The Hualapai tribal council passed a resolution on Aug. 20 opposing the construction of data centers on land within the reservation.
That’s according to a press release from the Hualapai Tribe, which cites critical water shortages on the Colorado River as one reason for its opposition.
The press release also mentions potential environmental and community impacts from data centers, like light pollution and wastewater discharge, as reasons against building hyperscale data centers on the reservation.
The release does not say if any tech company in particular approached the tribe about building data centers within its borders.
There’s a growing backlash to data centers happening nationwide, including bipartisan support for temporary bans on data center construction.
This isn’t the first time the Hualapai Tribe has taken a stance on proposed industrial development in the tribal nation.
In 2019, an Australian mining company proposed a lithium project near hot springs that the tribe considers sacred. The tribe then sued the federal government, stating that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management failed to protect tribal cultural resources when it greenlit the lithium mine. The company later dropped its proposal.
