🔍 Project Blue Investigative Bombshell: How Journalists Exposed What Officials Wouldn't Tell You (VIDEO)
Pima County officials knew for 2.5 years while residents were kept in the dark. AZ Luminaria breaks the Amazon story that Project Blue tried to hide.
😽 Keepin’ It Simple Summary for Younger Readers
👧🏾✊🏾👦🏾
💻🏗️ Amazon wants to build giant computer buildings in Tucson that would use as much water as a small city every single day 💦🏜️.
🤐 City leaders have been talking about it in secret for over two years, without telling the community 🕵️♂️🤫.
👷♀️💰 The buildings would create construction jobs for about 10 years, but only around 75 permanent jobs after that 👷♂️📉.
😡 Many people are upset because we live in a desert 🌵 where water is precious 💧—and they believe Amazon should’ve been transparent 🗣️🤝.
🏛️ Now the city council has to vote 🗳️ on whether to let Amazon build these water-hungry computer buildings 🧠💧🏢.
🗝️ Takeaways
💧 Amazon's data centers could consume up to 2 million gallons of water daily in a drought-stricken desert
🤝 Officials discussed the project under NDAs for 2.5 years without community input
👷 3,000 construction jobs over 10 years, but only 75-180 permanent positions afterward
💰 TEP is seeking a 14% rate hike; more energy demand likely means higher costs
🏛️ Mayor Regina Romero is actually still considering supporting the New Manifest Destiny; she only needs three Tucson City Council members for it to pass
📰 Journalists exposed Amazon's involvement after officials kept it secret
💧 Project Blue: Amazon's Desert Data Center Gambit - When Corporate Secrecy Meets Sonoran Resistance
Originally aired on AZPM's The Press Room, July 25, 2025
¿Órale, qué pasa aquí? Another day, another corporate colonizer looking to extract wealth from Indigenous lands while keeping the community darker than a desert night.
Welcome to Project Blue—Amazon's latest scheme to plant digital flags in our ancestral Tohono O'odham territory, complete with more secrecy than a CIA black site and enough water consumption to make Nestlé blush.
On AZPM's The Press Room, host Steve Goldstein assembled a cast that reads like a modern Western: the principled public servant, the corporate cheerleader, and the journalists actually doing their jobs while elected officials apparently took a siesta on transparency.
The Players in This Desert Drama
The Resistance: Pima County Supervisor Jennifer Allen, who committed the radical act of reading the fine print before rubber-stamping corporate welfare.
The Cheerleader: Ian McDowell, Vice President and Regional Director of Sundt Construction, painting rosy pictures of job creation while conveniently glossing over the environmental apocalypse.
The Truth-Tellers: John Washington from AZ Luminaria and Caitlin Schmidt from Tucson Spotlight, the journalists who actually did what our elected officials apparently couldn't - tell us who's behind the curtain.
Because apparently in 2025, it takes investigative journalism to learn what public officials have been discussing for two and a half years. Democracy is truly thriving under late-stage capitalism.
The Water Mirage: Drowning Truth in Corporate Doublespeak
Let's start with the most precious resource in Chukshon (Tucson) - water.
These proposed data centers could consume up to two million gallons of water daily in a desert that's been in drought longer than some of us have been alive. But Amazon's got a magic solution: "water positivity."
Supervisor Allen didn't just call bullshit—she served it on a silver platter: "Water positivity isn't a thing, right? That's a marketing term that is used to... It's sort of like a term like clean coal, of which coal is not ever clean."
Chef's kiss to Allen for cutting through the corporate newspeak like a machete through desert brush. "Water positivity" is about as real as trickle-down economics or the tooth fairy—pretty concepts that exist only in boardrooms and fever dreams.
McDowell tried to paint this desert mirage, explaining they'd extend non-potable water lines and somehow flip the script on consumption. But even he admitted, "I don't think everything's known right now, so it's hard to make a leap of faith."
A leap of faith? ¿En serio?
We're supposed to gamble our children's water future on Amazon's pinky promise? The same company that union-busts harder than union organizers at a Walmart shareholders meeting?
The Math of Exploitation: Construction Boom, Permanent Bust
McDowell got genuinely excited talking about 3,000 construction jobs over a decade. And honestly, órale, good for construction workers who've been traveling away from families just to make ends meet. "If you're a construction worker and someone tells you you get to stay home for 10 years, they're going to be pretty happy," he said.
But here's where the corporate math gets creative as a Trump tax return: after that construction party ends, we're looking at a whopping 75 to 150 permanent jobs. Let me repeat that in case you missed it while Amazon was stealing your water - fewer than 200 permanent positions for potentially 25+ data centers.
So we're trading millions of gallons of desert water daily for fewer jobs than a mid-sized call center? That's not economic development, that's economic colonization with extra steps.
McDowell noted that these jobs pay $64,000 annually, which is 42% above the county median. However, this is Amazon we're talking about —a company worth over $2 trillion. They could afford to pay living wages without making our desert look like a Mad Max movie set.
The Transparency Charade: Democracy Dies in NDAs
Here's where this whole pinche circus gets truly maddening. According to Washington's reporting in AZ Luminaria, city and county officials have been discussing Project Blue for two and a half years under non-disclosure agreements.
