A tech developer has asked a Nye County judge to toss out a ban on data centers in one of the state’s most overstressed water basins that serves Pahrump.
In a statement, developer Sean Dalesandro said his company is asking for a judge to uphold a principle of fairness, adding that he believes the ban unlawfully disregarded a significant investment into zoning. His company’s previously proposed data center project, the Manse Technology Campus, drew protests from hundreds of residents.
“You should be able to rely on your property’s zoning, the county’s guidance and the county’s own process when you invest,” Dalesandro said. “If your zoning can be undone at any time, then property rights become property privilege and that should concern every property owner in Nye County.”
The legal petition is in response to a ban on data centers in basin 162, the Pahrump Valley Hydrographic Basin, where water rights committed on paper to property owners outweigh the annual yield by more than three to one. It asks a judge to reverse the data center ordinance, allow the project to proceed and award reimbursement of attorney’s fees.
Nye County’s spokesperson did not return requests for comment about the legal petition on Friday. The case docket did not show an official response from the county or the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission, a spokeswoman said.
Nye County Commissioner Ian Bayne, the elected official who proposed the ban and lobbied the other commissioners to support it, doubled down on the ordinance in a Facebook post on Friday morning.
“I remain as confident as ever in our data center ban law, and would like to call on data center developers to stop trying to create a panic among residents,” Bayne said.
Cooling concerns differ across county lines
For decades, water has underpinned many fights against development and extraction in Nye County, including concerted, bipartisan campaigns to protect the biodiversity hot spot of Ash Meadows Wildlife Refuge from mining, solar and more.
Within this section of Southern Nevada, the little-known Amargosa River flowing from Beatty into Death Valley National Park connects to several groundwater basins, including the one serving Pahrump, according to researchers. Water is consistently seen as an issue that crosses party lines, as it is directly tied to livelihoods in small desert towns.
In his statement, Dalesandro said his preferred route forward to address environmental concerns would be to work with commissioners directly on implementing code changes.
“We take residents’ concerns about water, noise and the character of the valley seriously, and know they can be addressed through clear, enforceable standards written into a binding agreement that Nye County can enforce,” he said.
While Nye County is considered a part of Southern Nevada, it is not served by the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which has implemented a ban on so-called evaporative cooling. That ban in water authority service areas includes methods of cooling data center servers that waste the most water.
No initial court date has been scheduled for the case, according to a district court spokeswoman.
Contact Alan Halaly at ahalaly@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlanHalaly on X.
