Esmaeil Baqaei, the spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, recently warned of the increasing environmental damage caused by the U.S. war, drawing attention to oil contamination in the Persian Gulf that has begun washing up on Iranian shores. “This incident is only one visible example of the extensive pollution — both overt and concealed — that has degraded the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman,” he wrote on X. “Who bears responsibility for compensating these damages? Is it the nations that consume the inexpensive energy exported from our region, the shipping insurers, or the aggressors and their partners who have transformed the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman into a theater for military operations and the testing of highly destructive weaponry?”
Alongside death and destruction that has killed or wounded tens of thousands of Iranians, the U.S.–Israeli war has caused massive environmental devastation. By March, attacks had already resulted in more than 300 incidents of potential environmental harm, documented across 12 countries in the region, according to a report by the Conflict and Environment Observatory. These toxic exposures threaten not only today’s war victims, but also future generations who will grapple with the knock-on effects.
The ongoing satellite blackout has hindered the work of those tracking the environmental devastation.
Major commercial satellite companies have restricted or delayed the publication of their Middle East data at the behest of the U.S. government. Likely intended to obscure the true extent of damage inflicted on U.S. military facilities across the region, the ongoing satellite blackout has also hindered the work of those tracking the environmental devastation that has accompanied the conflict since it began in February. Even with the limited data, the Conflict and Environment Observatory has concluded that “[a]ll parties to the conflict” have appeared to target “environmentally risky facilities,” including oil infrastructure and water desalination plants.
According to research by the Climate and Community Institute, U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran in the first 14 days of the war emitted roughly 5 million metric cubic tons of greenhouse gases. Put another way: In two weeks, coalition strikes produced roughly the same amount of carbon emissions as the country of Iceland does over the course of a year. And as the war dragged on, missile facilities, weapons depots, oil infrastructure, nuclear facilities, dual-use and civilian infrastructure including power stations and desalination plants were also increasingly struck.
The environmental threats these targets pose is enormous. Damaged desalination plants jeopardize the civilian water supply and flood nearby land and marine environments with harmful chemicals like sulfuric acid. Bombed infrastructure fills urban streets with asbestos-contaminated rubble and dust, heightening the risk of respiratory illness and cancer among exposed populations. Damaged weapons facilities pollute surrounding areas with explosives, highly toxic liquid propellants, and heavy metals. And the targeting of nuclear facilities risks radiation exposure or worse, an uncontrolled nuclear disaster, like a meltdown.
Fossil fuel infrastructure has also remained a key military objective for all belligerents. Israeli strikes on more than two dozen Iranian oil depots in early March engulfed the capital city of Tehran in a cloud of toxic smoke that rained black carbon and sulfuric acid on the city’s 9 million residents. Attacks on oil tankers and other commercial vessels have leached oil and spilled fuel into myriad waterways from the Egyptian port of Damietta, where Iran struck two liquefied natural gas vessels, to the coast of Sri Lanka, where the U.S. sank an Iranian frigate. And such environmental damage is likely to increase as the conflict continues to sporadically flare up.
The U.S. has a long history of starting wars that leave deep environmental scars. And for decades, U.S. troops have paid for it with exposures to toxic substances, including defoliants like Agent Orange, an herbicide the U.S. sprayed across Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s; smoke from oil depot fires that dotted the landscape in and around Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War; and the military base burn pits of the post-9/11 forever wars. The PACT Act of 2022 extended healthcare access to millions of veterans who served from the last half of the 20th century to today and now suffer from a wide range of conditions related to such wartime exposures, including cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and reproductive issues likely caused or exacerbated by their military service.
Health problems among U.S. veterans often mirror those of local communities in war zones as they are exposed to the same toxic substances. Just as American troops returned home from Iraq with higher rates of diseases like urinary and blood cancers, doctors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, for example, reported higher birth abnormalities and miscarriages among the local population.
Fallujah offers a glimpse of the environmental fallout that the people of neighboring Iran may face in the years to come. More than half of Fallujah was leveled in a U.S. Marine-led siege of the city in 2004. Hospitals, water systems and electrical grids were destroyed. A similar wave of destruction accompanied the ISIS takeover of the city in 2014. Fallujah was then besieged and heavily bombed in 2016 during the U.S.–Iraqi military operation that retook the city. Iraqis in Fallujah fled en masse in both 2004 and 2014. Those who returned were greeted by demolished homes, bomb craters, chemical spills, and houses with ash covered walls littered with bullet holes.
“The Trillion Dollar War Machine,” by William D. Hartung and Ben Freeman Available at Bookshop.org.
Since 2004, Fallujah has seen a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer rates and similar spikes in early onset cancer and respiratory diseases, according to a study co-authored by local physicians. Elevated rates of miscarriages and lethal birth defects that followed the initial U.S. invasion have never diminished. Reports on these poor health outcomes by doctors at Fallujah Women and Children’s Hospital led to the creation of a multidisciplinary study steered by researchers from Purdue University in the U.S. and Britain’s Newcastle University which tracked the intergenerational health effects of heavy metal exposure.
Depleted uranium munitions — which shatter and ignite on impact, allowing them to penetrate heavy armor plating — have been used by the U.S. in combat since the Gulf War. Spent rounds then release particles of radioactive uranium and other heavy metals, like titanium, into the surrounding earth, water, and air. Heavily bombarded areas in Fallujah were left with a greater percentage of heavy metals in their soil as a result.
Those who returned to the city after the battles, rebuilt their homes, reseeded contaminated farmlands, and drank and bathed in local waters now carry higher levels of radiation and heavy metals in their bodies. Indeed, uranium was found in the bones of one-third of study participants, all of whom were children during the 2004 siege — at levels roughly 300 times higher than their generational peers in America.
While highly toxic on its own, uranium levels are also often a marker for exposure to heavy metals including lead, arsenic, and mercury, which have been known to harm virtually every organ in the human body. Today, elevated rates of miscarriages and lethal congenital anomalies plague families in Fallujah.
“War itself is always about combustion,” explained Kali Rubaii, a cultural anthropologist and Purdue University assistant professor who led the study on Fallujah. “The combustion of generally toxic materials redistributes these toxicants into people’s air, water and food. Every time someone breathes in everything in the air, they are inheriting the pollutants of war.”
Post-war surges in birth defects, respiratory diseases, and cancers in Fallujah have now been directly linked with exposure to the weapons of war. As the pollutants of war are largely universal, the study’s implications lie far beyond Fallujah. Recommendations for those returning to bombarded areas are included in the study’s appendix in both Ukrainian and Arabic. When I spoke to Rubaii in March — two days after Tehran was drenched in black rain — she hoped the study’s finding, and its recommendations for returnees, could be of help to those living near the Persian Gulf.
The U.S–Israeli war on Iran has only exacerbated ongoing environmental crises in the Middle East, including a five-year-long drought, brought on by years of insufficient rainfall linked to human-induced climate change, that poses a severe threat to Tehran’s water supply. The Persian Gulf’s fragile coral reefs and mangrove forests have also, for years, suffered under rising water temperatures, intensive vessel activity, and growing industrial pollution.
“The most effective way to limit heavy metal toxicity from war is by not bombing cities.”
The Persian Gulf’s ecosystems still bear the scars of oil spills from the U.S. battles with Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. Now, according to a recent study from the University of South Florida’s College of Marine Science, oil spills in the Gulf have increased dramatically since the beginning of the war to cover roughly four times the area in March 2026 as they did one year earlier. Though it is still too soon to calculate the full extent of the environmental harm imposed by the ongoing conflict, the toxic airborne pollutants, land contaminated with heavy metals, and oil-soaked waterways will pose a threat to life for decades to come.
