🔥 Desert Delusions: General Maxwell Champions Water-Wasting Data Centers While Colorado River Gasps | BUCKMASTER

SALC's General Ted Maxwell's contradictory stance on water scarcity while championing massive data centers

Jun 19, 2025

😽 Keepin’ It Simple Summary for Younger Readers
👧🏾✊🏾👦🏾

Imagine your family is struggling to pay 💧 bills during a 🌵 drought, but the city decides to give unlimited water access to a tech company that promises to hire only 75 people in exchange for billions of dollars in public money.

That's basically what's happening with Project Blue - a massive data center project that will use tons of water 💦 and electricity ⚡ while providing very few jobs for our community.

Meanwhile, the same officials saying we need to conserve water because the 🌊 Colorado River is in crisis are the ones approving this wasteful project. It's like your school canceling the 🚰 fountains to save money while installing a giant 🏊‍♂️ swimming pool for visiting executives.

🗝️ Takeaways

💸 Project Blue offers only 75 permanent jobs for billions in public investment and water infrastructure
🚨 Maxwell calls Colorado River situation "dire" while simultaneously advocating for water-intensive data centers
💧 RTA sits on $260+ million while Tucson streets remain unfinished, yet wants another 20-year funding commitment
⚡ TEP announces 14% residential rate increases while corporations get power subsidies for massive consumption
🎭 "Reclaimed water" promises rely on future infrastructure while starting with regular city water supplies
🌵 Environmental justice concerns, as data centers typically impact communities of color and working-class neighborhoods

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Desert Delusions: How Project Blue Exposes the Water-Wasting Ways of Corporate Colonizers

When generals start speaking like Chamber of Commerce cheerleaders while the Colorado River gasps for breath, you know we've entered the twilight zone of desert development.

Welcome to another scorching episode of "How to Destroy the Desert While Pretending to Save It," starring General Ted Maxwell and his mesmerizing performance on the Buckmaster Show this past Wednesday.

As temperatures threatened to melt our collective sanity at 115 degrees, Maxwell served up an equally hot take on why we should hand over precious water resources to Silicon Valley's latest data-mining scheme. At the same time, our own communities face an uncertain aquatic future.

The Project Blue Bamboozle: Corporate Welfare Disguised as Economic Development

Let's start with the main attraction: Project Blue, the mysteriously-named monolith that passed Pima County's Board of Supervisors by a razor-thin 3-2 margin.

This isn't just any development – we're talking about a multi-billion-dollar data center complex sprawling across 290 acres on Tucson's southeast side, promising the princely sum of 75 permanent jobs. Seventy-five jobs. For billions in public investment and infrastructure. Even casino odds look better than this economic equation.

Maxwell, channeling his inner Gordon Gekko with military precision, defended this digital boondoggle with the enthusiasm of a used car salesman pushing a lemon.

"We've relied in this community on increasing the rates," Maxwell mused, making his pitch for volume over velocity in tax base expansion. "We keep adding a half cent here, a quarter cent here... if we would start focusing on increasing the volume, the number of taxpayers we have... that is a great opportunity to drive that volume."

But here's where the cognitive dissonance reaches cosmic proportions: Maxwell simultaneously champions water conservation while advocating for a project that will drain our desert reserves faster than a broken dam, because nothing says "sustainable development" quite like building water-guzzling server farms in the middle of a climate crisis.

The Water Contradiction: Dire Straits and Data Centers Don't Mix

Maxwell's schizophrenic stance on water reaches peak absurdity when he describes the Colorado River situation as "dire" while simultaneously cheerleading for a project that will consume millions of gallons annually.

Serving on the Arizona Reconciliation Committee, he reported sobering statistics: without conservation measures implemented since 1992, Lake Mead would sit 214 feet lower – essentially in "Deadpool" territory where water can't be extracted.

"The trend is dire," Maxwell admitted, though he quickly pivoted to corporate talking points about reclaimed water solutions. The general painted a picture that would make even the most optimistic observer reach for rain dance lessons, noting that projections point toward a Tier 2 shortage starting in 2026.

So let me get this straight: we're facing dire water shortages, heading toward deeper restrictions, and the brilliant solution is to build massive data centers that require constant cooling? This is like deciding to host a barbecue competition during a drought.

Reclaimed Water: The Corporate Con Game

Maxwell's solution to our water woes?

"I believe the use of reclaimed water is one of our biggest future ways of solving a lot of the water problems we have right now." He assured concerned citizens that Project Blue would eventually utilize an 18-mile "purple pipeline" for reclaimed water. However, he conveniently glossed over the fact that they would initially tap into Tucson's regular water supply while this infrastructure materialized.

The timeline for this purple pipeline paradise remains conveniently vague, much like the job projections and economic benefits. It's the classic bait-and-switch: promise sustainable practices tomorrow while pillaging resources today.

Listener Debbie cut through the corporate speak with a simple question: "How do we really know that they're using reclaimed water? Can they prove that to us?"

