False Hope

Everyone is celebrating the victory over Project Blue. Mission accomplished, the mega corporation wanting to take our water is banished. Surely this is proof that the system works if only we mobilize and show up.

That’s a nice feel-good story, a victory for the little guy. If, however, we dig deeper beyond the understandable emotions that surround the Project Blue situation, we start to paint a different picture. One that tells us more about the entire practice of data centers and the system that necessitates them.

The Water Crisis

Most Sonorans today have conerns about long term water usage, yet there are few who understand the very scale of the issue, and fewer still who understand its ultimate cause. Water is a critical resource and is particularly vital for life here. It is essential that we manage our water more responsibly to support the needs of both the environment and our communities. The severity of this problem is exactly the reason we have to discuss this topic with clear eyed honesty. We have to make sure we’re on the same page about what we’re up against, as well as what will ultimately be required to address it.

Firstly, it’s worth noting that projects like this are small in their effects on our water use compared to the amount used in our inefficient agricultural systems, which account for 78% of our state’s water use.¹ Meanwhile we’re only the 37th largest agricultural economy out of the 50 states.²

We should acknowledge that Project Blue would have used recycled water. The company in fact committed to making the facility water positive.³ They were proposing to use a system that would keep using the same water over and over again, and any inefficiency leading to real loss of water would be made up for at the full expense of the company. Detractors may point to the fact that this arrangement would rely on us taking the company at its word. But that’s why laws and agreements exist in our system; if they break their promise, the city government would have legal recourse to hold them to that promise, and they would have an inherent incentive to do so.

We’ve established that Project Blue would not have used as much water as we might think considering how it’s been typically discussed, but these facts don’t change that this was a win for at least slowing down the irresponsible water use practices we currently have, right?

Well, yes and no. We know now that in addition to this proposal, the same company behind Project Blue has other locations around Tucson already being prepared for their next proposal.⁴ If that wasn’t enough, a monstrous data center is about to be built in Eloy, potentially one of the largest in the nation.⁵ Not only are we going to have to struggle for who knows how long to prevent a data center here in our own city against a company that now knows exactly what to expect from us, but we also have to accept that we have no control over what happens in places like Eloy.

The Root of the Issue

That brings us to the question no one seems to be asking. Why is all of this actually happening? The profit motive. The fact of the matter is, this isn’t a problem contained to our city or our region or even our country. Everywhere, communities similar to ours are facing the unfortunate fact that data centers simply make a lot of money. Tech companies need to build them to expand their operations and stay competitive. They simply don’t get to choose whether or not to build data centers; the market demands it from them. If they didn’t build them, then their AI, or their search engine, or their spyware, wouldn’t be as efficient and cost effective as their competitors. In our highspeed and globalized economy, if you aren’t able to compete, you go out of business.

So while one city in Louisiana might say “no don’t ruin our beautiful swamp, build your data center in some desert somewhere” our community will tell that company the same exact thing but in reverse. The fundamental calculation doesn’t change, as long as we have an economy centered around profit, data centers will have to be built somewhere.

The downstream effect of this is that the company has an incentive to choose the most vulnerable communities to build its data centers in. Those who are most desperate for the tax revenue and jobs that the data center will bring. That community and its local ecosystem will face the same environmental costs ours would, but they will have to accept them out of desperation. These communities often lack significant infrastructure to begin with, which helps explain their desperation in the first place. It also means that building there is much less efficient and thus worse for the environment. This leads to a sad state of affairs where the most harmful and least efficient places for the data centers to be built are where they often end up.

Acceptance or Defiance?

One of the main reasons our city was chosen to be best suited for Project Blue was because of our relatively advanced water infrastructure, and particularly our water recycling system being so efficient.⁶ This isn’t out of some benevolent environmental concern, but because they wanted a secure long-term return on investment. The unfortunate reality behind all of this is that it would actually be better for the overall environment and for the company’s own bottom line for them to build a data center here rather than a place like Eloy.

So even if we do succeed at stopping construction of the data centers here completely (something that seems incredibly difficult), we will have to live with the fact that this “win” just means condemning another community with this burden. This is very similar to the dynamic where not building a copper mine in the Santa Rita’s or Oak Flat (for completely valid reasons of environmental conservation and indigenous sovereignty) will simply lead to a higher demand for Copper in the global market. This causes the opening of other copper mines in the global South, where the environmental and social consequences are just as significant, but the communities there are less equipped to mobilize against their construction. Ultimately, due to the competition to produce the cheapest goods inherent to the profit motive, environmentalism at its best under capitalism is reduced to being incapable of anything further than the stewarding of resources for their continued exploitation.

So what’s the solution? It would be easy to say we need to just let Project Blue build here, to accept that the lesser evil is to allow them to construct these data centers in a place with more regulations and better water recycling technology, even if it impacts us more. That’s the selfless utilitarian choice it would seem, but this answer is just as easy and just as mistaken as saying that Project Blues’ temporary disruption was a massive victory for conservation.

Instead, when learning the rules of the system we find ourselves in, and how little power we truly hold within it, we should not accept this state of affairs as a universal fact that we can’t change. We should instead recognize it for what it is, proof that our systems are fundamentally incompatible with true long-term environmental and social wellbeing.

Data centers will be built somewhere no matter what as long as there is a profit incentive to do so. That leaves us with two options. We can accept this reality and do nothing as corporations take our water and harm our ecosystems for their own profits. Or we can use this understanding to criticize the entire system as it stands, as an example of why we need something fundamentally different.

