We, the undersigned residents, property owners, and concerned citizens of Pinal County, Arizona, hereby formally oppose the rezoning of desert land near Picacho and Eloy for the proposed La Osa Energy Center — a development that would place up to 59 data center buildings and gas-fired power plants on some of the most geologically fragile land in the state of Arizona.
We oppose this project for the following reasons:
The ground beneath this site is failing. The Arizona Department of Water Resources documents that land near Eloy has already sunk up to 19 feet since the 1950s due to aggressive groundwater pumping. The Arizona Geological Survey identifies this corridor as the most heavily fissured area in the entire state. Building a hyperscale industrial campus on this land is not just irresponsible — it is dangerous.
The water supply does not exist. This project would place an enormous and permanent demand on an aquifer that state agencies have confirmed is already over-pumped and permanently losing storage capacity. The damage caused by further depletion cannot be undone.
The cumulative impact is unacceptable. A second gas-fired power plant — the Kindle Energy facility — has already been recommended for approval approximately one mile from La Osa. Together, these two projects represent an industrial transformation of our desert landscape that no single approval process has ever fully assessed.
Our community will bear costs it never agreed to. Industrial-scale noise, heat increases of up to 16 degrees Fahrenheit in the surrounding area, air emissions from gas-fired generation, and the permanent industrialization of open desert land are costs that fall entirely on the people who live here — not on the distant corporations this project is built to serve.
We call on the Pinal County Board of Supervisors to deny the rezoning application for the La Osa Energy Center, and to require comprehensive, independent studies of water, geology, air quality, noise, heat, and cumulative environmental impact before any industrial rezoning of this land is considered.
Pinal County belongs to the people who live here. We deserve a voice in what it becomes.