduction, you mentioned the 290 acres and a handful of data centers.

This is this other point that I think is so frustrating, is that we don't actually know exactly how many data centers we're talking about.

The land that the county sold to the developer is the drawings that we have seen are around 10 data centers.

There's also been reference to another parcel of land to put another 15 plus, I've heard more numbers around, kind of in the mid 20s, low 20s of data centers, and that's just ones in which we know about that will come to city or county and there might be part of Project Blue.

But again, it's all shrouded in mystery under the name of a non-disclosure agreement that keeps some of these critical information from us.

Only because we have a limited amount of time left.

I wanna get to the issue of potential job creation, potential economic development.

Ian, talk about that because we've seen different numbers, we've seen numbers related to construction, which to some people those numbers look pretty good.

Talk about that, but also the post-construction, those numbers have people a little underwhelmed.

So can you talk a little bit about that?

Sure, so those numbers I'm familiar with, I think they've thrown around 3000 construction jobs, which certainly sounds nice.

I mean, I think something like 4% of the people across the country work in the construction field.

So whether it's subcontracting or supplying or being a general contractor.

So it's a good chunk of the population.

And so it's a really good boost for the economy.

I can tell you relative to the construction economy now, there's a lot of projects that have been suspended.

There's a lot of projects, people are worried about tariffs, people are worried about interest rates.

There's just a lot of concern.

So the number of projects that have hit the pause button is kind of on a high, it's an all-time high as far as I've heard.

And so this would be a way to almost recession-proof that industry.

You'd have 10 years of consistent work for people to go do.

And these are pretty good jobs.

I think the thing that, well, I'll tell you what, there's one thing I've maybe heard in the conversation.

And because this is what I do, I might take a little offense.

But the idea that the jobs are temporary, every construction job is temporary almost by nature.

You work a 40-year career, you're probably gonna do 30 or 40 projects.

And like I said, you have a job that lasts 10 years, that's a pretty cool thing.

I've been doing it for 30 years.

The thing I'd chime in is that those 30 years, I spent nine years working away from the home.

So not ideal, especially when the kids are younger.

So it's nice.

If you're a construction worker and you say, someone tells you, you get to stay home for 10 years, they're gonna be pretty happy.

Well, and Ian briefly, because we've only got a minute or so left, I'll give you a quick follow-up on this.

But what about the jobs after construction?

I think people have talked about that too.

Have heard numbers as low as 75.

I think they've ranged.

I think that there's an agreement they have with the county where it says 75, and some of the literature says 180.

I think the thing I just add to there, I think the reported salary is $64,000.

I guess I always look at it compared to what the average is.

And I wanna say that the average is just under 45,000.

So these jobs are, they're 42% over the median, or the average salary that's going on here in the county.

So I don't know, 42% raise sounds okay.

I take one.

Okay, so Supervisor Allen, I know we've just dipped our toe in the water of this, but 30 seconds, 45 seconds, as short as you can make it.

Talk about concerns related to economic development, because the construction jobs, that does sound good to a lot of people, but after the fact, not quite as much.

What are your concerns as far as that goes?

Has there been too much emphasis on, look at all these great jobs we're gonna create, but they might be short term?

Yeah, I think, like folks in all of our community, we need more jobs here.

We need more construction jobs here.

We need some good union jobs here.

I met so many people that have to travel in order to get their day's job in.

But I think we also have to think about our community as a whole, and the livability, as well as just the cost of living.

So I think the construction jobs, I think it is one of the stronge selling points of this project.

However, taken into account the impact on our water, increased energy costs, because we just saw a 14% rate hike from Tucson Electric Power.

That's not the first rate hike we have seen, and it is only going to increase.

And with Project Blue and data centers having a tremendous increase in demand on TEP for electricity, and as much as they promise that rate payers are not going to see that, those promises are being made by the company that is going to profit from putting the data centers in.

So I think we need to look really closely, and with a lot of skepticism, and see it in writing.

We don't just trust what the folks who are going to profit from this project tell us.

Okay, we'll be following this very closely, obviously.

Pima County Supervisor Jennifer Allen, thank you so much for being here.

My pleasure.

Ian McDowell, Vice President, Regional Director of Sundt Construction, thank you as well.

Thank you.

And The Press Room continues after this.

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Welcome back to The Press Room.

I'm Steve Goldstein, now joined by our illustrious journalists.

John Washington of AZ Luminaria, Caitlin Schmidt of the Tucson Spotlight.

Guys, thanks for being here.

John, you're gonna get the headline today.

Because of work you and your colleague, Yana Kunichoff did related to who's behind Project Blue.

We spent the first half of the program talking about Project Blue generally, but it's Amazon.

Were you now, so first of all, before we get into how you found this out, and the work you did, was there a surprise?

There was speculation it was gonna be one of these big tech companies.

No, I don't think there's any surprise.

I mean, yeah, people who are putting, for the big four or five giant tech companies, and Amazon was certainly one of them.

They have 200 data centers across the country, either already operating or under construction right now.

So yeah, no surprise there at all.

And how did you learn it?

Well, we requested records.

