Why a 600-Megawatt AI Datacenter Was Rejected at the Edge of the Everglades
Palm Beach County commissioners denied a proposed 600-megawatt hyperscale datacenter known as Project Tango in mid-July 2026, but the project's manager said developers are "not giving up." The facility would have occupied a 202-acre (82-hectare) parcel in Loxahatchee, Florida, on Donald J. Trump Highway, roughly 16 miles (26km) west of Mar-a-Lago near the northern edge of the Florida Everglades. The Guardian
The path to that denial was a long one. Palm Beach County first paused a vote on an earlier version of the AI data center in December 2025 after residents raised concerns about high water usage and potential strain on local aquifers, the underground layers of rock and sediment that store groundwater. Commissioners were then scheduled to take a final vote on July 15, 2026, before ultimately rejecting the project. The developers had wanted to convert a 2016 approval for warehouses and a smaller server farm on the site into a hyperscale datacenter, a much larger and more power-intensive facility. That modification triggered fresh zoning review and organized opposition. WPTV
Opponents built their case on both legal and scientific grounds. Earthjustice attorney Christina Reichert is representing neighbors through the Western Palm Beach Community Alliance, arguing that the conversion from the earlier warehouse-and-server-farm approval to a hyperscale facility was improper. Reinaldo Diaz, founder of the nonprofit Lake Worth Waterkeeper, has warned that waste heat discharged from the datacenter could raise water temperatures in the surrounding watershed. Elevated temperatures, Diaz argues, would increase the risk of toxic bacterial blooms in the Everglades wetlands. The Guardian
That concern has a real-world basis. On July 30, 2026, the Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach County issued a health alert about cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, in Lake Okeechobee, the vast freshwater body connected to the greater Everglades system. Cyanobacteria blooms produce microcystin, a toxin that can sicken humans and animals and contaminate drinking water. The alert came barely two weeks after commissioners voted on Project Tango. Florida Department of Health
The scale of energy demand sharpens the stakes. At peak capacity, a 600MW datacenter could consume as much power as roughly half a million US homes, based on US Energy Information Administration estimates of residential electricity use. That load, concentrated on a single site at the Everglades' northern edge, would make the facility one of the most energy-intensive installations in the region. The Guardian
The Everglades ecosystem has absorbed decades of drainage and development. The federal government and the state of Florida have spent a combined $6 billion on restoration efforts, an investment that local environmentalists say a large-scale datacenter could jeopardize through both thermal pollution, meaning excess heat released into waterways, and water consumption. The site's proximity to the Everglades' northern boundary places it within a watershed that restoration projects have spent years attempting to rehabilitate. Congressional Research Service
The broader context here is the collision between the AI infrastructure buildout and environmentally constrained siting. Hyperscale datacenters, the massive facilities that underpin cloud computing and artificial intelligence, require enormous and reliable power, significant water for cooling, and proximity to the fiber-optic backbone that carries internet traffic. Western Palm Beach County offered land and industrial zoning approvals predating the current AI-driven demand surge, which is precisely why developers sought to retrofit the 2016 approval rather than start from scratch. But the same hydrology that made the Everglades a restoration priority makes the site acutely vulnerable to thermal and water-table disruption.
The developers' insistence that they are "not giving up" suggests the denial may be a setback rather than a dead end. Project Tango's proponents could resubmit with modified plans, pursue legal challenges to the county's decision, or seek alternative sites. What remains unresolved is whether the region's environmental constraints, its existing restoration commitments, and organized local opposition can withstand the economic and political pressure that accompanies hyperscale development proposals. The answer will likely shape not only this project but the template for siting AI infrastructure near sensitive ecosystems across the United States.