As Rubaii’s study concludes, “the most effective way to limit heavy metal toxicity from war is by not bombing cities.” While we live in an age where threats to civilian infrastructure are espoused and ordered by prime ministers and presidents alike, the illegality of these attacks — and their grave ecological consequences — cannot be ignored. The targeting of a country’s energy infrastructure, waterways, bridges, and homes makes it more likely that the attacked nation will respond with attacks on similar targets, placing civilians at risk in the present and, due to environmental contamination, for following generations.
People can’t be healthy if they live on sick lands.
The International Committee of the Red Cross — which works to uphold the laws of war — has repeatedly affirmed that the environment itself is a civilian object and must be protected. Under the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court, to inflict disproportionate widespread and severe environmental damage is a war crime.
The Iran war has already sparked a global fuel crisis, threatened future harvests, and placed tens of millions of people at risk of hunger, imperiling this generation and the next. It has also subjected civilians to toxic smoke, black carbon rain, and other public health hazards. People can’t be healthy if they live on sick lands. Even after the final bomb of the Iran war has dropped, the ecological devastation and health hazards will haunt U.S. service members and local residents alike. Fallujah has shown that even long after the guns fall silent, war victims continue to suffer with the fallout of conflicts that have, quite literally, seeped into their bones.
After Hurricane Helene, a group called Latinos Aventureros covered more than 4,300 miles crisscrossing Western North Carolina, spending 650 volunteer hours delivering food, water, medicine, and other supplies to an estimated 1,700 people.
It was a departure from the group’s typical mandate: helping Latino families get outside in natural areas like Wilson Creek, a popular summer recreation site in the forest stretching north of the mountain-flanked city of Asheville, where President Donald Trump will welcome G20 leaders on Saturday. Since the devastating 2024 hurricane — the deadliest to hit the mainland U.S. since Katrina — North Carolina has received just a fraction of the disaster aid it’s sought from the federal government. Short on federal dollars, local volunteers like Latinos Aventureros tried to fill in the gaps. “We didn’t wait for permission. We didn’t wait for funding,” said Vivianette Ortiz, one of the group’s leaders. “We just showed up.”
The Trump administration has pointed to Asheville’s recovery as a marker of success, and its selection to host the international economic summit “reflects the Trump Administration’s commitment to the revitalization and resilience of western North Carolina,” in the words of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. But the view from the ground tells a different story. Damaged roads and infrastructure remain; some residents are still living in trailers; and empty lots mark where homes and businesses stood before Helene. And instead of receiving still-needed federal assistance, earlier this summer, Western North Carolina got Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
ICE agents, U.S. Forest Service personnel, and Caldwell County sheriff’s deputies arrested 13 people at Wilson Creek on July 26. Among them was a father there with his partner and their 4- and 10-year-old children, who had to watch their dad be taken into custody. ICE claimed some of those arrested had criminal records, but it hasn’t said who or how many.
To Ortiz, there was “a real sense of betrayal.” Volunteers with Latinos Aventureros had helped clean the recreation area, where the organization encouraged families to swim, hike, fish, and picnic on public lands. Families have since said they are afraid to use outdoor spaces because they fear encountering immigration enforcement.
“A huge part of our work has always been telling Latino families: These public lands belong to you, too,” Ortiz said. “If people are afraid to walk through that gate, then meaningful access has already been damaged.”
Left: Storm debris is piled against a damaged business in Swannanoa, N.C., on Oct. 4, 2024, days after Hurricane Helene devastated the community. Right: Nearly two years later, the building remains unrepaired and overgrown on Aug. 24, 2026. Trump visited Swannanoa shortly after the storm and promised a swift federal response and recovery.Photo: Austin Campbell/The Intercept
It takes just an hour by car to reach a different reality, where finance ministers and central bank governors representing the world’s largest economies are rolling into town for a meeting of the G20, the international economic forum whose members account for roughly 85 percent of global economic output and two-thirds of the world’s population.
They’re meeting up at the Grove Park Inn and Spa, a luxury resort overlooking Asheville and largely removed from the destruction Hurricane Helene left along the region’s rivers and valleys. Federal contracting records show the Treasury Department awarded Omni Hotels Corporation, the hotel’s owner, a $1.03 million contract to use the space. A separate Treasury planning document names Grove Park as the event’s “primary place of performance” and calls for gifts representing Western North Carolina and cultural programming highlighting the region’s “history, culture, and character.”
The city awaiting G20 delegates offers only a partial picture of recovery, said Jaime Byrd, a local resident and art gallery owner.
“They will get that beautiful experience of being at the Grove Park Inn, most likely, and maybe a couple of them might make it downtown, which looks completely normal,” Byrd said. “It’s unfortunate.”
Beyond Asheville’s tourist corridors, Helene remains written into the landscape. Debris left along rivers and roads has disappeared beneath nearly two years of vegetation, while damaged infrastructure remains. Elsewhere, recovery resembles absence: Buildings swept away by the storm have left empty ground where homes and businesses once stood.
Byrd’s gallery, located in Asheville’s River Arts District, took roughly six feet of water during Helene, destroying much of her artwork and causing at least $80,000 to $100,000 in losses, she estimates. Across town, roads near her home washed out, largely cutting off the neighborhood. Without electricity to power their wells, residents collected drinking water from an open spring on a neighbor’s property. They laid rocks and large pieces of metal across damaged roads to make them passable. Helicopters eventually arrived with “meals ready to eat” and evacuated residents who needed medical care.
“Most of this help came from self-help and community efforts,” Byrd said.
Jaime Byrd, left, salvages a painting from her flooded gallery in Asheville’s River Arts District on Oct. 3, 2024, days after Hurricane Helene.Photo: Austin Campbell/The Intercept
Federal assistance covered about 20 percent of the repairs needed at her home, Byrd estimates, but she received no Federal Emergency Management Agency help for her gallery. She launched a GoFundMe, spent her own money, and salvaged what artwork she could. Her collectors bought every recovered piece, which helped her keep the business alive.
Two years later, she said one of her neighbors still lives without water, while others remain in trailers.
In East Asheville, Linda Tetens said flooding and fallen trees effectively turned her neighborhood into an island, while residents cleared roads and helped one another through days without power or reliable access to food and water. Tetens relies on a CPAP machine to breathe while sleeping and said that after about 10 days without electricity, the effects of going without it forced her to leave Asheville for a motel in Greensboro.
“It was like a full-time job, trying to negotiate with FEMA.”
FEMA initially approved the hotel stay, Tetens said, but later denied her reimbursement. She spent nearly a year repeatedly submitting documents before receiving roughly $1,400.
“It was like a full-time job, trying to negotiate with FEMA,” Tetens said. “I understand why people gave up.”
Tetens points to damaged roads and residents still awaiting government buyouts as evidence of how much work remains.
“We’re not even close to being back,” she said.
Nearly two years after Helene, billions of dollars sought for North Carolina’s recovery remain outstanding. The state had received $7.8 billion in federal disaster aid as of March 31, according to state recovery data cited by the local newsroom Asheville Watchdog, compared with $25.6 billion requested after the storm. In June, Gov. Josh Stein traveled to Washington seeking more than $10 billion in additional federal funding for housing, infrastructure, and small businesses; on Thursday, FEMA announced an additional $137 million for North Carolina disaster recovery.
The fear of immigration enforcement could bring additional anxiety to a region struggling to recover, Asheville officials warned in 2025. “Our community is still recovering from Hurricane Helene,” Mayor Esther Manheimer and other local officials said at the time. “We do not need additional stress and fear.”
