Project Jupiter: AI's Leviathan Casts a Shadow Over New Mexico's Arid Heart

The stench of the nearby landfill often makes José Saldaña Jr. sick. He can’t hang his clothes out to dry in Sunland Park, New Mexico, a border town already choked by pollution. Now, a new leviathan looms on the horizon: Project Jupiter, an artificial intelligence data center slated to be a carbon behemoth, a colossal drain on a parched land, and a festering wound in a community already pushed to its limits.

“Health is my biggest concern. I’m worried about the air pollution, the ozone, and the buzzing noise,” Saldaña, 45, told Truthout. He’s lived here almost his entire life, barely two miles from the landfill. The proposed AI facility, one of five sites in the $500 billion Stargate Project – a national pipeline of massive AI systems linked with OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank – promises to pile environmental insult upon injury.

Project Jupiter’s backers, buoyed by a staggering $165 billion in industrial revenue bonds approved by the Doña Ana County Board of County Commissioners, are racing ahead. Work has already begun, even as critical air quality and water permits hang in the balance. Proponents tout 750 well-paid full-time jobs and 50 part-time roles, but the economic calculus is grim: $360 million in incremental payments over 30 years, a mere fraction of the bond monies, replaces significant property and gross receipt taxes.

The Air We Choke On

The environmental costs, critics argue, far outweigh any purported benefits. Project Jupiter is designed to be powered by two natural gas-fueled microgrids. Recent air quality permits filed with the New Mexico Environment Department reveal a chilling projection: up to 14 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. To put that in perspective, the entirety of Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest city, emitted just over 26 million metric tons in 2022. This, as global warming hurtles past Paris Agreement benchmarks, threatening a 2.8-degree Celsius rise this century.

Deborah Kapiloff, a clean energy policy adviser with Western Resource Advocates, points to a dangerous loophole in state law. “Hypothetically, up until January 1, 2045, [Project Jupiter’s operators] could run their gas plants at full capacity,” she explained. “There are no interim guidelines. There’s no off-ramp.”

The region is already classified as a “non-attainment” area, failing federal air quality standards for ozone and fine particulate matter (PM2.5), a dangerous pollutant linked to cardiovascular disease. The added emissions from Project Jupiter’s gas turbines—dubbed “over the top” by retired state water manager Norm Gaume—are a death knell for an already struggling ecosystem and its residents.

“Technically, the EPA could decline these air quality permits because we have such bad air quality already,” said documentary filmmaker Annie Ersinghaus, a Las Cruces resident skeptical of federal intervention. “It very much feels like David and Goliath.”

A Thirsty Future in a Drying Land

New Mexico is a land defined by scarcity, particularly water. Climate change forecasts a 7-degree Fahrenheit rise across the state in the next 50 years, translating to lighter snowpacks, lower soil moisture, and a 25 percent reduction in surface and groundwater recharge by 2070. Into this crisis steps Project Jupiter.

The developers boast an efficient closed-loop cooling system, projecting a relatively modest 20,000 gallons per day once operational—the daily equivalent of 67 average households. However, Kacey Hovden, an attorney with the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, warns this technology remains unproven at a fully operational scale. “It’s currently unknown whether those projected numbers are realistic.”

Norm Gaume, president of New Mexico Water Advocates, minces no words: “Global warming is taking our renewable water away. And Project Jupiter intends to use the least efficient gas turbine generators… We’re living in a fantasy world where people aren’t really paying attention to water.”

The community’s drinking water concerns are compounded by its shared supplier, the Camino Real Regional Utility Authority, notorious for arsenic-tainted water and deemed in “serious violation” of federal standards. While Project Jupiter promises a nebulous $50 million for water infrastructure, its exact use—for the data center or the community—remains shrouded in the same secrecy that plagues the entire project.

Even more troubling is the region’s primary water source: groundwater. Stacy Timmons, associate director of hydrogeology at the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, laments the dearth of data. “The horse is way out ahead of the cart in this situation, where we don’t really know a lot of the details of how this project might impact New Mexico, especially its water.”

The Fightback: A Community Unites

Caught unawares, the community is now galvanizing. In late October, the New Mexico Environmental Law Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of Saldaña and another resident, Vivian Fuller, challenging the county commissioners’ unlawful approval of the funding ordinances.

Ersinghaus leads Jupiter Watch, a grassroots group monitoring the construction site, documenting permit violations, and demanding accountability. A major protest is planned for early next year, coinciding with critical air quality permit decisions.

“Our commissioners voted for this [bar one], and we want them to feel ashamed,” Ersinghaus declared. The developers, BorderPlex Digital Assets and STACK Infrastructure, have remained silent, leaving multiple messages unanswered.

Saldaña, facing the prospect of his home becoming an environmental sacrifice zone, considers an agonizing choice. “In the worst case scenario, I’ll tell my mom, ‘Let’s move, let’s get the hell out of here.’ But I don’t want to move,” he said, his voice heavy with the weight of generations. “It’s sad. Very sad.” The fight for Sunland Park, New Mexico, is more than a local dispute; it’s a stark reflection of AI’s unbridled expansion colliding with a planet already buckling under the strain, and a powerful indictment of a system that prioritizes corporate profit over human and environmental health.