Two and a half years! While abuelitas worry about their water bills, our elected representatives were playing footsie with Jeff Bezos's empire in smoke-filled backrooms.
The justification for this democracy deficit?
Trade secrets and the laughable notion that Amazon would get its corporate feelings hurt if the public knew too early. Washington demolished this logic: "Amazon is one of the top five companies in the world. They have a market cap of something like over two trillion dollars... are their knickers going to be so in a twist that they're going to pull out and just go somewhere else after years of planning?"
Right? Like Amazon's going to cancel a multi-billion dollar project because some desert dwellers had opinions. These are the same people who built an empire on exploiting warehouse workers - I think they can handle some public scrutiny.
The Energy Equation: More Corporate Welfare, Higher Bills
Supervisor Allen dropped another inconvenient truth bomb about Tucson Electric Power's recent 14% rate hike—and that's not their first rodeo with rate increases. Now Amazon wants to plug in their energy-hungry digital monsters, but somehow ratepayers won't feel the pinch?
"Those promises are being made by the company that is going to profit from putting the data centers in," Allen observed. "So I think we need to look really closely and with a lot of skepticism and see it in writing, we don't just trust what the folks who are going to profit from this project tell us."
Shocking that a profit-driven corporation might not tell the whole truth about costs. Next you'll tell me that pharmaceutical companies inflate drug prices or that oil companies knew about climate change decades ago.
The Union-Busting Cherry on Top
Washington reminded us of Amazon's sterling reputation: "What is Amazon known for? I mean, they are known as a union-busting company." So while McDowell talks up construction jobs, the long-term employer we're courting has made corporate art out of suppressing worker organizing.
Nothing says "economic development" like welcoming a company that fights workers' rights to organize. It's like inviting a fox to guard the henhouse, then acting surprised when all the chickens disappear.
The Resistance Rises: Democracy in Parking Lots
The most hopeful part of this story? The community response.
According to Schmidt's reporting, hundreds packed the first public meeting about Project Blue - so many that they "had to close the auditorium. People were watching it in the parking lot on their phones. People were live-streaming at home."
This is what democracy looks like when it's not suffocated by corporate NDAs - overflow crowds in parking lots, neighbors organizing, communities demanding answers.
Three Tucson City Council members have already expressed strong opposition, meaning this vote could come down to a razor-thin margin. The mayor, according to Washington, was "talking about really trying to weigh both sides" and suggested "perhaps they could have done this better, rolling out and presenting this plan."
Ya think? Maybe next time try actual community engagement instead of corporate secrecy theater.
The Context: Resistance in the Trump Era
This fight isn't happening in a vacuum.
We're living through an era where corporate power runs roughshod over Indigenous sovereignty, environmental protection, and community self-determination. From the border wall desecrating sacred sites to mining companies eyeing our public lands, the pattern is clear: extract wealth, externalize costs, exclude communities.
Project Blue represents everything wrong with neoliberal "development" - prioritizing corporate profits over community needs, environmental sustainability, and democratic participation. It's the same playbook that brought us NAFTA's job hemorrhaging, fracking's environmental destruction, and Amazon's warehouse worker exploitation.
But here's the beautiful thing about desert communities - we're cacti, not daisies. We've survived colonization, uranium mining, and decades of questionable development decisions. We'll survive Amazon too.
How This Affects You, Querido Reader
If you live in Pima County, this directly impacts your water future, energy costs, and the character of your community. If you live elsewhere, pay attention - Amazon's not stopping with Tucson. They have 200+ data centers planned across the country, and your community could be next.
Your water bills? They'll likely increase as demand outstrips supply. Your energy costs? TEP's rate hikes are just the beginning. Your voice in local democracy? Apparently optional if corporations prefer secrecy.
Get Involved: Democracy Requires Participation
Contact Tucson City Council members and demand transparency before any votes
Attend public meetings - bring friends, bring family, bring lawn chairs for the parking lot
Support local journalism like AZ Luminaria and Tucson Spotlight doing actual investigative work
Subscribe to Three Sonorans Substack to stay informed about corporate colonization disguised as economic development
What Do You Think?
Democracy works best when communities engage, question, and take action to organize. The desert has survived ice ages and volcanic eruptions - it'll survive Amazon too. But only if we show up, speak up, and refuse to let corporate secrecy replace community participation.
The resistance continues, from Standing Rock to the Sonoran Desert. Every time communities organize against corporate extraction, we're honoring our ancestors and protecting our children's future.
Sí se puede, but only if we make it happen.
Support Three Sonorans Substack to keep this news and analysis coming. Independent journalism that centers community voices over corporate profits doesn't fund itself.
Drop your thoughts below: What questions do you have about Project Blue that our elected officials should answer? And how do we balance legitimate economic development with environmental protection and community sovereignty?
The desert is listening. Make your voice heard.
Have a scoop or a story you want us to follow up on? Send us a message!
The journalists earned their play. However, I am concerned that this country is rapidly moving toward the point at which the media will be reduced to propaganda, and investigative journalism will become a thing of the past...
If a stranger comes to your door asking you to donate to a charity and wouldn’t tell you who it was for, would you give them a donation? Of course not! Why on earth would we give Project “we can’t tell you” our hard earned water, power and air without them even telling us who it’s for? Do they think we’re stupid? Make these corporate shills “SAY THE NAME”!