Asked whether those concerns extended to recent immigration enforcement in Western North Carolina, a city spokesperson told The Intercept she would not engage with questions characterizing federal immigration operations as harassment.
Left: A power box in East Asheville on Oct. 4, 2024, bears graffiti reading “THE STATE WILL NOT SAVE US,” reflecting some residents’ frustration with the state’s emergency relief efforts after Hurricane Helene. Right: Nearly two years later, the graffiti has been removed from the same box, while storm damage remains nearby.Photo: Austin Campbell/The Intercept
In response to questions from The Intercept, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson called the response part of “the long list of FEMA failures under Biden.” (Joe Biden was in office when Helene hit in September 2024, but recovery efforts have continued into the second Trump administration.)
“Under the Trump Administration, FEMA is mission focused and dedicated to disaster response,” wrote spokesperson Micah Bock, who previously worked for former Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C.
For Ortiz, the administration’s decision to showcase Western North Carolina’s recovery to the G20 makes the contrast particularly difficult to ignore. Latino and immigrant families, she said, were among the people who helped the region recover, but their right to belong should not depend on what they contributed after the storm.
“Our community shouldn’t have to say, ‘Look at everything we did after Helene, therefore we deserve to be here,’” Ortiz said. “We deserve to live here, raise our families here, enjoy our public lands, and move through our communities without persecution regardless of whether we drove a relief truck after a hurricane.”
Correction: August 29, 2026, 12:38 p.m. ET This story has been updated to correct a misspelling of Jaime Byrd’s first name inserted due to an editing error.
A view of the sunrise over a cottonwood tree where locals are protesting Trump’s border wall in Lochiel, Ariz., on Aug. 10, 2026.Photo: John Washington
Of the more than $170 billion that President Donald Trump secured for his border regime in the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” nearly $50 billion is allocated to border wall construction. Even with these enormous resources, however, the administration continues to face challenges constructing its monument to violent exclusion along the southern border through tribal, private, and state lands.
For nearly a month, the key force standing in the way of Trump’s border wall project in southeast Arizona has been a person sitting in a 200-year-old tree.
More precisely, at every moment since late July, one person — although not always the same person — has been on a platform in the branches of a giant cottonwood tree in Lochiel, Arizona, with an expanding encampment of primarily local activists 50 feet below.
The protesters’ aim is to stop the ongoing construction of two parallel, 30-foot-high border walls ripping through the remote San Rafael Valley.
Miles of the double wall structure have already been built in the area. This part of the valley is sparsely populated and hardly ever used as a border-crossing site by humans, but is renowned as a unique wildlife migration corridor. According to the Sierra Club’s borderlands coordinator, Erick Meza, the region is “a biodiversity hotspot and the most important jaguar corridor that we have left in the U.S.”
Residents from Lochiel and the surrounding area, including from Sonora, Mexico, had been coming together regularly for over a year for binational gatherings to organize against wall construction. They shared music, art, food, and ceremonies across the border, which is demarcated there by only a rancher’s wire fence.
“People got together that night and decided to go down and set up a tree sit in that final tree on the U.S. side.”
The planned double wall structure, with a 60-foot no man’s land in between, would not only devastate the land and its ecosystems — it would also sever the binational life worlds of the area.
The “happenings,” as organizers called the gatherings, escalated into a continuous protest and tree sit when construction workers with government contractors Fisher Sand & Gravel crushed three giant cottonwood trees, known locally as “grandmother” trees, in one day on July 27.
Local activists moved in swiftly to save the last cottonwood standing on the U.S. side of the border, and the tree sit began.
“Momentum had been growing locally in the region to try to make more of an intervention,” said an Arizona-based participant in the tree sit, who asked for anonymity out of concern for government repression. “People got together that night and decided to go down and set up a tree sit in that final tree on the U.S. side, which was planned to be cleared.”
Ever since, a tree sitter has been in the cottonwood at all times, numerous participants told The Intercept.
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection identified four cottonwood trees on federal land in Lochiel, Arizona, that needed removal for planned border wall construction,” said a spokesperson from CBP. “Preconstruction surveys found no active migratory bird nests, and environmental monitors were present at the start of clearing activities to ensure work was limited to the identified trees. Three trees have been removed, and the remaining tree is scheduled for removal.”
Meza, of the Sierra Club, told The Intercept that the government’s environmental survey was out of date and that the day before the cottonwoods were felled, he had taken video of an active nest in one of the trees.
“The next day, they had sent the contractors to take down the trees,” he said. “Their environmental monitor was not present.” Meza added that “when people saw what happened, the community in general got outraged.”
For participants in the Lochiel encampment, protecting the remaining “grandmother” is an anchoring point for the protest, but stopping the border wall and all it represents is the organizing principle.
“Some people are tree sitting and supporting the tree sit. Some people are more focused on getting into the roads, and intervening in construction work that’s happening,” the tree-sit participant said. “Now there’s a whole zone of a few miles where they’re having trouble building. And as camp grows, the ability to affect construction also grows.”
The remaining cottonwood itself is on federal land, but the encampment, just feet away, is technically on private land. It’s a unique setup, organizers told The Intercept, in which local ranchers and authorities oppose the border wall construction, and construction workers cannot risk forging forward in the path of the tree as a person remains perched in its branches. The small standoff is becoming a growing site of border resistance, and the construction of Trump’s wall in the area has been disrupted for a month.
“Living Things on the Land”
At a time when jack-booted agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are terrorizing communities nationwide and over 73,000 people are held in ICE detention, the defense of a remote stretch of borderlands may seem a minor struggle.
The binational protest around the cottonwood, however, exemplifies what it looks like to take strategic action to disrupt the infrastructure of the border regime.
“Something happens along these borderlands,” said another participant in the tree sit and encampment, Uni Yuchi Trejo, a first-generation Mexican American. “You still feel the way the land moves here, how the living things on the land migrate and move with it.”
Compared to other struggles against border enforcement, the Lochiel encampment has seen remarkably little law enforcement repression, despite creating disruptions to a major border infrastructure project.
One protester was arrested in late July by local sheriffs for blocking construction workers on a roadway but was released the same day without charge; the sheriff himself is on the record as opposing the border wall construction. And with the encampment on private property, it remains relatively protected from federal law enforcement sweeps.
According to activists on the ground, a second tree sit on the Mexico side of the border was initiated last week but ended after a few days, following reported interventions from Mexican law enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents.
The relative peace the Arizona-based activists have enjoyed stands in stark contrast to the brutal persecution others opposing border regime enforcement have faced in places like Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas; Spokane, Washington; and Minneapolis. The Arizona demonstration also sits in the legacy of site-based struggles not tied directly to the border, like Stop Copy City in Atlanta, or the Dakota Access Pipeline protests at Standing Rock — movements that have also faced ruthless repression.
This might speak to the place of the border wall in the Trump administration’s current priorities. Even for an anti-immigrant fascist like Stephen Miller, swift border wall construction in the San Rafael Valley is not an urgent matter, owing to the minuscule number of border-crossing attempts there. Those that do attempt to cross are already facing long odds against a system designed to push them into death’s grips.
Though the environmental destruction of border wall construction is well established, a spokesperson from Customs and Border Protection absurdly pointed to people who might attempt to cross as the real environmental threat.
A view of Trump’s double wall on a stretch of the U.S.–Mexico border running through Lochiel, Ariz., on Aug. 10, 2026.Photo: John Washington
“While concerns exist about impacts to sensitive areas, it is important to note that illegal immigration itself poses significant environmental challenges,” the spokesperson said. “High volumes of unauthorized crossings often result in substantial amounts of trash, pollution, and damage to natural resources, including sensitive habitats and agriculture.”
