California's largest AI data center project suing for access to 287 million gallons of Colorado River water, 0.03% of Imperial Valley’s supply — plaintiffs claim project equivalent to 160-acre farm a…

Company doing this:

Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing — the owner of the 330 MW AI data center

Lawyer heading the project:

Sebastian Rucci

From a different article linked below:

Rucci has so far sued government officials, the local utility, an activist and a public television station over the dispute. Several of those legal claims have recently been dismissed.

Prior to joining the data center push in Southern California, Rucci was charged, though not convicted, of money laundering and promoting prostitution in relation to his former Ohio cabaret; he ended up serving 30 days in jail for selling beer without a license. Rucci was not charged in the rehab center case, which prosecutors said focused on Medicaid billing issues.

“Just give me my damn data center,” he told the Journal.

https://therealdeal.com/la/2026/07/21/southern-california-data-center-project-faces-opposition/

The river that’s responsible for well over half of the food grown in the US that’s already seeing record low water? That river? Jesus fuck the entitlement and greed never fucking ends.

Absolute bullshit. A giant data center that nobody wants had promised not to use Colorado River water when it was planned. Now, they’d like to divert that water to cool their data center, closing farms and putting people out of work. If we as humans choose environment-destroying AI over food and people… what are we even doing!?

After two cities in the region denied the California-based AI data center recycled wastewater for cooling, it filed a lawsuit demanding to get water from the Colorado River for cooling. The 330-megawatt facility was not only designed to be the biggest AI data center in California, but it specifically committed not to use water from the Colorado River because it was promised wastewater. But now the owner of the data center is essentially asking to redirect water supply from agriculture to the facility.

Equivalent usage to a farm, maybe. But it’s not a farm. Part of the challenge and conflict about these water rights is that actual farms have priority leases, lasting around 100 years. Cities can’t negotiate drinking water increases, because the farms have priority.

Data centers (and other industrial projects) are at the back of the line. They’re welcome to build their own pipelines, or truck it in, or build a desalination plant. But that river is already spoken for.

let’s not forget how the additives they add to the water to make it “server compatible” basically poison it