🏛️ Nikki Lee Charts Democratic Waters: Ward 4 Councilwoman Maps Public Path Through Corporate Data Center Secrecy
How one councilwoman's fight for transparency reveals the stakes in Silicon Valley's water colonialism of the Sonoran Desert
😽 Keepin’ It Simple Summary for Younger Readers
👧🏾✊🏾👦🏾
💻 A huge computer company wants to build giant data centers 🏢 in Tucson that would drink millions of gallons of water every day—enough for thousands of families 👨👩👦👦. This is happening while Arizona is already running out of water 🚱 because of climate change 🌡️ and drought ☀️. The company won't tell anyone exactly how much water they'll use and made secret deals 🤫 with city officials.
City Councilmember Nikki Lee is fighting ✊ to make the company be honest 💬 about their water use and give people a chance to ask questions before any decisions are made. She's setting up public meetings 🗣️ so families can learn about how this might affect their drinking water 🚰 and electricity bills 💡 in the future.
🗝️ Takeaways
📅 Critical timeline revealed: July 23rd public meeting, August 6th study session, potential August 19th annexation vote
🛡️ Democracy defended: Lee fought "significant pushback" to ensure public meetings happen before votes, not after
💧 Water oversight revolution: Pushing for large water user ordinances requiring disclosure for consumption over 250,000 gallons daily
🚫 NDA reform victory: Working to eliminate secret agreements about public resource allocation—because democracy shouldn't require security clearance
📊 Corporate math exposed: 180 jobs at $64K vs. 5 million gallons of daily water consumption in a state facing 18% water cuts
⚖️ Community power rising: Sustained resistance from residents exposing corporate colonialism disguised as economic development
🌵 Indigenous justice: Water colonialism on unceded ancestral lands while Tohono O'odham fight for basic access
🏛️ Nikki Lee Charts Democratic Waters: Ward 4 Councilwoman Maps Public Path Through Corporate Data Center Secrecy
How one councilwoman's fight for transparency reveals the stakes in Silicon Valley's water colonialism of the Sonoran Desert
In the sweltering heat of a July morning, as temperatures climbed toward triple digits across our Sonoran homeland, Ward 4 Councilmember Nikki Lee did something revolutionary in today's political landscape: she told the truth.
Walking through her neighborhood, recording a Facebook Live video, Lee delivered critical updates about Project Blue—the $3.6 billion data center complex that threatens to transform our sacred desert waters into corporate cooling systems.
While corporate media spins this as "economic development," Lee's latest communications reveal something far more significant: a public servant actually serving el público instead of Silicon Valley profit margins.
Her timeline and transparency demands expose both the corporate secrecy threatening our democratic processes and the community power necessary to protect our water future.
The Timeline of Democracy vs. Corporate Colonialism
Lee didn't waste time with political pleasantries in her latest update. Speaking directly to constituents through her July newsletter and social media updates, she outlined critical dates that every Tucsonan should mark in red ink:
July 14: Draft Development Agreement expected to be released to Mayor & Council and the public
July 23: Public informational meeting from 5-7 PM at Mica Mountain High School (to be livestreamed)
August 6: Mayor and Council Study Session on Project Blue—first collective public discussion among elected officials
August 19: Potential vote to begin annexation process (timeline subject to change)
But here's where Lee's leadership shines brighter than August asphalt: she fought "significant pushback" when advocating for early community engagement. According to Lee, she received resistance for wanting public input on public resources.
¿En serio? Pushback for expecting transparency in a democracy?
"I didn't feel that it was sufficient for us as a community to wait until a vote potentially took place to begin that process," Lee explained. "This is not a normal rezoning, clear-cut process or kicking off a pretty straightforward annexation process. This is a different beast for our community and it requires a different strategy and much more engagement."
Translation: Unlike colleagues who might prefer rubber-stamping corporate wish lists, Lee understands that Project Blue's potential consumption of up to 5 million gallons daily demands genuine democratic scrutiny.
Corporate NDAs vs. Community Transparency: La Batalla Continues
The secrecy surrounding Project Blue continues with corporate machinery operating in shadows. County Administrator Jan Lesher has referred to the company only by the code name "Project Blue" and declined to reveal the company's name, citing a non-disclosure agreement between officials and developers.
We're calling this venture "Project Blue" instead of its actual company name—Beale Infrastructure Group—because corporate lawyers decided our communities don't deserve basic transparency about decisions affecting our most vital resources.
