SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
HARLINGEN — In a decisive 5-0 vote Tuesday, the Harlingen City Commission tabled Fluidstack’s request to discharge stormwater runoff from its planned 600-acre data center into the city-owned canal near Valley International Airport, ruling that no decision could be made until every resident in the chamber had finished explaining what rain is.
The developer had offered $7 million to widen the canal and a $20 million infrastructure payment, an unprecedented package that commissioners described as “very generous, but we still have 43 residents signed up to speak about water falling from the sky.”
“For the first time, a data center has asked Harlingen for something,” said one commissioner, leafing through a speaker card. “And for the 900th time, Harlingen has asked a microphone to hear about rain. Only one of these traditions can be rushed, and it is not the rain one.”
Residents Determined To Cover Every Aspect Of Precipitation
The town hall, now scheduled across three consecutive Thursdays at the Harlingen Municipal Auditorium, will feature a 40-slide presentation from one resident titled “Where Water Goes When It Rains: A Retrospective.” Another speaker intends to deliver a live demonstration using a watering can and a scale model of the airport canal that he described as “20 years in the making.”
“People think rain is simple,” said the man, holding the watering can. “It is not. There is drizzle. There is that one September where it rained sideways. There is the puddle by the H-E-B on 77 that has its own ecosystem. The data center needs to know all of it before one drop touches our canal.”
City staff confirmed the project, located in Cameron County outside city limits, does not actually need Harlingen’s approval to begin construction this fall, a fact commissioners agreed to keep in a drawer “until everyone has had a turn.”
$27 Million To Wait Politely
The $27 million offer will remain on the table, officials said, next to a sign-up sheet for additional public comment that is already four legal pads long. A city memo estimates residents are roughly 22% finished explaining rain, with major topics still pending including “gutters,” “that big storm,” and “how my abuela’s patio drains, in detail.”
“We are not anti-data center,” said one resident leaving the meeting. “We just believe that before a machine dumps water in our canal, it should sit through eleven hours of testimony from people who have personally been rained on. That’s not bureaucracy. That’s heritage.”
