Data Center must incorporate climate change in environmental evaluation

He Second Environmental Court partially accepted the claim presented against the approval of the “Cerrillos Data Center” project, led by Googleand ordered the Environmental Evaluation Service (SEA) to roll back the procedure to reincorporate the effects of climate change in environmental evaluation. At issue: the use of water to cool the processes.

“In accordance with everything reasoned in the sentence, it is concluded that both the RCA of the project and Exempt Resolution No. 524/2020, of the Executive Directorate of the SEA, incur illegality, in relation to the lack of antecedents that justify the lack of significant impacts on the Central Santiago Aquifer, which in turn affects the conditions or requirements established, as well as the voluntary environmental commitments,” the ruling says.

The opposition to the Data Center project in Cerrillos began after the presentation of two claims before the Second Environmental Court. The first was carried out by a group of 14 residents of the commune and the second, by said municipality.

However, during the process, the Municipality of Cerrillos withdrew its legal action as did 13 residents. The action was only continued by a neighbor.

In both cases, the reason for the withdrawal was based on the fact that the project publicly declared that it will no longer use water as a method to cool the servers. In February 2022, Google presented to the SEA a query regarding the relevance of entering the Environmental Impact Assessment System (SEIA) of the project “Modification of the ‘Cerrillos Data Center’ Project”, which consists of replacing the water-based cooling towers. by air-condensing chillers, eliminating the consumption of groundwater from the three wells of the Santiago Central Aquifer, over which it has water use rights.

Although SEA determined that the change in the servers’ cooling system did not require re-entering the project into the Environmental Impact Assessment System (SEIA), the court considered that the mere communication of the system change is not binding for the evaluation. environmental of the original project. For this reason, the Court’s analysis also focused its evaluation on the effects of the use of water for cooling and its impact on the water resource.

Consequently, the Court concluded that the environmental assessment did not allow for adequately ruling out the significant impacts of the project on the water resource, estimating that the project goes against the preventive principle and the very purpose of an Environmental Impact Statement. Furthermore, he added that the measures established by the General Directorate of Water (DGA) do not replace a correct evaluation of the project in terms of ruling out the absence of adverse effects.

For these reasons, the Court finally suspended the project until the issuance of the complementary RCA. “In this way, the project cannot be executed until it has this latest resolution,” the ruling emphasizes.

The Court was made up of the ministers of the Environmental Court Cristián Delpiano Lira, president(s), and Cristián López Montecinos, and the minister María Merino Verdugo, of the Court of Appeals of Santiago. The sentence was written by Minister Delpiano.