Following months of intense community pushback and a high-stakes county vote blocking the proposed $2 billion Project Tango AI data center expansion in Loxahatchee, tech companies are showing no signs of backing away.
More proposals for large-scale facilities are still expected to follow, but environmental experts and elected officials call the recent county decisions a crucial cautionary tale for developers.
One of the main reasons for the recent "no" vote: water.
Earlier this month, Palm Beach County commissioners voted 5-1 to slam the brakes on the controversial 200 acre, 600-megawatt facility and roughly 4 million square feet of building space near the Arden neighborhood and Saddle View Elementary School.
From the onset, representatives for the applicant — PBA Holdings — provided mixed information on just how much daily water usage would be used for the data center.
Estimates for daily water usage varied from 5,000 gallons a day, according to project manager Ernie Cox, to 100,000 gallons of potable water a day projected by county staff.
Additionally, the project proposed a one-time use of more than 600,000 gallons to fill a closed-loop system — while the system would recycle its own water, it would still require ongoing maintenance and regulatory guardrails to mitigate environmental risks, such as controlling discharge into local ecosystems.
Their Project Tango presentation wasn't enough to convince residents and the commission.
It was, in fact, confusing for commissioners like Maria Sachs, who told WLRN this week the data center representatives "didn't know" the exact numbers, including not enough guardrails to make them accountable for local water use.
"And until they're certain as to their effects on our environment, you cannot operate a county without sufficient water," said Sachs, who reiterated her support for tech innovation but not at the expense of safety.
Commissioners, a week prior to the 12-hour Project Tango's quasi-public hearing, voted to temporarily pause all new large-scale data center applications, with an official public hearing and first vote on a temporary ban scheduled for Aug. 27.
The balance between accommodating the booming tech industry and protecting South Florida's natural water resources is at stake.
"My 91-year-old mom texted me and said, 'We need data centers in Palm Beach County. If we don't have them, they're gonna go somewhere else,'" said Commissioner Maria Marino, the lone dissent.
"And and if I were to be voting today, I would vote yes. And you can all throw, sling arrows at me, that's okay. But I think with all the conditions that were put in place and all the conditions that were agreed to, the staff did their job."
The county staff approved the project and provided technical conditions that would need to be met before construction, despite the county's Zoning commission voting 7-0 against the project.
Water and the environment
Not being able to pin down the monthly usage of water poses difficulty for any new AI data center application seeking future approval.
Water experts like Dr. Frederick Bloetscher — a civil, environmental and geomatics engineering professor at Florida Atlantic University — broke down the massive toll these facilities can place on the water supplies, the electric grid and the Everglades.
Bloetscher said the often-recited "100,000 gallons of potable water a day" is an underestimation, because large-scale AI data centers often use up to millions of gallons a day.
READ MORE: 'Not compatible': Palm Beach County rejects controversial Project Tango AI data center
According to him, hyperscale AI data centers typically consume anywhere between 1 million to 5 million gallons of water a day.
He warns that continuously extracting millions of gallons of water to protect data center servers from overheating diverts water away from the regional flow, reducing the supply available to recharge local aquifers and support the Everglades ecosystem.
"We rely on the Everglades to recharge our aquifer," Bloetscher explained. "More water there is more water for us. But if you're starting to pull it out, that means water's being moved out of the Everglades... and water's not available as it moves towards the coast."
Because the proposed AI data center was slated to sit next to sensitive regional water infrastructure, critics feared its water consumption and discharge could disrupt or contaminate local drinking supplies.
Following the fierce debate, many residents wondered why local water authorities who own land near the site remained quiet.
The rule is simple: no application from an AI data center means no action, according to a statement to WLRN from the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD). Water regulators must legally stay neutral until a project officially requests a permit to use groundwater or surface water for data server cooling.
"Any application must provide a water conservation plan and evaluate if the use of reclaimed water is environmentally, technically and economically feasible," SFWMD said. "The land use for any data center project must be compatible with local government zoning regulations and the comprehensive plan."
State laws meet local realties
Under Florida's Senate Bill 484, regulators are equipped with sharper teeth, requiring public hearings and blocking permits if a project threatens local water resources.
The governing board of SFWMD told WLRN they are also required "to hold a hearing before issuing a water use permit for a large-scale data center."
Data centers must prove their operations will not deplete neighboring wells, local farms or public drinking supplies.
Even so, Bloetscher cautions that the effectiveness of the law lives in the details.
"The legislation says, 'Don't do harm,'" Bloetscher said. "Somebody's got to write rules to define what that is... The question then is, how does it get implemented at the local level? And again, this is where it's gonna be different in different places."
Suggested solutions
Because the Project Tango denial was issued without prejudice, the developers retain the legal right to revise their cooling logistics and submit a fresh application.
To safely handle future interest, Bloetscher argues that local municipalities must lock in strict regulations addressing two major vulnerabilities.
First, Bloetscher suggest forcing developers to use treated wastewater for cooling instead of tapping directly into public drinking supplies.
And second, developers need to figure out how all that concrete on the data center campus is going to handle heavy rainstorms so it doesn't end up flooding nearby neighborhoods.
Commissioner Maria Sachs suggest placing hyper scale AI data centers near military installations that are far removed from residential communities — and ideally not in Palm Beach County.
"We have many military installations that have undeveloped land next to them that have all these sources of power, so they don't have to be in Palm Beach County," she said.
Military bases often get priority electric grid access with dedicated lines and heavy backup power, which are ideal for heavy AI workloads. It's part of a nationwide debate on national security, according to a Politico investigative report, "The Pentagon wants to build data centers. Congress would like a word."
"They [Project Tango owners] don't have to be right next to a beautiful community of Arden with so many students and children close to that school, which would be so close to the data center," Sachs said.
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