The Alternative

Instead of this competitive model for our economy, leading to the exploitation of people as much as the environment, why not build something better? While the need for more data is certainly important as our technology advances at a rapid pace, the needs of our communities and our water table are just as critical in the long term. Rather than having companies compete with each other with profit as the only metric of success, we could instead organize our economy democratically in a system by and for all stakeholders in these decisions.

A democratic form of decision making on this subject would involve experts on the need for more data cooperating with everyday people who rely on that same water to live, along with environmental experts who can express the water needs of our ecosystems. All of these stakeholders could have representatives with an integral part of the process. Not representatives as they are now, with our only choice being which member of a political elite we vote for, but true representatives. Everyday people who would have the responsibility of upholding a mandate for a short period of time and on a rotating basis. They would be recallable by the community they were elected to represent at any. They would genuinely just be any worker in a shop, any scientist from a lab, or any field researcher who normally spends their days knee deep in a creek. If we replace our current capitalist, bureaucratic, and competitive system with one based on true democracy on the basis of workers’ councils (Communism), then and only then could we truly say we are making decisions that we know would best benefit both the environment and our community.

Such a system will never come into existence via the reform of our current one, and certainly not by the reform of the state which exists to enforce it. Revolution is to some a scary concept, to others a joke. Both of these opinions are understandable given not just the propaganda constantly shoved into our faces, but also the relatively comfortable lives we lead. It is, however, the same crises that the profit motive necessarily creates that, in turn, create its own destruction. No matter what recourse is taken under capitalism, the lives of nearly everyone will get worse and the environment will be continuously destroyed. This is something that has happened historically for as long as capitalism has existed, and will continue to happen for as long as it exists. It is our job as Communists to organize before such crises happen; so that we are ready to create a better world when they do appear. Such organization can not occur within the reformist left, which is for all intents and purposes the left wing of capital. Only by building an independent movement of the working class, one that understands the necessity of revolution and the formation of a new system, will we escape our current cycle of exploitation and destruction.

Don’t fight the symptom of the problem. Fight its source. If you want to end data centers, great, then end capitalism.

Socialism or Barbarism, Communism or Extinction. There is no third way!

Addendum 08/31/2025

Weeks after the city backed out of the initial agreement because of the immense public pressure to do so, as of 8/25 ⁷ it has been made public that the firm behind the proposed data center is now attempting to build in the same location without direct city involvement. Rather than having the city annex the proposed site and be subject to the regulations of the city, the company now seeks to buy the land from its current owner, Pima County.

This strategic pivot demonstrates how Capital adapts when faced with regulatory obstacles, seeking the path of least resistance for its accumulation.

If the county approves this sale, then the data center will be built with wells, and groundwater will be extracted directly from the aquifer for use. This method of sourcing water is significantly more disruptive to our local water system than if the site were to use recycled water, as was initially proposed. In fact, the initial agreement with the city required the use of recycled water as a prerequisite for the sale of the land at all. 

This is just one example of some of the unintended consequences that are inherent to all forms of Non-Communist and reformist opposition tactics.

Project Blue was going to be built with recycled water because agreeing to this was the shortest and easiest path to securing a profit. Now that that avenue is shut, they are turning to the next easiest path, even at the cost of further environmental degradation. When construction is halted by the City, they turn to the County for approval instead. If the County refuses the sale, they will build a backup site in another County. If necessary, this process can continue all the way to the international level. After all, sweatshops and cocoa plantations worked by children exist in the places that are the weakest links in the chain of regulatory enforcement.

In a system where all real power lies in the hands of those who can best represent the ever growing needs of Capital, the supposed rights of the average citizen within that system is a dangerous illusion. For as long as an action remains profitable, the system ensures that by one method or another, it will be done.

This will never change until the underlying motivation of our society itself is addressed, destroyed, and then replaced. Until that day, this horrible reality will remain unchanged. In the meantime, reformism is not only utterly pointless, but also misleading to the workers who must instead organize for revolution. 

The only way to end this system is to understand its underlying realities and to organize as a class until we are fully capable of truly opposing it. That means continuously advocating and agitating in the name of superseding Capitalism with the only possible system where decisions can be made for the good of all of humanity, and ultimately all life on Earth, Communism.

---

Sources

1. https://wrrc.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/2024-01/Pima_6-page_01_2024.pdf ↩︎
2. https://www.azeconomy.org/2024/08/economy/arizona-agriculture-a-study-in-contrasts/ ↩︎
3. https://www.tucsonaz.gov/Government/Office-of-the-City-Manager/Project-Blue-Information ↩︎
4. https://azluminaria.org/2025/08/15/plan-b-for-project-blue-records-reveal-3-other-sites-considered-for-controversial-data-center/ ↩︎
5. https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/pinal/2025/07/30/developer-plans-33-billion-data-center-in-pinal-county/85381868007/ ↩︎
6. https://www.tucsonaz.gov/files/sharedassets/public/v/1/government/city-manager-office/powerpoints/project-blue-community-meeting-presentation-8.4.25-v3.pdf ↩︎
7. https://www.kgun9.com/news/local-news/project-blue-moves-to-build-despite-opposition ↩︎

Further Reading

“Climate Change: Capitalism is the Problem”, The ICT

“Capitalism and the Environment”, The ICT