Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing has filed the ICVM Colorado River lawsuit in Imperial County Superior Court, seeking 260 million gallons of water a year from the Imperial Irrigation District for a planned AI data center. The request comes after the district rejected the company’s water application in May and pushes the dispute into court.
The filing puts the demand at about 750,000 gallons a day, or 880 acre-feet per year. KPBS reported that the annual request is roughly equal to the yearly water needs of about 7,300 Imperial County residents.
Sebastian Rucci and February
Sebastian Rucci, the Huntington Beach developer and attorney behind IVCM, had taken a different position earlier this year. In a February blog post on his firm’s website, the project was described as using wastewater that would otherwise be discarded, and Rucci said, “It does not touch a single drop of the Colorado River.”
That earlier statement now sits beside the lawsuit’s request for water from the Imperial Irrigation District. IVCM said it spent months trying to reach recycled-water agreements with the cities of Imperial and El Centro before turning to the district as a last resort after those negotiations broke down.
Imperial Valley water dispute
IVCM said it proposed helping pay for treatment plant upgrades and routing extra recycled water to the Salton Sea. It also said it can balance out its water use by leaving the 160 acres of farmland it has leased south of the proposed site unplanted and unwatered.
All of the Imperial Valley’s fresh water comes from the Colorado River, so the lawsuit reaches into a region where a new AI project is competing for limited supplies. IID Chair Karin Eugenio has publicly opposed IVCM’s proposal, and the Imperial Irrigation District board is considering a revised rate structure for data centers and other large energy users.
Imperial County Board
The Imperial County Board of Supervisors will consider an emergency pause on data center development as the court case moves ahead. Several cities in Imperial County are also pursuing moratoriums on data center development, keeping the dispute focused on how fast new projects can proceed while the water fight is unresolved.
For now, the company has moved from a recycled-water pitch to a court demand for Colorado River-linked supply, and the next pressure point is whether the Imperial Irrigation District or the court will give that request a path forward.