I think one of the things that we're looking at is not only trying to get into the details of environmental impact, as well as economic impact, but a lot of the public uproar right now is about the lack of transparency.

And so trying to build out a timeline of who knew what and when, we requested records and we found in a document from March of 2023 that Amazon was named.

The headline was Project Blue is Amazon Web Services.

And I think one of the other things that we found in the documents that is pretty relevant to the conversation right now is that they go back that far, that the county and the city has been discussing Project Blue for about two and a half years, at least.

And maybe it goes back further than that.

We haven't seen.

The people who were named in the documents include the Mayor and the former City Manager, Mike Ortega and Mayor Romero.

And so we're trying to still build out that timeline.

Who knew that it was a data center?

Who knew that it was specifically Amazon?

Yeah, we're continuing to learn more.

We're continuing to learn more about how the plans have changed over those years.

One of the interesting things we're trying to talk to City Manager, current City Manager, Tim Thomure right now about the water usage.

And there is a big story in the Star earlier this week about how well, Thomure is saying that it's actually not going to affect the Santa Cruz.

And yet the plans show, the early plans show that actually they were going to be taking water from the Tres Rios Water reclamation site.

That could have been canceled and maybe those plans aren't in effect anymore.

But those are the kinds of questions that I think a lot of people want further information about.

And so yeah, we're continuing to dig and we're continuing to look for more records right now.

Caitlin, you've done so much investigative reporting on your own generally over the years.

The NDA thing really stood out to me.

The idea that what did elected officials really know or not?

What stood out to you in particular about either the secrecy aspect or what was discovered?

Yeah, I mean, NDA has always raised huge red flags, right?

Nobody's asking you to sign an NDA if there's nothing to be concerned about happening there and the lack of transparency.

And I think water use, I mean, we are so concerned about water and Tucson has really prided itself on being different than Phoenix in terms of water use and how we protect our water.

And this kind of seems to fly in the face of that.

And we don't want to be like Phoenix.

I mean, that's why a lot of us live here is that we don't need and want the same things that they do.

And this project just doesn't seem to track with a lot of our values as a community and a lot of what voters have said they care about, which is the environment and yes, jobs, but also transparency attached to those things.

We saw how upset the community is last night at that public meeting where hundreds of people turned out.

So many people turned out that they had to close the auditorium.

People were watching it in the parking lot on their phones.

People were live streaming at home and they expressed significance concerns about the secrecy, same thing John was saying about who knew what, when and all about the environmental aspects too.

So I mean, that story was the definition of service journalism.

So I applaud you and keep digging.

I'm glad you brought up the meeting last night, before we have something else.

I really think that's vital because this was the first public meeting, right?

Right, yeah.

So again, like thinking that the city and county have been talking about this for two years.

So what is the reason behind the NDAs and the justifications that we've seen so far is like, well, there are potential trade secrets that could be revealed.

Supposedly this idea that if the end user was named, they would pull out.

Amazon is one of the top five companies in the world.

They have a market cap of something like over, I don't know, $2 trillion.

And if they get named this late in the game, and I mean, what's gonna happen there?

Knickers are gonna be so in a twist that they're gonna pull out and just go somewhere else after years of planning.

The other justification was that, oh, perhaps the employees of this company who might be transferred here don't wanna be sort of scooped in the news, but isn't this about creating jobs here?

I mean, there's just a lot of unknowns.

Some of the people I've been talking to who are against this who are concerned about the lack of transparency are basically asking the question to the elected officials, do you not trust us to have a adult conversation weighing the pros and cons of economic development and environmental impact?

And this is effectively fast-tracked right now.

This wouldn't have been named if we didn't publish this this week, and there's gonna be a meeting and a potential vote on it as soon as August.

So I think it's a very short turnaround for the public, but they've had a lot of time to consider it behind these closed doors.

We've already heard from several members of the Tucson City Council who are negative about this and forwarded this to move forward.

It's not just up to the supervisors, it's up to the council as well.

Right, so yeah, there are three council members who have already come out and expressed strong concerns or said flat out that they won't be voting for it.

So I mean, I think it's gonna come down to that one vote on whether it hinges or not.

And I mean, the rest of the Mayor was very careful in her statement last night that she was hearing both sides.

It's the whole situation is very interesting.

I mean, I think yes, there is a concern that the user could pull out in response to community outrage.

We just saw that happen with Rio Nuevo and punchline with a comedy club, but Live Nation is very different than Amazon.

I don't think Amazon cares about a little bit of bad press in Tucson.

I think just a quick reminder is we discussed on this show a few months ago that there was another code named project.

This is the potential of Castelion, a sort of upstart arms manufacturing company that come in and sort of disrupt Raytheon and the big players in that region or in that field.

And there too, the public wanted to know and they wanna have conversations about what sort of industries we want in our backyard and what it's gonna do to the desert, to the water and to all the resources we prize here.

I wanna dig into more of that quality of life issue, Caitlin, that you brought up, because it is, we have this discussion, this happened with the Navajo Generating Station.

It happens all the time.

How do you balance, and maybe there isn't a balance to be found, but how do you balance environmental quality, people living in a safe, healthy place, and yet not having enough jobs to support folks?

