‘I don’t trust them’: The data center fight mobilizing Imperial County voters

This article was produced by Capital & Main. It is published here with permission.

Retired probation officer Diana Salcedo had downsized to a home in Imperial’s Paseo del Sol neighborhood and was looking forward to a new chapter in her life caring for her mother and young grandchildren.

Then Salcedo found out about a proposal to build what could be California’s largest data center across the street. The more she learned about how data centers affect energy, water and quality of life for those living nearby, the more upset she became.

I was so angry,” she said. “I even cried.” That outrage inspired Salcedo, 65, a Republican who supports President Donald Trump, to join a grassroots movement of local residents fighting the proposed Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing LLC data center . The plan, which Imperial County officials voted to clear the way for in April, calls for a nearly 1-million-square-foot data center on parcels of unincorporated land just outside of Imperial, a city of about 22,000 people less than 15 miles from the U.S-Mexico border.