Send a message to CO Springs City Council urging that they prioritize climate and community protections over rapid data center development.
Now that the final decision on Project Taurus has been left to the Colorado Springs city council, it's time to make sure local electeds are hearing the concerns of their community. Data centers should not be built if the impacts outweigh the benefits. The proposal, as it stands now, does NOT meet the environmental or ethical standards needed to protect our natural landscapes or community health.
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Background: On July 23rd, 2026 the Colorado Springs City Planning Commission denied all appeals on the approved Project Taurus Data Center being built by Raeden, a California-based company specializing in building and leasing data centers to AI companies.
If built, the data center would be housed less than 500 feet from a residential neighborhood and roughly 1.5 miles from the Garden of the Gods. Project Taurus is planned to use 200,000 gallons of water on initial intake. While the company has stated they won’t use additional water, the historical industrial siting allows the building to access up to 1 million gallons of water per day. The project will also require 50 megawatts of Colorado Springs’ electrical grid capacity, comparable to adding a small city’s worth of energy demand.
While Colorado and the West deal with a long-lasting and unprecedented drought, and communities struggle to pay high energy bills, the resources needed for this data center are not worth the costs. Community groups and residents have also raised concerns around:
- Noise pollution
- Electronic/industrial e-waste
- Air pollution from backup gas generator use
- Negative impacts to the Garden of the Gods and local wildlife
The proposal itself brings up issues with transparency and accountability. Residents won’t know who or what the data center capacity is being used for, and there are no legally binding agreements ensuring Raeden’s energy demand won’t impact residents’ utility costs. They also make no commitments to investing in clean energy to keep Colorado on track to maintain its climate commitments.