Lee is pushing for two crucial reforms that could fundamentally shift how Tucson handles corporate water colonialism:
Large Water User Ordinances
Following Phoenix's lead, Lee brought forward legislation requiring specific oversight for any user consuming 250,000 gallons per day or more, with additional requirements for users exceeding 500,000 gallons daily.
Phoenix passed similar ordinances along with other Colorado River jurisdictions—because, apparently, managing water resources responsibly during a historic drought is a novel concept worth copying.
When you consider that Project Blue could consume up to 5 million gallons daily—enough water for thousands of families—these oversight measures become less about bureaucratic procedure and more about community survival.
NDA Reform: Transparencia as Public Policy
Perhaps even more significant, Lee is pushing for non-disclosure agreement reform, aligning with "the values of transparency and public engagement." She's working with the city attorney to examine models that don't leave communities in the dark about decisions affecting their most vital resources.
As Lee pointed out, "this current model is not really working. It doesn't help us engage the public in a meaningful way, and it leads to a lot more distrust, which is exactly the opposite of what we want to have with our community."
¡Exacto! When public officials sign secret agreements about public resources, that's not governance—that's corporate colonialism with a participation trophy.
The Water Mathematics of Modern Colonialism
Let's examine the numbers that corporate cheerleaders don't want you calculating:
Project Blue's Promises:
180 permanent jobs averaging $64,000 annually
$3.6 billion total investment over time
"Water positive" operations (someday, maybe)
Project Blue's Demands:
Up to 5 million gallons of water daily
Massive electricity consumption as TEP's largest customer
Tax incentives and subsidized water access
Arizona's Reality:
18% reduction in Colorado River allocation due to ongoing drought
Water shortage conditions affecting 40 million people in the Colorado River basin
Rising energy costs passed to residential customers
In today's Tucson housing market, that $64,000 salary means workers will be praying to San Judas just to afford rent, much less buy homes in the community they're supposedly helping develop.
The Indigenous Lens: Water as Sacred Commons, Not Corporate Commodity
This struggle represents something larger than municipal policy disputes. We're witnessing the latest chapter in a 500-year story of colonial extraction—this time with server farms instead of silver mines, Silicon Valley instead of Spanish conquistadors.
The 290 acres where Beale Infrastructure wants to build its digital extraction facility sit on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Tohono O'odham Nation. Every gallon diverted to corporate cooling systems is water that could sustain communities, wildlife, and ecosystems that have called this desert home for millennia.
El agua es sagrada—water is sacred.
When Spanish priest Father Eusebio Kino arrived in 1692, he found the O'odham managing sophisticated agricultural communities sustained for thousands of years through careful water stewardship.
Here's where the colonial cruelty becomes particularly obscene: The Tohono O'odham Nation, with over 34,000 residents, still struggles with basic water infrastructure, contaminated wells, and expensive utility connections. After decades of legal battles, they secured a total water allocation of roughly 25 million gallons daily.
Project Blue wants to guzzle up to 5 million gallons daily just to keep AI servers cool. That's 20% of the entire Nation's annual water allocation for corporate cooling systems.
When we prioritize artificial intelligence over Indigenous intelligence, we're not just making resource allocation decisions—we're perpetuating centuries of extractive racism with a digital twist.
Lee's Leadership: Democracy in Action
What makes Councilmember Lee's approach threatening to corporate interests is her insistence that transparency isn't optional in democratic governance. Her background as an Air Force veteran and former STEM professional gives her unique insight into both public service and the tech industry's actual operational needs.
Unlike officials intimidated by corporate technical jargon, Lee knows enough about data centers to call bullshit on claims that water usage estimates are "proprietary information."
As she noted, "To say that [Project Blue] can't share water usage numbers when water is a shared resource for about 40 million people who use the Colorado River for a water source doesn't make sense to me."
¡Por supuesto que no!
When corporations claim they can't share basic operational information about public resource consumption, that's not protecting trade secrets—that's protecting profit margins from public scrutiny.
Lee's promise to livestream the July 23rd neighborhood meeting demonstrates her commitment to accessibility and inclusion. "Not everyone is going to be able to make it out due to a variety of reasons," she acknowledged, ensuring that working families and people with disabilities can participate in decisions affecting their futures.
The Broader Context: Data Center Colonialism Across the Southwest
Project Blue isn't isolated but part of broader data center colonialism spreading across the Southwest. The Phoenix area alone hosts more than 58 data centers, with water consumption reaching 905 million gallons (2,777 acre-feet) annually—enough for nearly 10,000 homes.