Suffice it to say, the people crossing borders do not tear down ancient trees, plow over tribal burial grounds, or cut off wildlife corridors. Not to mention that no “high volumes” of crossings occur in the San Rafael Valley.
As Arizona-based reporter and author of “How to Close a Camp,” John Washington, told Democracy Now!, “People, I think, are right to point out that this very much smells of a boondoggle — that no one is crossing here, and yet they are spending maybe a half a billion dollars on just this about 27-mile segment of wall to devastate the local ecosystem.”
“The Border Is Everywhere”
“We’re taking the proactive stance of: ‘No, we don’t want the wall and we’re going to make sure you’re not doing it through Lochiel,’” said Kate Scott, a local resident and co-founder of the Madrean Archipelago Wildlife Center, who was among the original organizers against border construction in the region. “And we will hopefully have inspired people all across the world, wherever their horrible border walls are, and to question them in a way that’s most defiant.”
Activists on the ground are aware that reaching remote Lochiel is no easy task, so organizers are encouraging action wherever people can undertake it.
One target of activists’ campaigns is Fisher Sand & Gravel, the contractor working on the wall, which has received around $1.5 billion in government contracts in Arizona alone. (Fisher Sand & Gravel and its parent company, Fisher Industries, did not respond to requests for comment.)
Subcontractors working on the project are falling under scrutiny, too.
“The border is everywhere,” said Trejo, the Mexican-American land defender, “which means that there are subcontractors and there are power players maybe in your backyard, maybe in your city, maybe an hour drive from where you’re living.”
“Right now we’re at a really crucial point, where those of us that have been holding space and ground are seizing more of it each day. And so imagine if the 30, 40 holding that space becomes a 1,000 or becomes 5,000. What kind of opening will that then create?”
Correction: August 27, 2026, 2:30 p.m. ET This story has been updated to correct an errant spelling of Kate Scott’s name.
A thousand people voluntarily buried their cotton underpants for two months—not to keep the Underpants Gnomes from stealing them, but as part of a citizen science project to map out soil health in 25 countries around the world. The results of this unique experiment were reported in a new paper published in the journal Plants People Planet.
“Our results show that how soil is managed can significantly affect both soil life and soil quality,” said co-author Marcel van der Heijden, an agroecologist at the University of Zurich. “Healthy, biologically active soil is crucial for fertility, nutrient cycling and many other ecosystem services.”
Soil health is critical for agriculture and, by extension, food security, not to mention a healthy global ecosystem, but it has been declining worldwide, per the authors. One key indicator of soil health is decomposition rates of complex organic matter, breaking down stuff like leaves, wood, even cadavers into simpler organic and inorganic compounds, releasing C02 and nutrients in the process. There have been relatively few large-scale national decomposition studies involving different land use types, although smaller studies have shown that how humans use a site can significantly affect the soil's biological diversity.
Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary has been making the media rounds defending the 40,000-acre data center project he’s backing in northern Utah. Dismissing residents’ concerns over the environmental impacts and water demands of the proposed project in the drought-stricken Great Salt Lake region, O’Leary has claimed protesters are “bused in,” “misinformed,” and alleged that China has had a hand in orchestrating the public push back.
“The Stratos project in Utah is an example of data center largesse,” says Jim Walsh, the policy director of Food and Water Watch, an organization leading a campaign to stop the rapid development of data centers across the country. As proposed, the project would be more than double the size of Manhattan. Walsh adds, “It’s important to recognize that the impacts of this data center go beyond the water and energy concerns that impact the residents of Salt Lake. They’re going to be pulling gas from the Ruby Pipeline, and this project is going to perpetuate more fracking in the Western U.S., a practice for extracting natural gas that uses extreme amounts of water.”
This week on The Intercept Briefing, host Jordan Uhl speaks to Walsh about the massive Utah project, the environmental and economic impact of data centers on communities especially where water is already scarce, and the Trump administration’s push to cut regulations at the federal and local level to accelerate the build-out of data centers and AI infrastructure.
In response to O’Leary claiming data center development is a national security priority to beat out China in the AI race, Walsh says, “National security isn’t just about having technological and military superiority.” We’re not safe if we don’t have clean air and clean water to drink and breathe. We’re not safe if our communities have massive data centers that are extracting our natural resources. Our entire economy functions on access to water.”
For more, listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
Transcript
Jordan Uhl: Welcome to The Intercept Briefing, I’m Jordan Uhl, your host today.
Jessica Washington: I’m Jessica Washington, politics reporter at The Intercept.
Jonah Valdez: And I’m Jonah Valdez, another politics reporter here at The Intercept.
JU: So Jess, Jonah, we’re talking to you both today because the California primary is days away: June 2. While there are a few notable races that have captured national attention, one here where I live in Los Angeles is the mayoral primary.
We’ve got a few contenders. It is looking tight at the top with a few candidates jockeying for one of these top two positions. Jess, could you give us an overview of this race?
JW: As the only non-Angeleno on the podcast, I’m going to try and do a good job. So something important to keep in mind before we even get into the candidates is because of how California’s primary system works, if no candidate gets a majority of the vote — so over 50 percent — the top two are going to go off to a runoff election in November.
The candidates in this race are the incumbent mayor, Karen Bass. She has been leading in every poll, but it should have been really a slam-dunk election, and yet it isn’t. We can get into more of why in a minute. But her opponent is really interesting; two opponents are interesting. So first, there’s reality star Spencer Pratt, who has been consistently polling in second place, although in more recent polling he’s looking to lose a little bit of steam. Then the other candidate is council member Nithya Raman, a Democratic socialist who’s not endorsed by DSA LA, but is recommended by them. So that’s the mix that’s happening in this election right now.
JU: Jonah, there are a few other contenders that could be potentially pulling votes from Nithya Raman or might be waiting to decide till last minute. What is this looking like on the ground? Who have you talked to and what are you hearing?
JV: My focus has been on LA’s left, if you will, and how there might be what people are calling some vote-splitting among the left. And that’s because not only is there Nithya Raman who, as Jessie said, is a Democratic socialist, but there’s also Rev. Rae Huang, who is a housing advocate.
She’s a Presbyterian minister. She actually was in the race before Nithya and was the only DSA candidate, Democratic Socialist candidate, in the race at the time. She launched two weeks after Mamdani’s win in New York, so she has all this buzz going into it. The LA Times was asking, is she LA’s Mamdani?
So that’s the framing that she entered the race in, and it excited a lot of progressives here in the left in Los Angeles. But as soon as Nithya joined the race, very last minute, and the rise of Spencer Pratt, you have this threat of this right-wing figure. Sure, this is a nonpartisan election, but the things he’s saying, demonizing homelessness and really getting on Karen Bass around her record and the fires. There’s this tangible threat now that Spencer Pratt could be in the runoff with Karen Bass, which is a pretty worst-case scenario for LA’s left that is trying to push LA’s politics in a different direction.
Right now, the contention for a lot of voters in LA’s left is between, do I vote for Nithya Raman, someone who I at least agree with, but have to hold my nose on some issues, like police accountability, where she has fallen short in the eyes of some of her opponents? Or Rae Huang, who has a bolder vision? Some members of DSA LA have said that she has the true socialist platform amongst the two Democratic Socialist members. I should say that Rae Huang is only polling at about 5 percent. That’s nowhere near the second place spot to get into the runoff.
