Fitz' Stats for Project Blue
Rough estimates researched by your partisan progressive
Number of Marana acres Project Blue data center will devour: 600
Number of times per day TEP execs have claimed it won’t affect your rates: 600
Number of football fields that can fit into 600 acres: 455
The number of square miles Marana’s data center will occupy: 1
Number of acres occupied by an average Costco: 3
Number of Costcos that would fit into the same space as the proposed data center in Marana: 200
Number of naturally occurring bodies of water in Marana: 0
Average amount of annual rainfall recorded in Marana:11.4 to 12.19 inches.
Commitment by Project Blue team to using renewable resources, according to Project Blue team: 100%
Percentage of southern Arizonans who will financially benefit from Project Blue who believe that’s true: 100%
Number of southern Arizonans who believe the deal was kept secret so long because the County and Team Blue thought it would be a nifty surprise: 0
Members of the 5 member Pima County County Board who feel transparency is an overrated feature of our democracy: 3
Cost of the data center: $3.6 Billion
Cost of the health impact caused by the data center: Yet to be determined
Number of Pima County Supervisors who are aware they originally sold the land to Project Blue with the stipulation the City of Tucson must annex the land don’t give a shit the City of Tucson said NO: 3 out of 5
Estimated cost of a lawsuit if the county breaks its contract with Project Blue: between $500,000 and $1 million
Number of southern Arizonans who agree we must build these data centers everywhere to compete: 3
Number of Pima County Supervisors who believe dropping massive water-guzzling A.I. warehouses in a drought ridden desert is a great idea: 3
Odds Project Blue will store surveillance data about you: 10 out of 10
Odds the Republican-led Arizona Corporation Commission likely to approve the project’s electricity request: 10 out of 10
Percentage of southern Arizonans who believe groundwater is more precious than A.I. data: 99.999%
Percentage who believe the data center’s HVAC system won’t cost an ounce of water: .00001%
Percentage who believe javelina can fly: .00001%
Gallons of reclaimed water Project Blue will use every year to cool its data center: Millions
Percentage who believe the cost of water will be passed onto TEP: 100%
Year of the dot-com boom collapse resulting from similar patterns of investment in Artificial Intelligence: 2000
Number of times I’ve said building an A.I. center in a warming drought stricken desert is A.I, Absolutely Idiotic: 1
Number of neighboring communities reporting sufficient increases in incidents of respiratory illnesses caused by data centers: More than enough
Estimated annual numbers asthma-related cases caused by air pollution from U.S. data centers by 2030: 600,000
Estimated annual health costs to Americans associated with data center pollution by 2030: $20 billion
Number of area citizens projected to scream “No” to Project Blue until they’re blue in the face: 99.999%
Amount the “dry cooling system”, increasing its power usage, will result in Tucson Electric Power using more electricity: 6x
Number of us who are suckered by the “sustainable” sound of the term “indirect” water usage: 0
Number of southern Arizonans who say yes to building data centers just don’t build them in a “God damned drought stricken warming desert”: 99.999%
Number of southern Arizonans who believe data centers beget more data centers and consumers will end up subsidizing the cost: 99.999%
Number of us who see the irony in arguing the AI center will provide jobs for workers in Tucson in a world where millions of workers will be replaced by the A.I. housed within: Your guess is as good as mine
Date when the Pima County Board of Supervisors is expected to discuss “Project Blue” in a closed executive session: Unannounced
Date and time for the next scheduled public Board of Supervisors meeting: Tuesday, November 18, 2025, at 9 a.m.
Check the excellent site of the fine group of citizen activists opposed to Project Blue here:
No Desert Data Center
https://www.nodesertdatacenter.com/
The Data Center Resistance Has Arrived
And the winner is: the fossil fuel industry.
Jobs are always dangled out as "bait". Hudbay claimed thousands for the proposed environmental polluting, water guzzling mine. The Copper World mine is a worse abomination than the data center. BTW, most of the jobs will be filled by people brought in from outside Tucson.
Hey, but such nonsense in commonplace among a population that elected trump.