Environmental groups have filed multiple legal challenges as the Sept. 14 hearing date approaches

Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico

This article was originally published by Source New Mexico.

Residents from across New Mexico gathered outside the state Environment Department office in Santa Fe Friday afternoon and called on its officials to deny an air quality permit for the controversial Project Jupiter data center under construction in Doña Ana County.

The New Mexico Environment Department is currently scheduled to begin a hearing on whether to issue an air quality permit for the project on Sept. 14. If approved, the permit would allow Project Jupiter’s power supply to emit as many greenhouse gases as New Mexico’s largest cities combined.

Protesters arrived at NMED’s office carrying signs with messages such as, “Project Jupiter makes NM stupider” and “Support these data centers: Schools, libraries, bookstores.” Those in attendance frequently criticized elected officials in Doña Ana County for approving the controversial Oracle and OpenAI development.

Lifelong Sunland Park resident Irene Rodriguez addressed the crowd from a podium set up outside NMED’s front door.

“We’ve been to the City Hall and the county commission and nobody has listened to us,” she said, to cries of “shame” in the audience.

Critics of the project have filed multiple lawsuits over the local county commission’s 2025 vote to approve the project, alleging that commissioners violated the state Open Meetings Act and that they approved draft forms of development agreements rather than finalized ones.

Rodriguez told Source NM she is most concerned for water resources. Although developers have promised a “closed-loop” cooling system that will use less water than the evaporative cooling in many data centers, much of the surrounding area relies on water infrastructure that is already in disrepair.

Albuquerque resident Patrick Jaramillo, co-director of the American Friends Service Committee’s New Mexico Program, voiced the same concern.

“We believe that water is a gift from God. And the creator gave us that gift for us to nourish our life and our communities,” he said into a microphone. “And these vendidos want to take God’s gift to us to power AI slop and hate and artificial intelligence when they won’t invest in human intelligence?”

Several protesters wore cardboard face masks of New Mexico officials and staged an exaggerated re-enactment of how they believed state officials paved the way for the controversial data center project, sacrificing the environment for purported economic gains.

Two new legal challenges this week also took aim at elected officials’ roles in paving the way for the project.

The Center for Biological Diversity, a national conservation group, filed a petition with the New Mexico Supreme Court alleging that State Engineer Elizabeth Anderson approved the drilling of emergency wells, which supplied millions of gallons of water to the development, in violation of a state law that requires a public notice and hearing in such instances.

“These are critical due process protections that have been cast aside for Project Jupiter,” Colin Cox, a New Mexico-based Center for Biological Diversity attorney, wrote in a statement.

The Office of the State Engineer did not respond to a request for comment.

Cox’s group also filed a joint motion with the New Mexico Environmental Law Center seeking to remove Max Shepherd, the hearing officer presiding over NMED’s air quality permit process for Project Jupiter, after he abruptly rescheduled the hearing from October to September. Cox’s filing argues that Shepherd’s decisions have deprived involved parties of their due process rights — which the Santa Fe-based clean energy organization New Energy Economy also argued in a separate state Supreme Court filing this week.

The joint filing includes a screenshot of Lujan Grisham’s calendar, which shows that she met with Oracle representatives two days before Shepherd filed an order rescheduling the hearing to September.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Lujan Grisham said the governor “takes seriously the concerns Doña Ana County residents have raised about Project Jupiter — including on air quality and groundwater use — and expects any data center operating in New Mexico to meet the state’s rigorous environmental standards and use water responsibly.”

Lujan Grisham “routinely” meets with companies like Oracle, the statement said, adding that July’s meeting was a “general update.”

“The governor does not interfere in state agencies’ regulatory decisions and has made no effort to influence the outcome of Project Jupiter’s air permit application,” the statement said. “Instead, it is her responsibility to ensure that state agencies meet their statutory obligations for a fair, transparent and independent process.”

Environment Department spokesperson Drew Goretzka in a statement to Source NM said that department staffers are adhering to the current schedule but will meet the requirements of any revised schedule.

“As for the motion to remove the hearing officer, that decision ultimately lies with the department’s decision-maker — the deputy cabinet secretary in this case — with whom NMED staff are not permitted to discuss Project Jupiter matters with,” Goretzka wrote.

Joshua Bowling is a senior reporter for Source New Mexico. He's reported in New Mexico, where he broke stories of lavish spending at Western New Mexico University and more, since 2022.