SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
HARLINGEN — Citing a need for “full hydrological clarity,” the Harlingen City Commission voted unanimously Thursday to table FluidStack’s request to dump stormwater from its 1,800-acre data center campus into the city canal until every resident who signed up to speak has finished personally explaining what rain is, where it comes from, and why it tends to go downhill.
The canal, which already drains Valley International Airport, is rated for 320 cubic feet per second, while the proposed data center flow is 175 cfs — a math problem commissioners said they are “in no hurry” to solve until the public comment period, currently on its fourth hour of one man using a garden hose and a Tupperware lid, reaches its natural end.
“We Don’t Do Numbers Until The People Do Rain”
Mayor Pro Tem Delfina Briscoe defended the tabling. “A data center is 1,800 acres of computers thinking very hard,” she said. “Thinking makes heat, heat makes weather, weather makes rain — I’m not saying that’s science, I’m saying that’s what Gilbert told us, and we owe Gilbert the respect of listening to all 40 of his slides.”
FluidStack representatives offered millions in infrastructure upgrades and offered to widen the ditch, but commissioners ruled that no ditch may be widened until the town hall — now mandatory — concludes its agenda item “What Is Water, Really?”
Resident Ramiro Puente, 61, was gratified. “They wanted to send 175 cfs of rainwater into a 320 cfs canal without once asking us if we’ve seen a big rain out here,” he said. “I’ve seen rains that turned Jackson Avenue into the Arroyo Colorado. I’ve got stories. They’re gonna hear all of them.”
New Policy: Outside Industry Must Wait Behind The Line At The Podium
The commission also directed staff to draft a new policy requiring any outside industrial connection to the city’s drainage system to first survive a Q&A session with locals, a format Briscoe described as “survival of the most patient.”
FluidStack officials said they remain committed to Harlingen and have begun including a 45-minute cushion in all future meeting estimates, plus sandbags.
