Doña Ana County Creates Committee to Monitor Project Jupiter

The Doña Ana Board of County Commissioners unanimously approved the creation of an 11-member community monitoring committee to oversee Project Jupiter, a massive data center complex in Santa Teresa being built for Oracle and OpenAI. Proposed by resident Lynn Moorer, the committee will consult independent experts to study the project's impacts on air, noise, pollution, and water. Members from the county's five districts will be appointed by September 4, and the board added an amendment to hire an outside attorney to advise the group.

The decision follows a period of intense volatility. A July 28 meeting resulted in three arrests after a physical altercation involving security, sheriffs, and residents. During a subsequent August 12 meeting, residents protested those events and called for the resignation of Commission Chair Manuel Sanchez. Sanchez denied that the county coordinated the presence of union workers at the previous meeting and expressed alarm over the doxing of his home address.

Tensions remain high as elected officials report receiving violent online threats, some of which are being referred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Simultaneously, New Mexico state senators scheduled a public listening session for August 12 at the New Mexico State University Corbett Center Student Union to address transparency and environmental concerns. A project job report is expected to be released to the public next week.