California Judge Skeptical of County's Data Center Freeze in Fight Over State's Largest Proposed Facility

EL CENTRO, Calif. — An Imperial County Superior Court judge voiced skepticism this week toward the county's justification for freezing approvals of new data centers, in a lawsuit brought by the developer behind what would be California's largest data center.

Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing filed suit in June after the Imperial County Board of Supervisors reversed an earlier approval of the company's nearly 1-million-square-foot facility and imposed a moratorium on new data center projects countywide. The board had initially approved a 45-day freeze, which it later extended to 10 months and 15 days — through June 2027 — so the county could study its land-use rules.

At a hearing Tuesday, attorney Sebastian Rucci, who is also the project's developer, argued that a moratorium can only be used to address a specific, immediate emergency, and that the county failed to identify one. He told Judge Jeffrey Jones the county was trying to reverse its own prior approval under the pretense of what he called a "manufactured emergency," driven by public pressure rather than any genuine threat to health or safety.

Jones pressed the county's attorney on that same point, asking where the irreparable harm or serious risk to residents' health, safety and welfare was that would justify the freeze. The county has said only that it wants to study data centers further and that it's aware of community concerns — a rationale Rucci argued doesn't meet the legal bar for an emergency moratorium, since routine study of land uses is different from the specific harms moratoriums are meant to address.

The dispute has become a flashpoint in the rural, agricultural county, where residents and local leaders have raised concerns about the facility's water and power demands, while Rucci has argued the project would bring roughly 2,500 construction jobs, 100 permanent jobs, and tens of millions of dollars in new tax revenue to an economically struggling region. The city of Imperial has separately sued over the project's environmental review, and local residents are gathering signatures for a ballot referendum to ban data centers in the county outright.

Jones did not rule from the bench on whether the moratorium should be lifted.

The case is Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing, LLC v. County of Imperial, Imperial County Superior Court. Sources: https://www.courthousenews.com/desert-data-center-developer-challenges-county-moratorium-in-court/, https://mavensnotebook.com/2026/07/29/courthouse-news-desert-data-center-developer-challenges-imperial-county-moratorium-in-court/