SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
HARLINGEN — At a packed commission meeting at Harlingen City Hall this week, residents opposing a second 1,800-acre AI data center between Harlingen and Rio Hondo were reassured by city staff that the facility’s construction timeline is ‘locked in for 2029,’ while the engineering study determining whether the airport canal can even handle the stormwater runoff is projected to conclude ‘sometime in the first half of the century.’
‘Great news, everyone — the data center’s coming whether we finish the study or not,’ said interim drainage coordinator Dale Prewitt, flipping a calendar page directly from September 2026 to a page labeled ‘TBD.’ ‘The canal study is currently on page 4 of a 9,000-page preliminary draft. We’re making tremendous progress.’
Residents who came to ask about their water bills were handed a glossy pamphlet explaining that the facility will run on 100% reclaimed water, an innovative resource that city officials confirmed does not currently exist, will not exist at groundbreaking, and is scheduled to exist ‘eventually, in spirit.’
‘The Water Is Coming No Matter What Too’
Fluidstack representatives told the crowd the company has pledged to pay the entire community’s water bill in reclaimed water credits, which residents can redeem at any future facility that produces reclaimed water, once one is built, possibly by the same company, pending the outcome of a study.
‘It’s a closed-loop system,’ explained company spokesperson Marisol Trent, drawing a circle on a whiteboard that was actually a picture of a drain. ‘Water goes into the data center, becomes hot, evaporates philosophically, and returns to Harlingen as cloud-based moisture. It’s very cutting edge.’
Resident Rolie Fuentes, who lives near the Valley International Airport canal, said he appreciated the honesty. ‘They told us straight up: they’re coming no matter what. Then they asked if I had questions about my sewer rate. I did. They gave me a QR code.’
Commission Votes Unanimously to Keep Talking About It
The commission voted 5-0 to authorize ‘continued dialogue,’ a procedural motion that legally prevents nothing but was described by Mayor pro tem Barbara Kocian as ‘a strong statement that we hear you, and also that we don’t stop anything.’ The measure also budgeted $14 for a second copy of the drainage study, which is expected to arrive laminated by 2038.
As the meeting ended, officials unveiled a scale model of the finished data center next to a slightly smaller scale model of the canal, which they then placed inside the data center ‘for safekeeping during the study.’