Where do you think this sort of hinges in terms of the arguments that you've heard and seen related to this?

Because earlier part of the program, Ian McDowell was with us and talked about all the construction jobs that would be created and Supervisor Allen didn't really dispute that part.

But after the fact, I mean, are these, is 75 to 100 jobs or whatever it is worth this sort of effort with energy and water?

Can you dig in a little bit more about that as far as what you've heard reaction to that, as far as how do we balance Tucson being Tucson with we need more jobs?

Yeah, I mean, that's the toughest thing.

That's what we're struggling with right now.

And it would be interesting to see where we were with Project Blue if Prop 414 had passed, because we're scrambling now to find critical funding before safety nets give out.

And I wonder, I mean, they've been working on this for years, but perhaps we wouldn't be so gung-ho with it if we had some sales tax funding coming in.

So, right, I mean, this is the eternal struggle.

Yes, this is great for construction workers.

It's great for that first 10 years.

But how about the eternity after that, where it's 75 jobs at, the figure I'd heard was 75,000 or more, cool, but I mean, they're higher paying jobs than that.

And also, is there any guarantee that those jobs will go to people that are living in Tucson and not go to people that are working in different data centers, they're just gonna be transferred.

So, I mean, there's plenty to be concerned about.

Let's not forget to the company.

And so, what is Amazon known for?

I mean, they are known as a union busting company.

Are they known for exactly always keeping their promises?

I mean, they do quick deliveries, but right now there is talk about, but I don't believe there is yet any sort of cap on how much water they are able to use.

They might be charged if they overuse the water, but they have pretty deep pockets and they could just keep on guzzling and keep on paying.

Will it be water positive, as Jen Allen was questioning?

Again, that too seems like a potential, but what are the guarantees that that will actually take place?

And there's not much room for mistakes when you think about how threatened our waterways already are.

Finally on this, John, first to you, I'm not gonna ask you guys to predict whether Amazon would pull out or anything like that, but Tucson City Council is gonna have to ask some really tough questions.

Do you think there's a real possibility that they vote this down?

You know, as Caitlin was saying too, I think they're gonna come down to a swing vote or two.

The Mayor was talking to me yesterday about really trying to weigh both sides.

I think maybe they were caught by surprise actually, by the public outcry.

And the Mayor also signaled to me that perhaps they could have done this better, rolling out and presenting this plan.

It's at this point right now, I think it wouldn't be a really good look given the meeting last night, the fierce opposition to it, but we'll see.

Yeah, Caitlin, you think last night's meeting, Wednesday night's meeting affects people.

I mean, I think, yeah, I think it does.

I think if we had more than just one council member who has already said firmly he's gonna vote against this facing reelection this fall, that might impact things differently, but everybody else who's voting on it is safe for another few years.

But I mean, if they're listening to the community, then this probably won't go forward.

Yeah, we will see.

So last couple of minutes, I wanna focus on a story that was in the Tucson Spotlight.

The Spanish Trail Motel, fires have occurred there, asbestos has occurred there.

And I think we talked about this before we turned on the mics, interesting that the person who is in the midst of lawsuits, who owns the property, actually talked to one of your reporters.

So considering the controversy It's under, can you boil it down for folks, what they really need to know about this?

Yeah, so the Spanish Trail Motel is an abandoned, destroyed property at this point in South Tucson that has become basically a hotbed for crime and homelessness activity.

And while no one lives there, there are residents of the adjacent Spanish Trail Suites, which after a fire earlier this year, we're out without power for several days.

So there is some concern that because there's rubble of asbestos sitting around in this motel, that the environmental impact to the people living in the Suites and in surrounding neighborhoods could still be there.

The city of South Tucson has been fighting with this landlord, Brian Bowers, for years.

They've sued him twice now over this property.

They're asking a judge to force demolition.

And I was shocked that he spoke to my reporter.

I've never had anybody involved in a lawsuit take my questions.

When they see you, they run away.

Well, kudos to Colton, good job.

And so Pima County Department of Environmental Quality, what can they do here, what have they done?

They have tried, so they've issued some permits.

When Brian Bowers purchased the property in 2020, he knew that it had asbestos.

They'd done a study in 2018.

The county issued some permits in 2020 and 21 for demolition, but all these fires kept happening.

There have been 29 fires at that property since he purchased it in 2020.

So I mean, really, there's very little they can do at this point.

So we should have a hearing with the judge next month.

Bowers is trying to get it thrown out in court, but his response to my reporter is, every building has asbestos.

Well, and very briefly as we wrap up, I've got just like 10 seconds.

Has Bowers called since the story was put on tucsonspotlight.org?

He has not.

He did tell us that there wasn't a story here, but we'll see.

I'm glad you found one.

Yes.

Caitlin Schmidt, Tucson Spotlight, thank you.

John Washington, AZ Luminaria.

Obviously you can read all about Project Blue at azluminaria.org.

And also read about the South Tucson Motel Story at tucsonspotlight.org.

Thank you guys for being here as always.

Thanks, Steve.

And that is all for this edition of The Press Room.

I'm Steve Goldstein, back next week.