Maxwell's response revealed the shaky foundation of these promises – they'll start with regular city water and eventually transition to reclaimed sources. Translation: we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, if we come to it, assuming the bridge doesn't collapse from our own water shortages first.

The Jobs Mirage: 75 Positions for Billions in Investment

Perhaps the most insulting aspect of this corporate giveaway is the myth of job creation—seventy-five permanent positions.

Let that sink in for a moment.

We're talking about sacrificing precious water resources, straining our electrical grid, and providing massive public subsidies for fewer jobs than a mid-sized grocery store.

Maxwell tried to spin this pathetic figure: "The thing to remember about the 75 is the 75 is the number of jobs that the county is going to use to hold them accountable for. If they don't meet those minimums, then there's going to be clawbacks." Oh, how reassuring! Corporate accountability through the honor system. Because that's worked so well in the past.

He continued the fantasy with vague promises of expansion: "That location, that site with the water that they're going to be able to get there through reclamation... That's just the start." The start of what? The systematic depletion of our aquifer? The gentrification of our desert communities? The complete capitulation to Silicon Valley colonizers?

The Timing Travesty: TEP's Rate Robbery

As if the water wastage wasn't insulting enough, the timing of Tucson Electric Power's proposed 14% residential rate increase couldn't be more tone-deaf.

While corporations get sweetheart deals for massive power consumption, working families face crushing utility bills that will force impossible choices between cooling their homes and feeding their children.

This is disaster capitalism in action: privatize the profits, socialize the costs, and let the people pay the price for corporate greed.

RTA Next: Transportation Theater with a $260 Million Slush Fund

Maxwell's enthusiasm for RTA Next reveals another layer of fiscal hypocrisy. The Regional Transportation Authority sits on over $260 million in accumulated funds, while Tucson's streets resemble post-apocalyptic obstacle courses. Yet somehow, we still need another 20-year, multi-billion-dollar commitment to address problems that previous funding was supposed to resolve.

"The biggest challenge is that for the last several months, we have not gotten a lot done as far as moving forward," Maxwell acknowledged, in what might be the understatement of the decade. No kidding, General. When you're sitting on a quarter-billion dollars while potholes swallow cars whole, maybe the problem isn't funding – it's accountability.

The appointment of Mike Ortega as interim executive director brings hope for competent leadership. Still, questions remain about why taxpayers should trust another massive funding commitment when previous promises remain unfulfilled.

The Indigenous Perspective: Land, Water, and Colonial Extraction

As an Indigenous Chicano observer, this entire spectacle reeks of colonial extraction patterns that our communities know all too well.

Silicon Valley colonizers arrive with promises of prosperity while systematically depleting the resources that sustain life in the desert. They offer token employment while extracting maximum value, leaving environmental devastation and cultural displacement in their wake.

Our ancestors understood that water is life – a concept that is often overlooked in the context of corporate balance sheets and shareholder returns. The Tohono O'odham, Pascua Yaqui, and other Indigenous nations have sustained themselves in this desert for millennia through careful stewardship, not reckless exploitation.

Project Blue represents everything wrong with contemporary capitalism: short-term profits over long-term sustainability, corporate welfare over community needs, and the commodification of life-sustaining resources.

The Real Cost: Climate Catastrophe in the Sonoran Desert

While Maxwell waxes poetic about economic development and technological progress, the real cost of Project Blue extends far beyond water consumption.

Data centers are notorious energy hogs, requiring massive electrical consumption for their 24/7 cooling systems. In a region already struggling with grid reliability and the transition to renewable energy, adding industrial-scale power demands seems monumentally irresponsible.

The environmental justice implications are equally stark. These facilities are typically located in communities of color and working-class neighborhoods, exposing residents to increased pollution, noise, and infrastructure strain while corporate executives retreat to their air-conditioned compounds in Paradise Valley.

Hope and Resistance: How to Fight Back

Despite the overwhelming corporate capture of our political institutions, resistance remains possible and necessary. Supervisor Matt Heinz has already indicated potential reconsideration of his vote, recognizing the toxic timing and questionable economics of this deal.

Here's how you can get involved:

Immediate Actions:

Contact Pima County Supervisors and demand reconsideration of the Project Blue approval
Attend public meetings and voice opposition to corporate water grabs
Support local organizations fighting for water justice and environmental protection
Join the resistance against RTA Next until accountability measures are implemented

Long-term Organizing:

Build coalitions between environmental, labor, and Indigenous rights groups
Support candidates who prioritize community needs over corporate interests
Advocate for public ownership of utilities and transportation infrastructure
Demand climate adaptation strategies that prioritize resilience over extraction

The path forward requires recognizing that water is a human right, not a commodity for corporate exploitation. Our desert communities can thrive through sustainable practices and cooperative economics, but only if we reject the false promises of extractive development.

Remember: every drop of water given to corporate colonizers is a drop stolen from our children's future.

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