JU: We’re seeing a wide array of polling in this race, and there was a new poll that dropped on Thursday morning from Berkeley IGS, which had Bass, unsurprisingly, in the top spot with 26 percent. But in second place, this I think caught many people off guard, Nithya Raman at 25 percent, Spencer Pratt at 22, and Rae Huang at 9 percent, with 10 percent undecided. That presents a totally different outlook going into the general in this runoff.
But Jess, I want to bring you back in here. Spencer Pratt was widely considered to have a guaranteed spot in the runoff because he had a ton of press, a ton of buzz, especially from outside LA. He had Trump’s endorsement. He’s been getting featured in national press.
One of the things that he really rose to prominence on was his criticism of Karen Bass, like Jonah said, for her, “handling of the fire.” But I think many people who live here felt that some of it was disingenuous because those fires were exacerbated by the Santa Ana winds. You can only do so much as mayor.
You can’t get helicopters up in the air in 80-mile-an-hour winds to fight those fires. So I think some of it came off as very disingenuous to people here in LA. But what are you hearing? What are you seeing from Spencer Pratt that puts him even in contention?
JW: For anyone who doesn’t know who Spencer Pratt is, he’s this former reality star from “The Hills.” He’s the guy who told People Magazine that he blew, I think, about $1 million on crystals, blowing through his $10 million reality television fortune on other lavish purchases. So that’s just a little bit of who Spencer Pratt is, the guy who yelled at women on television for about a decade.
But the reason he’s catching steam, I think, is twofold. I think, one, the fires are a very visceral moment. The mayor obviously has no control over the fires, but the fact that she was in Ghana during the Palisades fire did really anger a lot of people. The fact that she didn’t come home until the following day is a large part of that narrative.
Spencer Pratt is not looking to tackle those issues. He is looking to move people out of spaces where he and his friends can see them. It’s also worth noting that his plans of mass arrest also aren’t going to even fix that problem. But what you’re looking at in Los Angeles is frustration over Karen Bass’s handling of these fires and this kind of visible problem of homelessness that frustrates people on both sides of this issue.
That’s what Spencer Pratt has really honed in on. I think it’s important to note that none of his solutions are going to fix any of those problems, but he is tapping into a real anger and a real frustration in the electorate.
JU: Yeah I think what’s interesting to watch is the national support for Spencer Pratt. But that comes at a cost for him because 80 percent of his donors don’t live in Los Angeles, according to analysis that I saw from one Gabe Sanchez. And sure, you can run ads, you can get press, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that people within the city, within your jurisdiction, would vote for you.
What I found so interesting and Jonah, I want to bring you back in here, people dug up some of his old appearances or guest appearances on Infowars with Alex Jones, and during one of those interviews, he talked about his belief that climate change was a hoax.
What I found so ironic is that this is somebody who made losing his home in the Palisades fire a centerpiece of his campaign, but we know that worsening climate change leads to more frequent and more severe wildfires. So on the one hand, you have somebody who believes it’s a hoax. At the same time, he’s making a byproduct of climate change the centerpiece of his campaign.
Jonah, what stood out to you?
JV: I think to Jessie’s point as far as demonizing the homeless population in LA, his rhetoric around that is concerning, not just on the level of, this is going to hurt a lot of the gains that housing advocates have fought for in LA County for years, but even just on the level of basic humanity.
He’s referred to unhoused people as fentanyl-addictedzombies. Like a constant refrain for him is telling people to go outside and go to your freeway underpass, talk to a homeless person, and ask them. He’s assuming they don’t want housing, that’s not what they want, they just want their next high. They just want to be on drugs.
This is all in the face of studies showing that most people who do have drug addiction or in substance use addiction on the streets is a result of being unhoused — and not the other way around. And so I think he does exist in this bubble of distorted reality.
LA is still seen as this liberal bastion along with California as a whole, but there are a lot of folks here who voted just a couple years ago for someone like Rick Caruso, who preyed on a lot of these similar fears of course from a different standpoint of crime and safety. So these fearmongering tactics are being recycled again and again.
I was talking to sources yesterday, other voters, and there is some reality to what [Pratt is] saying, which is like LA is struggling. Angelenos are struggling. A lot of the nation is struggling economically, but how you diagnose that matters.
JU: So why has this mayoral election captured the national interest? Jess, I want to start with you, and then we’ll go to you, Jonah.
JW: It’s captured the national interest partially because it feels like this perfect allegory for the 2016 election. You have this Trumpian figure, you have liberal-left infighting, so I think that’s part of it. But I also think for someone like me, who cares a lot about policy around housing and homelessness, this is about the spread of very dangerous ideas about people, about the idea that we can call people zombies, we can mass arrest them, and these ideas around homelessness are spreading all across the country.
JV: For me, it’s a lot of the same questions that the left in LA is facing could be amplified to a national level as well, and a lot of this infighting, a lot of it is just lack of organization. And I think one example of that is for listeners who don’t know, there are actually four DSA members on city council, one of which is Nithya Raman, who is running.
However, three of those DSA members didn’t endorse their fellow DSA member for mayor. They actually endorsed the incumbent Mayor Bass. So a lot of that back and forth and mixed messaging to the public could really hurt movements and coalition-building. DSA LA has told me that’s one of the things they hope to fix, which is more organization within city council to increase their influence there, and that starts with being on the same page.
That messaging here and a lot of these lessons could be amplified on the national stage as well.
JW: We’ve also seen similar signals from the Trump administration with executive orders targeting the homeless population. The Supreme Court has also moved to weaken protections for unhoused people living on the streets.
These are policies and rhetoric that are truly taking root at the highest levels, and we need to be paying attention to them.
JU: And these hollow pandering overtures to different demographics, I think, are just jarring. Maybe it’s a byproduct of the Trump era, but just don’t garner the raised eyebrows that they typically would.
The headline I saw on Wednesday in TMZ that “Spencer Pratt loves Mexican food and Eats it More Than Any White Person in Los Angeles” made me laugh, but also I found myself feeling very confused. Like, why is this news? But it fits within a broader pattern from that campaign where he’s just trying to pander to the sizable Latino community in Los Angeles.
We see that also with his AI ads. Latinos for Pratt doesn’t seem to have an actual real or tangible base in the electorate. Maybe he does, but those AI ads have been widely mocked or parodied and some have gone viral, even those not made by his campaign.
The proliferation of AI ads in this cycle, I think, segues us into our next conversation with Jim Walsh, the policy director of Food and Water Watch, where we talked about the proliferation of AI data centers across the country.
JW: Let’s listen to that conversation.
JU: Jim Walsh, welcome to The Intercept Briefing.
Jim Walsh: Thanks for having me here, Jordan. I appreciate it.
JU: Jim, there are over 3,000 operational data centers across the country and more than 1,500 in development, according to Pew Research. Data centers aren’t new, but let’s start with the basics. What do they do, and how is the growing demand for AI transforming the energy needs of facilities?
JW: I think most people hear about data centers, they think about clouds and streaming and maybe searching or AI. But data centers themselves are these massive rows of servers that require large amounts of water infrastructure, electricity, cooling, land, and also backup power. The scale of these is really hard to grasp because most people don’t think in terawatt hours — but that’s exactly what we’re talking about for energy demand.
The Lawrence Berkeley National Lab found that U.S. data centers used about 176 terawatts of electricity in 2023. This is about how much electricity it takes to power 16 million homes for an entire year. And that number is expected to grow to 580 terawatts annually; it’s roughly equivalent to 50 million homes.
