Few places in America illustrate the illusive promise of development in the arid West as well as Boulder City.

Its original townsite was hastily built during the Depression-era construction of Hoover Dam, a colossal symbol of the effort to harness nature in the name of plentiful power and water for the new West. Boulder City blossomed thanks in part to its slow-growth ordinance designed to protect its bucolic small-town setting.

But with record heat, the receding Lake Mead, paltry Rocky Mountain snowpacks and exposed Hoover Dam power turbines, the signs of stress are not subtle.

Boulder City remains an oasis in the desert, but one some residents believe is now threatened by the prospect of a 170-megawatt Townsite Solar 2 artificial intelligence (AI) data center. They fear the project, planned for 88.5 acres of city-owned land, will consume large amounts of water and electricity and harm their community. The development calls for the daily use of more than 600,000 gallons of effluent from the city's wastewater treatment facility and would potentially add stress to the power grid.

In an effort to weigh voter sentiment on data centers, and perhaps to assuage possible political blowback from a volatile issue, the city has placed a question on the November ballot. The Townsite Solar project was broached in a January council meeting and discussed in some detail in a March meeting. It sounds like it's moving at digital speed.

After making an inquiry with the city on this subject, I received a statement that describes data center development as under evaluation and "at a very preliminary stage."

"One of these efforts is the ballot question to see if the voters want to allow them in the Eldorado Valley Transfer Area," it states. "There will be other preliminary efforts and further study of this use and its impacts before the City would consider approving development in Boulder City."

The plan, preliminary or otherwise, is proceeding despite growing pushback. The Townsite Solar 2 project is on the agenda for an upcoming city planning commission meeting. It is scheduled to break ground later this year, according to published reports, and could be ready for business as early as 2027.

Like most other communities, city council meetings in Boulder City are not particularly well attended. But you don't have to scratch far to find a critic of the data center idea. One is longtime resident Fred Voltz, a well-read and persistent council saddle burr.

"Here in Boulder City, the city council added a ballot question in November concerning data centers, except the way it is worded exempts over 88 acres of city land they added to the land management process at their last meeting, and which would be exempt from the November vote along with other city-owned sites," Voltz says.

An ongoing signature-gathering effort has collected more than 1,400 names, and opponents have spoken out at a March city council meeting and to news reporters. Among those opponents are Boulder City residents Brynn deLorimier and Branden Smith, who juggle collecting signatures with the remodel of the faded Flamingo Inn Motel on Nevada Way downtown.

"A massive, poorly vetted data center being pushed forward despite potentially grave environmental impacts by a city council who is ignoring residents at every turn is extremely disheartening," deLorimier says. "Nor is this project representative of the quaint and historic town I chose to call my forever home. I am, however, happy to see friends and neighbors of all walks unite around a single cause — preserving our town."

An embrace of data centers would represent a significant shift in land use policy for a town that has prided itself on its measured growth. "Clean, green" Boulder City has remained that way by design, not default. 

Although Boulder City's water share is grandfathered into its existence, and the Eldorado Valley is the site of a small sea of solar fields, the potential stresses on water and power echo concerns of ratepayers across the nation.

When it comes to estimated annual energy consumption, the data center applicant could have some explaining to do the next time it comes before the city. Residents who read the application carefully noticed the faulty math that favored the company. After pointing that out to city officials, the applicant corrected its figures. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence in already skeptical residents.

It is not news that data centers are known as moneymakers for their developers, but not as big employers for the communities that host them.

The city's budget concerns aside, it's fair to ask why Boulder City needs to take such a risk at a time of record heat, the grave overallocation of the Colorado River and rising utility rates in the region.

The fate of Nevada's precious desert oasis is not assured — and it requires protection. Its concerned citizens deserve timely transparency and straight answers.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family's Nevada roots go back to 1865. His stories have appeared in New Lines, Time, Reader's Digest, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Reuters and Desert Companion, among others.