Since mid-December, when San Gabriel Valley residents discovered the City of Enterprise’s plans to transform the Puente Hills Mall into a data center, a facility intended to house large computers often associated with Synthetic Intelligence (AI), they have been organizing to voice their opposition and concern that this new project could create environmental risks that spill over into their surrounding communities.
To help mobilize more residents, the Rowland Heights Community Coordinating Council hosted a meeting at their center, where around 70 people attended to learn about how these centers and Synthetic Intelligence affect the environment.
Attendees were able to express their concerns and questions about the possibility of building these centers in and around their communities. This, since many are upset at not having been consulted on the issue.
“One thing we’re tired of is not being included in the conversation. There was no real initiative by city leaders to inform the community about this issue; if there was, this room would be even more crowded,” one resident said.
Samuel Brown Vázquez, who is part of the “No to data centers in the San Gabriel Valley” coalition and is a member of the Avocado Heights Vaqueros, spoke during his presentation at the meeting about his campaign against the work carried out by these entities.
“If we allow the installation of these data centers, we will have accepted that AI will be the determining element of our lives from now on. And this leads to loss of jobs and environmental impacts,” said Vázquez.
Additionally, Edson Chao who is with the Puente Hills Community Preservation Association (PHCPA) and is currently involved in a legal initiative focused on transparency and proper review of local development decisions, including, but not limited to, issues related to the proposed battery energy storage systems (BESS) and data center projects in the City of Enterprise, which impact the surrounding Puente Hills area.
“We saw a need; we noticed that not everyone knows what all this is, so we wanted to create a space where people could leave with a better understanding of what a data center and a BESS system are, and why it is important for them to know how their health and their environment will be affected,” Chao said. “Our goal is for them to leave here informed and be able to share what they learned with their neighbors.”
In his presentation, Chao described data centers as a bomb that could one day explode. Some of their concerns are how data centers can cause fires, increase heat in the area and raise costs associated with homeowner’s insurance and electricity and water bills.
Centers like the one the Marici Battery Energy Storage Device Facility wants to build consume large amounts of water. Some of these centers, depending on their size, consume around five million gallons of water daily to prevent computers from overheating, which puts nearby areas at risk of fires. They also contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.
“To put it in perspective, this Marici project takes 9 acres of land and transforms it into a 400-megawatt battery field and there are 480 containers covering those acres,” Chao said. “Can you imagine if one of those containers caught fire and set fire to the rest? It would be catastrophic. These centers are ticking time bombs.”
Chao also noted that, should a data center catch fire, firefighters would not be able to extinguish the fire with water as quickly as in a long-established fire. According to Chao, these types of fires should be left to extinguish themselves; using water could cause a reaction that only makes the situation worse.
He gave an example of a fire that occurred on January 16, 2025, in which the battery energy storage system at Moss Landing, located in Monterey County, California, burned for five days. And a few days after it went off, it turned back on by itself.
The 300-megawatt system housed approximately 100,000 lithium-ion batteries. More than 55% of the batteries were damaged as a result of the fire. The fire prompted evacuations of local residents, triggered a state of emergency and released a plume of smoke, along with heavy metals such as nickel, cobalt and manganese, over surrounding areas.
Comments from residents who came from different parts of the San Gabriel Valley were controversial, as they expressed concern about the possible impact on the health of their families.
“My nephew died of a very rare cancer; that’s how we got involved. But now this community has the opportunity to prevent that from happening here,” said Adriana Quiñones, who has worked alongside Vázquez. “In our community of Hacienda Heights, where my sister lives, almost every household has a history of cancer and health problems, and this has to stop.”
“Anything the City of Enterprise does with its businesses affects us greatly. I would have expected Enterprise to be a better neighbor, but it hasn’t been,” added Yvette Romo, president of the Rowland Heights Community Coordinating Council.
For the moment, some of the efforts they have made have generated changes; For one thing, more people in the communities surrounding the City of Enterprise are now more aware of how these data centers could impact their daily lives.
Second, they also celebrated and shared the support their “No Data Centers” campaign has received, ranging from the Rowland Heights Unified School Board’s passage of a resolution opposing the city of Enterprise and the data center, to the city of El Monte’s passage of a 45-day moratorium on data center construction.
In California, several bills have recently been introduced to popularize various aspects of data centers, including Senate Bill 978, championed by California State Senator Sasha Renée Pérez. And today, Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a motion presented by First District Chairwoman and Supervisor Hilda L. Solis to evaluate the health, environmental and community impacts of data center development throughout the County.
Vázquez also reminded the public to attend Monterey Park City Council for its next City Council meeting, Wednesday, April 20, where the agenda will include a Council Action Ordinance to ban data centers citywide. As for its online petition, it has already received more than 18,000 signatures against the City of Enterprise’s data center plans.
“If it doesn’t cost the City of Enterprise money, they’re not going to stop,” Vazquez said regarding taking legal action. “We still have time to put a stop to this, but we have to inform ourselves and unite.”