Beale Infrastructure is considering two additional data center complexes in the Tucson metro area. Each facility represents millions more gallons of daily water consumption in a region where climate scientists predict only increasing drought conditions.
Meanwhile, Marana adopted an ordinance in December that prohibits the water department from supplying data centers with potable water. Companies must find an alternative source and file an application with the town that estimates annual water consumption.
Imagine that—requiring corporations to actually tell communities how much water they plan to use. Revolutionary concept.
Community Resistance: ¡La Lucha Sigue!
Despite corporate pressure and political maneuvering, community resistance grows stronger. During the June 17 Pima County Board meeting, speaker after speaker challenged the project's secrecy and environmental impacts.
Community member Jacob Davis captured the struggle's essence: "The focus just clearly isn't on community, but rather on profit. Words like 'water positive', I believe, are a Trojan horse."
Stephanie Gershon connected corporate power consumption to community costs: "When I hear that this data center will become one of TEP's largest electricity users, I'm worried. I don't see how we can justify putting that kind of pressure on our grid, especially when we haven't seen concrete plans or guarantees that it won't lead to more outages for the rest of us."
Even Supervisor Andrés Cano, despite ultimately supporting the project, expressed concerns echoing community values: "We are not just building in the desert, we're building on a legacy. Generations of Tucsonans have worked to protect our water, preserve open space, and grow responsibly."
What's at Stake: Seven Generations vs. Quarterly Profits
This isn't about abstract policy debates. This is about whether your children and grandchildren will have enough water to live in the place your family has called home for generations.
Project Blue will need to use potable water for the first two-to-three years of operations while the 18-mile pipeline is being constructed.
Every drop of reclaimed water eventually allocated to data center cooling is water unavailable for municipal supplies, habitat restoration, or future community needs.
Arizona continues operating under Tier 1 water shortage conditions, facing annual cuts to Colorado River allocation that will only intensify with climate change. But sure, let's welcome more water-hungry corporations to party in the desert while our communities face increasing scarcity.
The Path Forward: Democracy, Transparency, and Community Power
Councilmember Lee's roadmap provides clear opportunities for community engagement and democratic participation. The July 23rd neighborhood meeting represents a crucial moment for residents to demand answers about water usage, energy consumption, and community benefits.
However, this struggle extends beyond Project Blue to fundamental questions about who controls public resources and who benefits from public investments. Lee's work on large water user ordinances and NDA reform could establish precedents that strengthen community power in future development decisions.
La lucha requires sustained community engagement, not just single-meeting appearances. It means showing up consistently, asking hard questions, and holding elected officials accountable to community values rather than corporate profits.
It means supporting leaders like Councilmember Lee who choose transparency over secrecy, community needs over corporate demands, and democratic participation over backroom deals with Silicon Valley water vampires.
Seeds of Hope in Desert Soil
Despite corporate pressure and political maneuvering, I see signs of hope sprouting like desert wildflowers after rare summer rain. From community members speaking truth at board meetings to council members demanding transparency, our movements for environmental and social justice are growing stronger.
El agua es sagrada—water is sacred.
It has sustained life in this desert for thousands of years, long before corporations figured out how to monetize our most basic needs. Our ancestors knew how to live in harmony with this harsh and beautiful land, and their wisdom flows through our resistance today.
Every time we demand transparency, every time we show up at city council meetings, every time we choose community needs over corporate greed, we honor the legacy of all those who fought before us and plant seeds of possibility for those who will continue the struggle.
Get Involved—Your Voice Matters
Immediate Actions:
Attend the July 23rd public meeting at Mica Mountain High School (5-7 PM, livestreamed)
Contact Tucson City Council members, especially Councilmember Nikki Lee at ward4@tucsonaz.gov
Follow the August 6th Mayor & Council study session
Stay informed about the potential August 19th annexation vote
Share this story and build community awareness
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Together, we are the flood that carves new channels through the desert of injustice. ¡Vámonos!
What questions do you have about Project Blue's impact on our water future? How can we better support leaders like Councilmember Lee who demand transparency over corporate profits?
Have a scoop or a story you want us to follow up on? Send us a message!
Have a scoop or a story you want us to follow up on? Send us a message!
Ms. Lee and several others are to be commended. However, I still wonder why so many of the "leaders" are content to sell so vital a commodity as water for a quick windfall...