Across Gallup’s western high desert, the struggle with limited water has shaped community life and decision‑making. Now, city officials are weighing an unusual proposition: whether they will allow treated wastewater — considered a municipal byproduct — to power a massive data center campus.
The Gallup City Council delayed its decision on the proposal Tuesday night after a 4-1 vote. Under the proposal, the city would allow Teraplex Data Centers LLC to buy about 110 million gallons of treated wastewater annually to power the 330-acre development in the Gallup Tradeport. On the line is not only a large-scale industrial undertaking, but the redefinition of wastewater itself as a marketable asset in an increasingly data-driven economy.
Shift from wastewater to currency
The proposal, if approved, signals a shift across the American Southwest. That wastewater is no longer waste. It is becoming infrastructure — and a currency.
According to the BioSpectrum Asia report, Teraplex co-founder Greg Thompson told council members the wastewater would help cool a sprawling data center complex, which will eventually host tenants such as Oracle Corporation, Meta Platforms, Amazon, or Microsoft. He said the facility could create 300 jobs while generating its own electricity through solar power and natural gas.
But residents, environmental advocates, and even some council members did not ask about jobs or technology. They asked about water — and whether Gallup can afford to convert its wastewater into a marketable asset at a moment when its broader water future remains uncertain.
The city currently produces some 2.3 million gallons of wastewater per day. If the city council gives the green light to the proposal, Gallup will divert a substantial volume of that output to serve a single private industrial user.
To supporters, the setup represents an emerging model of resource efficiency by harnessing runoff water that would otherwise be discharged and putting it to economic use. Their argument is simple: In a region where freshwater supplies are scarce, wastewater reuse may offer a unique opportunity to reconcile development with scarcity.
‘Deal-changer’?
Mayor Marc DePauli, who opposed the majority of the council, described the proposal as a pragmatic response to a structural constraint. “I was always skeptical and still kind of am about data centers,” he said during the meeting. “But bringing us the option of using our wastewater, it’s kind of a deal-changer.”
Interviews and public testimony, however, suggest that the same concept being promoted as an innovation — the monetization of wastewater — also triggers skepticism. Fueling the skepticism is a question public hearings rarely resolve: the ownership of reclaimed water after treatment and its role in industrial commitments.
“Gallup has an unclear future concerning water rights,” said Larry Winn, the former chairman of the local water board. He warned council members that the agreement could force the city to take on obligations before resolving the broader regional water disputes. The former water board executive described data centers as part of a growing national pattern of resource-intensive development that often outpaces local capacity to regulate it.
The Gallup proposal is unraveling alongside a wider regional controversy over large-scale data infrastructure.
Brant reported that in southern New Mexico, the Project Jupiter — linked to Oracle Corporation and OpenAI — has drawn public attention over its energy and emissions footprint. Data centers, especially those driving AI and cloud computing, consume enormous amounts of electricity and water.
Councilor Sierra Yazzie Asamoa-Tutu reminded fellow council members of a legal filing from the New Mexico Environmental Law Center over Project Jupiter. She urged colleagues to slow down before Gallup follows a similar trajectory to that of Doña Ana County officials.
While the council has chosen delay over approval, Gallup stands at the crossroads: either to dismiss wastewater as mere discharge or harness it as the next AI resource.