Imperial County Superior Court Judge L. Brooks Anderholt issued a final ruling on Sept. 9 overturning the county’s approval of the Imperial Valley Data Center, a nearly one-million-square-foot computing complex near the city of Imperial, and ordering the county to complete environmental review before the project can proceed. The ruling affirms the tentative decision he issued Aug. 31, which was reported here at the time as tentative.
“The court finds the county prejudicially abused its discretion by approving the lot merger without first completing the CEQA review required for the whole project,” Anderholt wrote. The Board of Supervisors had approved a lot merger in April that the developer argued exempted the complex from review under the California Environmental Quality Act. The judge disagreed, pointing to a proposed battery system, a bank of natural gas generators and a new power substation on a site adjacent to the Victoria Ranch residential neighborhood.
The suits were brought by the city of Imperial and the Sierra Club. Mark West of the Sierra Club’s San Diego and Imperial Counties chapter said the coalition wanted to understand the project’s environmental effects. Imperial City Manager Dennis Morita said he had not yet read the ruling. Developer Sebastian Rucci said he would seek a new trial and, failing that, appeal, and noted a county analysis projecting roughly $12 million in annual tax revenue from the project. Rucci also said his company had identified alternative sites farther from residential areas.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs said the decision effectively forces county planners to restart the approval process. County officials did not respond to requests for comment. The separate water question — the company’s effort to fallow 160 leased acres of farmland and shift roughly 880 acre-feet of Colorado River water to cooling, which the Imperial Irrigation District denied on May 1 — was not addressed by this ruling and remains in litigation.
The same district is still working out how much of California’s 440,000 acre-foot annual Colorado River cut will land on Imperial Valley farms. Producers and markets in the county are listed on the Imperial County page, and the winter vegetables grown there reach certified farmers markets across Southern California.
Why this matters for SoCal: Imperial County grows a large share of the winter vegetables Southern California eats, and this ruling keeps the question of whether farmland there can be converted to industrial use open rather than settled by a paperwork maneuver.
Sources: Court overturns approval of Imperial County data center, orders environmental review — KPBS, Sept. 9, 2026; Judge preparing to halt massive Imperial County data center, order environmental review — KPBS, Sept. 1, 2026