Data centers also use immense quantities of water. We’re talking hundreds of billions of gallons of water annually with projections that they’ll use as much as 18.5 million households by 2028. Nearly 60 percent of this coming from drinking water supplies. It’s really important to note that a lot of this is coming from drought-stressed areas that are compounding existing water scarcity concerns.
Beyond that, we’re also seeing that data centers can create significant pollution burdens for communities. When data centers use fossil fuels, they’re polluting our air and water to meet their energy needs, but the chemicals also used in cooling data centers can pollute our water. Even when chemicals aren’t used, evaporative cooling systems can concentrate pollution already in water.
We saw this happen in Oregon, where an Amazon data center was implicated and agreed to pay out $20 million due to elevated nitrate levels in water that coincided with the development of the data center. Now, Amazon never added nitrates to their water systems, but the water that came out of their facilities seemed to have increased the concentration of nitrates in the water because of water evaporation through their cooling systems.
JU: Now, in early May, a quasi-governmentalagency in Utah approved a massive AI data center project. Known as the Stratos project, it is expected to cover more than 40,000 acres in northwestern Utah. For context, that’s more than twice the size of Manhattan.
The project, which is backed by the venture capitalist and “Shark Tank” regular Kevin O’Leary, has sparked local outrage. Could you tell us about this data center project and why community members are concerned?
JW: The Stratos project in Utah is an example of data center largesse. You talked about 40,000 acres, double the size of Manhattan. It also would double the state’s energy demand. It would also be located near the Great Salt Lake, which is already facing record droughts, like much of the United States. So it’s really no surprise that this and other projects in Utah are facing tremendous public opposition.
In response to the backlash, communities in Utah are putting the brakes on data centers, and the Utah legislature is actually gearing up to potentially require more reporting and studies on data center impacts. It’s important to recognize that the impacts of this data center go beyond the water and energy concerns that impact the residents of Salt Lake.
They’re going to be pulling gas from the Ruby Pipeline, and this project is going to perpetuate more fracking in the Western U.S., a practice for extracting natural gas that uses extreme amounts of water. That practice also has a track record of contaminating surface water and spreading radioactive waste generated from fracking operations.
And because of the segmented permitting process and the segmented evaluative process, nobody’s actually looking at the full impacts of this project or any data center projects, including the sources of energy. Which — if they’re going to be gas plants in the United States — probably means more fracking and more water pollution before you even get to the impacts of the data center themselves.
JU: Now, we should note, we invited Kevin O’Leary on this show to share his point of view. As of this recording, we have not heard back, but here he is on “Fox & Friends”talking about the project recently.
Kevin O’Leary: Utah stepped up and said, “Look, we can compete. Not only do we have the land, 40,000 acres, we’ve got a pipeline running through the land, and we have this designation that can accelerate permitting.”
It’s really about how do we catch up with the Chinese are doing because most people don’t like data centers for good reason. You tap it to the grid, and all of a sudden the electrical costs for their church and the community and the residents all go up, and that’s why there’s been a lot of pushback.
Not in this case. We’re building power from scratch from the pipeline.
JU: Jim, what do you make of O’Leary’s argument there?
JW: Posing this as a national security issue and a race with China really misses the real issue — that national security isn’t just about having technological and military superiority.
We’re not safe if we don’t have clean air and clean water to drink and breathe. We’re not safe if our communities have massive data centers that are extracting our natural resources. Our entire economy functions on access to water. Data centers are jeopardizing that access to water.
So it’s really easy for the ultrawealthy investor from Canada to come in and say, “Hey, we need to have these projects.” But for people that are directly impacted by these projects, it’s not helping them, and it’s not helping their communities.
“We’re not safe if our communities have massive data centers that are extracting our natural resources. Our entire economy functions on access to water.”
JU: That’s a good segue to where I wanted to take this next. The Salt Lake Tribune writes, “The full water demands of this project remain unknown, although its developers have said they’re working to secure a 13,000 acre-feet in Hansel Valley and the surrounding area, which is mostly agricultural. That’s enough water to meet the needs of more than 20,000 Utah households.”
One of the biggest concerns about data centers is the amount of water usage they demand. You touched on this a bit already, but why are AI data centers in particular such water-intensive facilities, and why are we seeing more pop-up in areas where water is already scarce?
JW: Data centers use tremendous amounts of water for cooling their servers. That’s only part of the picture. They also use tremendous amounts of water for their energy needs. As we are facing significant amounts of water scarcity, we’re seeing data centers move into water-scarce regions, and it’s because water isn’t the only concern for data centers. Their biggest price point is actually energy.
“Their biggest price point is actually energy.”
The Stratos Project is being targeted for that area specifically because they were able to get expedited permits, but they also are able to pull from the Ruby Pipeline. And they have a significant flow of inexpensive energy that they’ll be able to pull from.
Now, these project developers don’t care about the larger impacts on communities any more than communities are going to force them to recognize those concerns. They’re trying to brush all of these things under the rug and pretend like they can build these projects and get more water as though it’s an unlimited resource, ignoring the fact that residents in Utah are facing unprecedented amounts of drought, and ignoring the fact that these data centers are going to do more to use up what limited resources are available to the people of Utah than they will to provide any meaningful benefit.
What good is any benefit if you don’t actually have the water that’s necessary for life?
[Break]
JU: In Fayette County, Georgia, for instance, another data center has captured national public attention after it came to light that the facility had drained 30 million gallons of water. Residents were experiencing low water pressure and had been told to cut their own water usage. The state is home to more than 200 data centers.
Last week, while questioning the EPA in a committee hearing, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez held up jars full of brown water from residents near a large Meta data center in a different county in the state. Here is a clip of Ocasio-Cortez.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: I visited Morgan County, Georgia, where Meta is building a massive data center campus.
They are clear-cutting forests and began heavy construction, including explosive blasting. And families in the area are starting to see not only their water pressure decrease, to your point about water availability, but their appliances have all stopped working because it is decimating their water quality.
They now rely on bottled water to drink and prepare meals, and nearby residents’ water bills are expected to increase by 33 percent.
JU: Jim, in addition to the impact on local watersheds and wells, what impact do data centers have on the communities they exist in?
JW: I want to speak to that clip because I think that clip shows that communities not only lack resources to evaluate the effects of data centers, but also lack resources to effectively regulate and oversee these projects.
And the federal government is asleep at the wheel. We should not have to have a member of Congress in an open congressional hearing raising concerns that EPA is unaware of, that EPA then commits to investigating after the fact. We need to make sure that these data centers are actually out there to protect the public.
We’ve seen the impacts go well beyond just the water impacts, as you talked about. But it’s all these impacts are driving the concerns that are pushing Georgia and communities like Augusta Council and others to actively consider moratoriums on data centers, to put the brakes on these projects.
“Communities not only lack resources to evaluate the effects of data centers, but also lack resources to effectively regulate and oversee these projects.”
But even if you create the regulatory structure that we need to protect communities from data centers and determine if they’re even appropriate for certain areas and certain communities, you need to have the resources to actually oversee and regulate and hold these data centers accountable.
These data centers in Georgia, in Morgan County, was also, implicated for muddied water. The investigation shouldn’t have to come from members of Congress. It should really be found out before these projects are going to come online. If the project developers are over-pumping, extending their permit, or setting up systems behind the meter, which we saw happen in Georgia, to extract more water than they’re supposed to take, we should have regulators in place to oversee these projects and make sure they’re following the rules.
But these also go significantly beyond water impacts, and that’s what you asked about. For instance, in Memphis, communities there are raising significant concerns about the air pollution from data centers. And the data center there actually committed to use gas turbines only as backup generation, but then started pivoting to using those turbines around the clock. That means around-the-clock pollution and around-the-clock harms to the communities around those data centers.
