Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing has taken its fight over water to court, filing a lawsuit in Imperial County Superior Court after the Imperial Irrigation District rejected its application in May. The company is now seeking 260 million gallons a year, or about 750,000 gallons a day, for a planned artificial intelligence data center in Imperial Valley.
The lawsuit puts Sebastian Rucci, the Huntington Beach developer and attorney behind IVCM, at the center of a dispute that has moved quickly from pitch to legal battle. In February, the firm said the project would use wastewater that would otherwise be discarded, and Rucci said it would not touch a single drop of the Colorado River. That was the promise when the company was describing a project built around reclaimed and recycled water from Imperial and El Centro.
IVCM says it spent months trying to reach recycled-water agreements with Imperial and El Centro, including offers to help pay for treatment plant upgrades and to send extra recycled water toward the Salton Sea. The company says those talks fell apart, and only then did it turn to IID as a last resort. The amount now being sought works out to about 880 acre-feet a year, a volume that matters because all of Imperial Valley's fresh water comes from the Colorado River.
That is where the case turns. IVCM is asking a court for Colorado River water after publicly arguing the project would not draw from it, and it is also trying to show that 160 acres of leased farmland south of the proposed site can offset the water use if left unplanted and unwatered. Whether that holds up under any measurable rule is now the core issue, because the district has already said no and the district chair, Karin Eugenio, has publicly opposed the proposal.
The dispute lands in a county where the stakes are already spreading beyond one project. The Imperial County Board of Supervisors will consider an emergency pause on data center development, several cities in Imperial County are pursuing moratoriums of their own, and the board is also weighing a revised rate structure for data centers and other large energy users. The request is also large enough to draw attention on its own: KPBS reported that the water volume is about the same as the yearly water needs of roughly 7,300 Imperial County residents.
For now, the legal filing is the clearest sign that IVCM intends to keep pressing for water even after the May rejection. The next answer will come from the court, while local governments decide whether the rush toward data centers should slow down first.
