Attendees commandeer New Mexico Tech town hall to oppose proposed Socorro data center, solar array

New Mexico Tech President Michael Jackson took the stage in the university’s Macey Center auditorium Tuesday night to kick off a town hall meeting regarding a controversial proposal to partner with a Canadian company to build a data center and massive solar array on 10,000 acres of nearby land in Socorro. The stage had three empty seats, intended for Green Data executives who had planned to give a presentation on their ambitious plans.

Those seats remained empty for nearly four hours as a chorus of opposed residents took control of the meeting.

While many of them lined up behind microphones to protest the project, those who remained seated in the auditorium — wearing shirts and hoisting signs with slogans like, “data centers are not green energy,” “big data big lie” and “NMT = No More Transparency” — repeatedly heckled Jackson and Green Data leaders and shot down any attempts to put the company’s presentation on the overheard projector.

Area residents first learned of the data center proposal in March, when Green Data CEO Jason Bak spoke before the Socorro Electric Cooperative Board of Trustees about his plan to build the data center and solar array in collaboration with the local university.

Since then, dozens of residents have spoken out against the project as a potential strain on water resources and a blight on Socorro County’s sweeping Southwestern vistas. Last week, county officials unanimously approved the first step in considering a data center moratorium.

“What’s bad for the environment is bad for human intelligence,” said Forrie J. Smith, a rancher in nearby San Acacia and actor in the television show “Yellowstone,” who set the evening’s tone as the first resident to approach the microphone. He called on other opposed residents to show up and protest the proposal at the next New Mexico Tech Board of Regents meeting.

Residents asked Jackson why they didn’t learn about the project until March when documents obtained under the state’s public records law show Bak and university leaders signed a letter of intent in January. And they told Bak that they did not want developments that could deplete their already-strained water resources, disrupt the electric grid or taint the desert landscape.

Bak told the room that he understood their concerns.

“I understand where you’re coming from. There’s a sign there that says, ‘Big data big lie’ — you’re not wrong,” he said. “I think big data has been bad [at] interfacing with communities in many different ways. I think we got off on the back foot because of the reputation of the industry.”

He told attendees the project could be the largest “renewable-led” data center in the world, using solar power and supplying the “vast majority” of its own water through technology called atmospheric water generation, which aims to pull moisture from the air and convert it into usable water.

Residents in attendance scoffed.

“You cannot replant the desert. It’s not an ecosystem that works like that. Once it’s gone, it’s gone,” Cari Powell, a Democrat running for the Socorro County Commission, told Bak.

One resident, Jim Ruff, approached the microphone to tell Jackson he was disappointed in university officials for entertaining the proposal.

“People should not be talking to this man,” Ruff said, adding that he researched Bak’s ventures and couldn’t find evidence of him building a data center before. “All he is is a real estate agent, and a failed one at that. You people are making fools of yourselves even talking to him.”

After the town hall, Bak confirmed to Source NM that he has never built a data center. He said other Green Data executives have built numerous data centers across the nation and added that he designed one that was never constructed.

He said that shouldn’t faze residents, though.

“A lot of Silicon Valley founders and people that are on the edge…you learn it by doing,” he told Source NM. “Elon Musk didn’t have experience in building rockets — he went out and did it.” 

Throughout the contentious town hall, Bak and Jackson, the university president, repeatedly stressed to the audience that the proposal remains in its infancy.

Jackson has previously said publicly that he is “somewhat indifferent” as to whether the university moves forward in partnership with Green Data. After Tuesday’s town hall, he told Source NM that he wanted to get the community’s feedback as early as possible.

Despite the hours of opposition, he said he wasn’t ready to dismiss it outright.

Jackson said he is setting up a meeting to inspect Bak’s atmospheric water generator and doesn’t yet know if it can truly operate at the scale a large data center would require.

“Here’s an opportunity where a company is interested in doing something that maybe can go ahead and bring some benefit to New Mexico Tech, to the City of Socorro, to the County of Socorro,” Jackson said. “And the question is: Have I done my due diligence, rather than just saying ‘No’ at the outset?”