KVIG Informative

An $8.4 billion data center campus wants to build on 900 acres outside Pahrump. Nye County put a hold on new data center approvals — but two applications filed before the pause are still alive.

The Manse Technology Campus, formerly known as Project Blackjack, would span roughly 900 acres along State Route 160, according to developer Sean Delasandro. Nye County’s Board of Commissioners hosted a town hall July 25 to let residents question developers and county officials about the project directly.

Nye County instituted a temporary moratorium on processing new data center applications in June, giving officials time to draft regulations. But the moratorium doesn’t cover the Manse Technology Campus and a second proposal, the Osprey Data Center, both of which were filed before the pause took effect.

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Water is the central concern. Pahrump sits on Basin No. 162, the valley’s sole water source, and residents at the town hall repeatedly raised worries about groundwater use, wastewater disposal and rising utility bills for people on fixed incomes. The developer says the campus’s closed-loop cooling system would use less than 300 acre-feet of water annually — still enough to supply between 600 and 900 homes in a community that has struggled with groundwater availability.

In a press statement, the developer said the project is designed to fund its own infrastructure using water rights it already owns, and would keep power costs off residents’ bills while generating tens of millions of dollars a year in property tax revenue.

Residents aren’t convinced the process itself has been fair. One resident said at the meeting that there has been little transparency between Nye County commissioners, developers and the town, and argued county government isn’t representing the people who live there.

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A separate effort by Commissioner Ian Bayne to ban data center development in Pahrump outright failed to gain support from his fellow commissioners in June. The Nye County Commission is scheduled to take up a narrower bill Aug. 4 that would prohibit data center developments in any Nye County town without an elected town board — a measure that would not apply to Pahrump, which does have one.

The developer has an open house scheduled for Aug. 3 at the Pahrump Nugget, one day before commissioners take up a bill that wouldn’t stop the project anyway. Whatever happens at that meeting, Pahrump residents will still be waiting for county regulations that, as of this week, don’t yet exist.