We need to make sure that we not only have the rules in place to ensure that data centers aren’t harming communities, but make sure that we have the resources in place to hold them accountable to these laws and standards once they’re enacted. And we don’t have that right now.
JU: In addition to the EPA having a reactive approach, seemingly in that hearing being caught off-guard or maybe surprised by the environmental impacts in Georgia that Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez was pointing out, the Trump administration is also trying to fast-track the development of even more data centers. How are they enabling that?
JW: The Trump administration is explicitly [prioritizing] rapid data center build-outs. In their memo of July of last year, the executive order rather, it says that they’re going to “facilitate the rapid and efficient buildout” of AI data centers and related infrastructure by easing regulatory burdens and using federally owned land and resources for development, as well as working to curtail the development of local rules and regulations focused on AI and associated infrastructure with an executive order that came out in December.
So the Trump administration is really putting their foot on the gas with these projects and really throwing caution to the wind about all the significant impacts that these data centers will have. We’re seeing recent proposals to allow energy projects to move forward with construction before gaining federal approvals. This means that communities will see infrastructure built that may never get used.
And even worse is that the infrastructure will be used, but because once you build a power plant, there’s not much else you can do with that land, so regulators may be under immense pressure to grant variances or waivers for projects, which could increase localized pollution for communities.
The administration really treats environmental reviews and public transportation and community safeguards as red tape instead of actual protections. These projects are shaping our water systems, our electric grids, our air quality and land use — and those impacts will be felt for decades. This is exactly why we need more scrutiny and not less that the Trump administration is pushing forward.
JU: Yeah, you see how the industry responds to that scrutiny, how they peddle misinformation, how they go after activists and organizations. Even with the Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez moment — mocking them. I saw Marc Andreessen spending his time on Twitter that day mocking her, that she would even suggest that data centers could make your water brown.
How else are you seeing supporters of these data centers pushing back to the growing scrutiny and opposition to these development projects?
JW: Supporters usually point to tax revenue, construction jobs, digital infrastructure, national security, and competitiveness, like we heard earlier. Some of those benefits might be real, but the reality is, is we’re not looking at these projects in a comprehensive manner. And that’s what the industry wants us to do — is forget about the broader impacts of data centers by pointing out small, unique potential things that could be seen as benefits to communities.
These benefits are often overstated compared with long-term public costs. And we saw that in Virginia, studies on the data center boom found that economic benefits mostly come from construction jobs and not ongoing operations. So these short-term construction jobs aren’t providing long-term benefit to communities and usually are actually done by people not in the community, so you’re not even creating local jobs for people in the communities where data centers are being constructed and put together.
We’re also seeing that data center developers are trying to point to things like “bring your own power” as a way to say they support an affordability agenda, as they hear more and more consumers talk about affordability. They talk about bringing renewable energy to projects. But the reality is these “bring your own power” projects and renewable energy don’t actually do anything to address the massive demand.
Requiring renewable energy at data centers may actually make things worse for the rest of us, because you’re going to shift the energy transition ability in communities that are looking to do more electrification to replace fossil fuel infrastructure are going to be stuck using fossil fuels, which feeds the data center narrative.
They can say, “Look, we’re using all renewable energy. Aren’t we great?” But in reality, they’re taking all the renewable energy supplies for themselves while the rest of us are stuck with dirty energy that tends to be more expensive and costly. So when we look at these projects, it’s important that we look at them in a comprehensive way and not just the industry sound bites that they’re putting forward to cite narrow perceived benefits of these projects.
JU: Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez introduced a bill to halt the development of new data centers. On one, I want to hear what you could tell us about that bill, but then you also speak to lawmakers across the country, across the political spectrum. What are you hearing from them, and are they receptive to the adverse impacts of data centers?
JW: Data center development is moving along way too fast, and communities are being asked to sacrifice water, affordability, their health for the benefits of billionaire tech industries. The Sanders–Ocasio-Cortez AI Data Center Moratorium Act is important because it shows that these concerns have moved from local zoning fights into national politics.
This legislation is exactly what we need a federal moratorium on data centers until national safeguards are in place. That moratorium will give policymakers an opportunity to better understand the impacts of data centers and protect the public from the significant harms from using millions of gallons of water in drought-stricken regions. The Stratos data center in Utah is going to be using tremendous amounts of water. That project should be put on hold, along with the rest of them, to make sure that the public is actually protected, not just the benefit of these big tech industries.
“ We all know rivers and streams and groundwater don’t stop at municipal boundaries.”
It’s important to note that many of the decisions relating to data center developments are made by municipal and county governments who often lack resources to do the kind of analysis necessary to make informed decisions about the impacts of data centers. Many of the impacts of data centers go beyond their local boundaries. We all know rivers and streams and groundwater don’t stop at municipal boundaries, and pulling water from one place can impact communities miles away.
As hundreds of people are turning up to city council meetings across the country demanding moratoriums on data centers, that is creating more pushback from communities. We’re seeing communities, dozens of communities around the country have actually enacted moratoriums on data centers so they can better understand these impacts, create more comprehensive rules to protect communities from these profit-hungry tech companies. But we also need the federal government to step in and provide support to those communities to help with the environmental reviews, to help provide expertise to better understand the impacts of these projects, so that you’re not dealing with municipal elected officials who are really sitting there with limited resources and limited knowledge about the full impacts of these projects.
In order to get that more comprehensive review, we need to have more federal engagement in understanding these data center impacts, and that starts with putting the brakes on these projects through a moratorium.
JU: We will continue to look to your organization, Food & Water Watch, for more analysis, more insight.
Jim, I want to thank you for joining us on the Intercept Briefing.
JW: Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it.
JU: This episode was produced by Laura Flynn. Ben Muessig is our editor-in-chief. Maia Hibbett is our managing editor. Chelsey B. Coombs is our social and video producer. Fei Liu is our product and design manager. Nara Shin is our copy editor. William Stanton mixed our show. Legal review by David Bralow.
Slip Stream provided our theme music.
This show and our reporting at The Intercept doesn’t exist without you. Your donation, no matter the amount, makes a real difference. Keep our investigations free and fearless at theintercept.com/join.
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Let us know what you think of this episode, or if you want to send us a general message, email us at podcasts@theintercept.com. And if you are concerned about a data center project near you send us an email or leave us a voice mail at 530-POD-CAST that’s 530-763-2278
A rare archaeological site in the Sonoran Desert was bulldozed by a Department of Homeland Security contractor involved in building the latest sections of Donald Trump’s border wall, according to multiple sources briefed on the incident.
The area, in a remote corner of Arizona’s Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, is a roughly 280-by-50-foot etching in the desert sand known as an intaglio.
Last Thursday, without any notice, a contractor working for DHS cut a roughly 60-foot swath across the middle of the intaglio, doing irreparable damage to the 1,000-year-old artifact.
“I liken it to destroying the Nazca lines — something that culturally we should have been relishing and promoting.”
Cabeza Prieta, one of the largest wilderness areas outside of Alaska, also encompasses lands sacred to the Tohono O’odham Nation, which borders the refuge to the east. The O’odham have fought to prevent border wall construction across their reservation and during Trump’s first term largely prevailed; they also managed to protect the intaglio and a nearby burial site that they consider to be part of their ancestral lands.
“I liken it to destroying the Nazca lines — something that culturally we should have been relishing and promoting. Not destroying,” Rick Martynec, an archaeologist, said in a phone interview, referring to the hundreds of figures drawn into the deserts of southern Peru.
