What Is Project Jupiter?
Project Jupiter is a proposed hyperscale AI data center campus near Santa Teresa, New Mexico, developed by BorderPlex Digital Assets (Lanham Napier, ex-Rackspace) for anchor clients OpenAI and Oracle. It is backed by up to $165 billion in Industrial Revenue Bonds — the largest private investment in New Mexico history — approved by Doña Ana County on September 19, 2025.
The county approval was conducted in a closed session that the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government and the New Mexico Environmental Law Center have identified as a violation of the New Mexico Open Meetings Act (NMSA 10-15-1). Two separate lawsuits are active in the Third Judicial District Court.
The Vote Was Illegal
On September 19, 2025, the Doña Ana County Commission voted 4-1 to approve the IRB. The vote followed a closed session entered without legal basis stated with reasonable specificity — a textbook violation of NMSA 10-15-1(H). The closed session was not on the public agenda.
A second, independent OMA violation: After the vote, the commission delegated to Chair Christopher Schaljo-Hernandez unilateral authority to execute the final bond documents in private. The finalized documents were not publicly available for over two months. No public vote was taken on the final terms.
Judge Jennifer DeLaney (Third Judicial District Court) denied the county’s motion to dismiss NMELC’s lawsuit in March 2026, ordering the county to produce the full administrative record for judicial review. The preliminary injunction request was denied; the lawsuit proceeds on the merits.
The Water Numbers Don’t Match
| Source | Figure |
|---|---|
| Publicly stated (developers) | 20,000 gallons/day |
| NM Office of the State Engineer | ~1,000,000 gallons/day |
| Discrepancy | 50× |
Haussamen reported the State Engineer’s figures on April 7, 2026. Doña Ana County commissioners passed a resolution seeking a full accounting. The Lower Rio Grande Basin is already a stressed water system. Project Jupiter is sourcing water through transfers from agricultural (sod farm) permits.
The Permit Split
The former “Acoma LLC” — renamed Yucca Growth Infrastructure in April 2026 after the Pueblo of Acoma objected to the use of their name without consent — filed two separate air construction permit applications with NMED:
| Application | NOx emissions |
|---|---|
| East microgrid | 249.97 tons/year |
| West microgrid | 248.9 tons/year |
| Combined | ~499 tons/year |
The Title V major source threshold is 250 tons/year. The two microgrids are on the same site, under common ownership, same SIC code. Under EPA’s three-part aggregation test they must be treated as a single source — requiring a full Title V permit and likely PSD/NSR review given Doña Ana County’s ozone nonattainment status.
NMED received 7,000+ public comments. A public hearing is scheduled; the permit decision has been delayed to July 21, 2026.
The Gas Pipeline Is Failing
Project Jupiter requires a 17-mile natural gas pipeline (the “Green Chile Project”) to fuel its microgrids. As of April 2026:
- Environmental groups filed formal challenges at FERC
- FERC’s own staff filed protests citing incomplete applications and missing historical/cultural site reviews
- The New Mexico State Land Office denied pipeline segments on state land, forcing a reroute
Without the pipeline, the microgrids have no fuel. Without the microgrids, the campus has no independent power supply.
The Conflict of Interest: Schaljo-Hernandez
Commissioner Christopher Schaljo-Hernandez:
- Voted YES on the IRB
- Was given unilateral signing authority over final bond documents
- Simultaneously served on the MVEDA (Mesilla Valley Economic Development Alliance) board — the entity that recruited and promoted the Jupiter deal
- Never disclosed this conflict or recused himself
- An informal NM Ethics Commission complaint has been filed
The CAA Mechanism
Community Action Agency of Southern NM (CAA-SNM) ordered the Empowerment Congress of Doña Ana County to withdraw from the lawsuit challenging the Jupiter IRB. Daisy Maldonado, the Empowerment Congress director, was fired after the withdrawal.
CAA-SNM is 99.6% government grant-funded — making it structurally vulnerable to funding-lever pressure from the governor’s office or county government.
The full CAA-SNM board that participated in this decision:
- Dawn Z. Hommer (CEO) — gave the order
- Ray Lara — NM House Rep, District 34 (the Jupiter district itself); never commented publicly on Jupiter
- Mark Pickett (Secretary/Treasurer) — The Pickett Law Firm (government legal work)
- Maria Zuniga — Las Cruces Public Schools employee
- Abeer Al-Ghawi — Ngage New Mexico (economic development nonprofit)
NMSU’s Secret Contract
NMSU signed a $30,000 contract with BorderPlex on February 25, 2025 — the same day Governor Lujan Grisham signed the BorderPlex MOU. The contract’s NDA requires NMSU to:
- Mark documents proprietary at BorderPlex’s request
- Notify BorderPlex of incoming IPRA requests
- Assist BorderPlex in fighting those releases
A public university — funded by New Mexico taxpayers — is contractually obligated to run interference on public records requests for a private company. Heath Haussamen broke this story in September 2025. A full IPRA for the NDA text and related documents has been filed with NMSU.
The Revolving Door
Alicia Keyes: Former NM Economic Development Secretary → BorderPlex lobbyist → founder of Apaluma Inc., which holds a contract with NMED to digitize environmental permit data. She simultaneously lobbies NMED for BorderPlex’s air and water permits while her company sells data analytics services to NMED.
Governor’s timeline: The Governor signed the BorderPlex MOU on February 25, 2025 — seven months before the public vote that was supposed to authorize the project. The county commission was approving a deal the state had already committed to.
Strategic Water Supply Act (HB 137): Signed April 2025, one month after the MOU. Created a $75M state desalination fund administered by EDD (Rob Black — same official who signed the MOU). Doña Ana County is seeking $25M from this fund to build the desalination plant Jupiter requires. The governor created the funding mechanism for Jupiter’s water supply shortly after creating Jupiter itself.
The Full Corporate Chain
OpenAI / Oracle (anchor clients)
└── Green Chile Ventures LLC (Oracle NM subsidiary, registered Sept 2025)
└── STACK Infrastructure (operator)
└── Blue Owl Capital (owns STACK Infrastructure)
└── Blue Owl Capital (also committed $3B in debt financing)
↑ same firm owns both the operator AND the lender
└── BorderPlex Digital Assets (local entity; Lanham Napier, ex-Rackspace)
└── JPMorgan → Blue Owl Capital → IIF → STACK Infrastructure
Blue Owl Capital owns both the operator (STACK Infrastructure) and committed $3 billion in debt financing — the same firm is on both sides of the transaction.
Shannon Reynolds — Doxxing and Resignation
Commissioner Shannon Reynolds:
- September 5, 2025: Posted personal information of anti-Jupiter commenters on Facebook, including ICE-vulnerable border-area residents
- September 19, 2025: Voted YES on the IRB
- December 28, 2025: Resigned from the commission
- 2026: Running for Doña Ana County Assessor in the June 2 Democratic primary
No formal NM Ethics Commission complaint has been filed. The statute of limitations runs September 2026.
Corporate Capture: 2026 Elections
Jose Ibarra — active BorderPlex consultant who spoke in favor of the project at the September 19 IRB hearing — is running for District 3 County Commission as a Democrat in the June 2, 2026 primary. A BorderPlex consultant is seeking a seat on the commission that approved $165B in incentives for his client.
Daisy Maldonado — former Empowerment Congress director, fired after CAA-SNM ordered the lawsuit dropped — is running for District 1 County Commission as a Democrat in the same primary. Campaign: daisy4dist1.com