Tell Us About 05.2026: Water

Happy Thursday, friends.  I am writing this on Tuesday morning.  Still fighting a bit of jet lag after returning home from our trip late Friday night.  We were awake about 23 hours while we traveled.  Just found it nearly impossible to sleep on the plane for more than a few minutes at a time.  We have been playing catch up on our sleep and everything else over the past few days.  Starting tomorrow, Wednesday, I will be subbing for a kindergarten class for 4 days.  Hope I can stay awake!!  Then again, I imagine those kindergarteners will see to it that I do!!

Global Writing Challenge 05.2026

It is time for this month's Global Writing Challenge.  Our prompt - water - was suggested by Rosie.  Since we have very, very little water here on the Chihuahuan Desert, I wasn't sure I would have much to say.  Ha!!  But have you ever known me to not have much to say?  I mean really!

Tell Us About:  Water

To begin, please allow me to tell you a little about the city I call my hometown.  El Paso is located in far west Texas (although there seems to be some debate as to whether El Paso is really part of Texas at all!!) and is the sixth largest city in the Lone Star state.  It is the twenty-second most populous city in the U.S. with a population of 877,000 in its 5,584 square miles of metropolitan area.  But it is a poor town.  Over 18% of El Pasoans live below the poverty line with a median per capita annual income of $28,963, a median household income of $59,834 [source]. And yet our property taxes are the highest in the state, at 2.6%.  For our 2,300 square foot house, we are paying close to $7000 a year in property taxes.  And our property appraisals jump by leaps and bounds, raising our property taxes even more.  

El Paso receives about 9" of rain annually, with most of that - around 6" - falling during our 'monsoon' season from June - September.  Pair with that 3-4 months of summer with temperatures frequently in the triple digits.  So we are hot and dry.  We have year-round yard watering restrictions that correspond with our house address.  Addresses that end in an even number can only water on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.  Odd number addresses water on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.  No watering allowed at all on Mondays.  Yards are generally very small and builders and home owners are strongly encouraged to use xeriscaping in part or all of their landscaping.  Water is a precious commodity in these parts.

So, knowing all of this, imagine the community's alarm when in 12.2023 it was announced that the City of El Paso had approved the El Paso Meta Agreement, allowing for the construction of META data center to be built in the far northeast side of the city.  Just a few miles from my home.

Northeast El Paso META Data Center

[source]

When we first started hearing rumblings that a META data center was going to be built in El Paso, I had to Google META data center to find out what was coming our way.  In this recent article online, the elpasotexas.gov describes it like this:

The META data center project (filed under Wurldwide LLC) is a hyperscale, $1.5 billion infrastructure development. It involves the construction of a data center campus for AI computing, consisting of several buildings designed to house networked computer servers and related storage and communications equipment.

The data center is being constructed over 5 phases on a tract of land approximately 1,000 acres, in far northeast El Paso.  The city granted META a generous, multi-decade incentive package to build in El Paso.  The incentive package is tied to a projected $800 million (initial) to $1.5 billion+ (total) investment over 25–35 years. Incentives include:

• an 80% property tax abatement on city/county taxes 

• $12.5M for road repairs

• state sales tax exemptions for electricity and equipment

And in return, META will provide little more than just 50-100 permanent jobs within the El Paso community.

What's the Problem?

[source]

El Pasoans aren't quite sure yet.  But concern surrounds a couple of issues associated with META or AI data centers.  

With the possibility that the eventual price tag for the construction of the data center could exceed $10 billion, there are estimates that the city could stand to forfeit $1 billion in tax revenue.  

The natural gas and/or diesel generators used by data centers during power outages may impact air quality. 

Impact to the electrical grid is uncertain.  According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), approximately 2,700 data centers in the United States accounted for over 4% of the nation’s electricity use, a figure projected to rise to 6% by 2026 [source].  

Then There's Water

It is clear that El Paso doesn't have any water to spare.  The META data center will house a large number of computer servers that get very hot with use.  And even hotter when our summer temperatures begin to rise.  The computers will utilize a closed-loop water system to keep the data center and equipment cool.  

"The maximum permitted use at full build out (2.5 million gallons per day) would be roughly equal to the water use of 12,375 homes." [source]  

El Pasoans are worried about where that water is going to come from and how that usage will impact the community.  

To address the possible shortage of drinking water for the city's citizens, El Paso Water Utilities is overseeing 2 projects.  The construction of a desalination plant that will increase the availability of fresh water from the utility's current 27 million gallons daily to 33.5 million gallons.  And the development of the Pure Water Center that will treat waste water (no thank you) to bring it to potable standards, providing as much as an additional 10 million gallons of water daily.  

But...YIKES!!  Maybe the data center could use the wastewater to cool their plant and computers but I am not interested in drinking, cooking or bathing with it.  

Construction is underway on the META data center but El Pasoans, in particular those of us living in the northeast part of town, in the shadow of this plant, are skeptical about the plant and have begun asking questions of government and public utility officials.

How Do You Feel?

Do you have a data center in your area or plans for the construction of one in the near future?  How do you feel about these data centers?  I am afraid in many ways all of this technology, all of the Artificial Intelligence is going to be more detrimental than we now know.

Your Turn

Please join me in visiting the blogs of the other Global Writing Challenge bloggers and checking out their takes on this month's prompt.

Don't you love the graphic Rosie created for this post?  So hopeful. 

Deb has shared quotes, photos and even poems to celebrate the precious resource of water in her life downunder.  Stop by https://www.debs-world.com for her post.

Marsha always planned to retire to the East Coast.  Unfortunately, Marsha also had three kids to put through college so she lives in landlocked Indiana.  Read more here https://marshainthemiddle.com.

Rosie talks about her love for the 'vitamin sea' that she gets from being near water and she tops it off with a few water themed books.  Find her post at https://rosieamber.wordpress.com.

Sally discusses birds seen and photographed near water.  Read more at https://www.withinaworldofmyown.com.

And Suzy writes about water and why it both soothes and unsettles her—pop over to read her take at http://www.suzyturner.com.

Next month's Global Writing Challenge prompt comes to us from Sally.  We will be writing about sunshine.  Won't you join us?  Mark your calendars and meet us back here on 06.11.2026.  

If you have joined us on writing about 'water' this month, won't you add the link to your post below?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Off to bed.  I have a feeling I am going to need my strength to manhandle the kindergartners this week!!

Thank you for visiting.

Hugs and kisses,