A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed the destruction in a statement to The Intercept and said the agency was coordinating with tribal authorities to figure out its next steps.
“On April 23, 2026, a border wall contractor inadvertently disturbed a cultural site known as Las Playas Intaglio, located west of Ajo, Arizona along the border,” said the spokesperson, John Mennell, who is working on the construction of the second barrier in Arizona. “The remaining portion of the site has been secured and will be protected in place.”
Well known to government officials, including the Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the refuge, the intaglio lies just 10 or 15 feet from the massive steel wall that now runs along the U.S.–Mexico border. The destruction to the ancient site was first reported by the Washington Post.
Rick and Sandy Martynec, his wife, also an archaeologist who has studied the site for more than two decades, said the refuge was in talks with DHS and the contractor to make sure the site was protected as the Trump administration moves forward with a second set of barriers in the ecologically sensitive region.
The Martynecs even visited the intaglio in mid-April and observed stakes that had been put in place by an engineer to mark its boundaries.
The Martynecs were first notified by FWS staff on Monday when they called the refuge to see about visiting the site and to check on its status. According to the archaeologists, Rijk Morawe, the refuge manager, had already been out to survey the damage and told them what had happened.
The news took the Martynecs and others by surprise, since the agency had been in dialogue with DHS and the contractor to come up with an alternative route that would avoid the intaglio, similar to the negotiations that had taken place during Trump’s first term. (DHS’s Customs and Border Protection in Arizona did not comment by press time. FWS declined to comment, referring all border inquiries to CBP.)
“The refuge was pushing as hard as they possibly could to come to a resolution,” Martynec said.
Members of the O’odham Nation had also been keeping a close eye on border wall development. On the day before the site was bulldozed, a group of O’odham runners observed construction getting dangerously close to the protected area. That morning they called Lorraine Eiler, an O’odham elder and co-founder of the International Sonoran Desert Alliance, who lives in the town of Ajo where the Cabeza Prieta Refuge office is located.
According to Eiler, the runners told her that the contractor was indiscriminately clearing the area.
The runners told her, “They’re coming with their bulldozers and they’re knocking down trees and cactus and everything that’s along the border. They’re just bulldozing everything down and they are getting near the intaglio.”
Eiler made a round of phone calls to tribal officials and environmental groups, but the next day, the contractor moved in and destroyed the site.
“I alerted people, but all I got was, ‘We’re going to have meetings, we’re going to discuss it,’” Eiler said.
During Trump’s first term, border wall construction had widespread impacts on protected landscapes and sacred sites. In one case, DHS blasted through several hills that were too steep to build on directly, including one in Organ Pipe National Monument, east of Cabeza, that was a well-known burial ground. A contractor also bulldozed a road through an archaic Hohokam burial site on the border in Coronado National Forest, even though they’d been briefed by the tribe beforehand.
“This doesn’t bode well for the desert.”
Border security continues to be a priority for the Trump administration, which has allocated more than $11 billion for new barriers and surveillance technology. The path that was cleared through the intaglio is part of an effort to build a so-called “smart wall” that CBP says will allow it to monitor activity in the desert day and night.
To do so, according to the Martynecs, the agency will have to clear a wide swath of land between the original wall and the secondary barrier.
“There won’t be any vegetation on it at all,” Martynec said. “This doesn’t bode well for the desert.”
Correction: May 1, 2026 This story has been updated to correct an errant reference to the day the intaglio was damaged. It was bulldozed on April 23, 2026. The story has also been updated to include a statement from U.S. Customs and Border Protection that was received after publication.
A rare archaeological site in the Sonoran Desert was bulldozed by a Department of Homeland Security contractor involved in building the latest sections of Donald Trump’s border wall, according to multiple sources briefed on the incident.
The area, in a remote corner of Arizona’s Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, is a nearly 280-by-50-foot etching in the desert sand known as an intaglio.
Last Friday, without any notice, a contractor working for DHS cut a roughly 60-foot swath across the middle of the intaglio, doing irreparable damage to the 1,000-year-old artifact.
“I liken it to destroying the Nazca lines — something that culturally we should have been relishing and promoting.”
Cabeza Prieta, one of the largest wilderness areas outside of Alaska, also encompasses lands sacred to the Tohono O’odham Nation, which borders the refuge to the east. The O’odham have fought to prevent border wall construction across their reservation and during Trump’s first term largely prevailed; they also managed to protect the intaglio and a nearby burial site that they consider to be part of their ancestral lands.
“I liken it to destroying the Nazca lines — something that culturally we should have been relishing and promoting. Not destroying,” Rick Martynec, an archaeologist, said in a phone interview, referring to the hundreds of figures drawn into the deserts of southern Peru.
The destruction was confirmed by a federal employee with direct knowledge of the incident, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal.
Well known to government officials, including the Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the refuge, the intaglio lies just 10 or 15 feet from the massive steel wall that now runs along the U.S.–Mexico border. The destruction to the ancient site was first reported by the Washington Post.
Rick and Sandy Martynec, his wife, also an archeologist who has studied the site for more than two decades, said the refuge was in talks with DHS and the contractor to make sure the site was protected as the Trump administration moves forward with a second set of barriers in the ecologically sensitive region.
The Martynecs even visited the intaglio in mid-April and observed stakes that had been put in place by an engineer to mark its boundaries.
The Martynecs were first notified by FWS staff on Monday when they called the refuge to see about visiting the site and to check on its status. According to the archeologists, Rijk Morawe, the refuge manager, had already been out to survey the damage and told them what had happened.
The news took the Martynecs and others by surprise, since the agency had been in dialogue with DHS and the contractor to come up with an alternative route that would avoid the intaglio, similar to the negotiations that had taken place during Trump’s first term. (DHS’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Arizona did not comment by press time. FWS declined to comment, referring all border inquiries to CBP.)
“The refuge was pushing as hard as they possibly could to come to a resolution,” Martynec said.
Members of the O’odham Nation had also been keeping a close eye on border wall development. On the day before the site was bulldozed, a group of O’odham runners observed construction getting dangerously close to the protected area. That morning they called Lorraine Eiler, an O’odham elder and co-founder of the International Sonoran Desert Alliance, who lives in the town of Ajo where the Cabeza Prieta Refuge office is located.
According to Eiler, the runners told her that the contractor was indiscriminately clearing the area.
The runners told her, “They’re coming with their bulldozers and they’re knocking down trees and cactus and everything that’s along the border. They’re just bulldozing everything down and they are getting near the intaglio.”
Eiler made a round of phone calls to tribal officials and environmental groups, but the next day, the contractor moved in and destroyed the site.
“I alerted people but all I got was, ‘We’re going to have meetings, we’re going to discuss it,’” Eiler said.
During Trump’s first term, border wall construction had widespread impacts on protected landscapes and sacred sites. In one case, DHS blasted through several hills that were too steep to build on directly, including one in Organ Pipe National Monument, east of Cabeza, that was a well-known burial ground. A contractor also bulldozed a road through an archaic Hohokam burial site on the border in Coronado National Forest, even though they’d been briefed by the tribe beforehand.
“This doesn’t bode well for the desert.”
Border security continues to be a priority for the Trump administration, which has allocated more than $11 billion for new barriers and surveillance technology. The path that was cleared through the intaglio is part of an effort to build a so-called “smart wall” that CBP says will allow it to monitor activity in the desert day and night.
To do so, according to the Martynecs, the agency will have to clear a wide swath of land between the original wall and the secondary barrier.
“There won’t be any vegetation on it at all,” Martynec said. “This doesn’t bode well for the desert.”
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