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Amazon Web Services, which stores data for both large and small web users worldwide, was shown on a memo as the operator of the secretive project.

“Project Blue is Amazon Web Services,” said the memo, whose existence was disclosed Monday by the news website AZ Luminaria, which said it obtained the document through a public records request.

The memo is undated but AZ Luminaria, which posted it online with its news story, said it was from 2023 and was prepared by Pima County government.

“The company is looking to establish a new ‘Availability Zone’ for data center storage in this region. The project will be comprised of 3 data centers that develop in multiple phases,” the memo said, adding that California, Texas and Nevada were also in consideration for the centers.

Tucson officials have said Project Blue would consist of three data-center complexes, but only one site has yet been disclosed. That will be on 290 acres lying near the Pima County Fairgrounds, near Houghton and Brekke roads on the far southeast side.

The project will place a second center within Tucson city limits but that location hasn’t been disclosed. A third center would be built outside the city, city officials have said.

Many business community leaders have supported Project Blue because it would create 150 jobs paying average $64,000 annual salaries and would generate a huge amount of local tax revenue. But it has drawn major opposition from community members who say it will use too much water and electricity compared to other industries here and could damage air quality.

The disclosure of Amazon as operator of the complex lifts another veil of secrecy that has clouded this project since sketchy details emerged in June.

At the time, city and county officials not only wouldn’t disclose the planned operator of the data centers, but declined to discuss their expected annual use of water and energy, triggering charges of excessive secrecy from critics of the project. The officials cited a nondisclosure agreement that county officials signed with Project Blue’s developer in June 2024 and lasts 18 months.

On July 14, city of Tucson officials released a 47-page development agreement they’d signed with the project’s developer, Humphrey’s Peak Properties of San Francisco, that laid out Project Blue’s expected energy and water use.

Yet on Tuesday, county officials refused to release the memo disclosing Amazon’s role to the ����Ӱ��AV even though they’d released it to Luminaria under a public records request.

Mark Evans, a Pima County government spokesman, told the Star the memo was released mistakenly and accidentally to Luminaria. For now, county officials are sticking to their position that the release of the document is forbidden due to the nondisclosure agreement the county signed with the developer. County Administrator Jan Lesher did not return multiple messages from the Star.

Star executive editor David McCumber said, “While we are frankly glad the public has been given important information about Project Blue — information that should always have been made public — we are distressed that the county has characterized the release as a mistake and is refusing repeated requests from other media, including us, for the same information.

“We believe that position is indefensible,” McCumber said.

The Star submitted public records requests to the county in June on Project Blue that did not result in the release of this document.

Fletcher McCusker, treasurer of the Southern Arizona Chamber, a major backer of Project Blue, said he’s concerned about the possibility Amazon might bolt from the project now that its name has been revealed as its prospective operator. Chamber officials have reached out to company officials to learn if they’re leaving the project but haven’t heard back, McCusker said Tuesday.

On July 1, he told told the county Board of Supervisors that the operator has said it would “walk” from the project if its name was disclosed before city and county officials approve the project.

“The NDA issue is our client’s wish. And it’s not so much information as it is the identity of their target. They’re in a very competitive environment, they move very stealthily, particularly in large data-tech worlds,” McCusker told the county board that day.

“They do not want their name in the public domain. It makes it really hard for a government entity to approve something on a nameless basis. However, they’ve made it crystal clear to us that ‘if our name gets out there, we’re done. We walk,’” he said.

The Board of Supervisors approved a land sale of the project’s 290 county-owned acres to a developer and a zoning change for the parcel on June 17. In August, the Tucson City Council will discuss whether to annex the project site so the city can deliver water to Project Blue.

The developer doesn’t want its name revealed for a number of reasons, McCusker said Tuesday. The company doesn’t want its employees to know that some might be relocated to another location and it doesn’t want competitors to know its plans in advance, said McCusker, who wouldn’t confirm that Amazon is the project operator because of a nondisclosure agreement the Southern Arizona Chamber has signed with the company. Amazon Web Services could not be reached for comment.

Responded City Councilman Kevin Dahl, “Let ‘em walk.”

“If that’s what they said they would do then they should do it,” said Dahl, who has described himself as a “hard no” on Project Blue.

“Then we’ll start talking to industries that are better suited to the desert than data centers,” he said. “Industries that will create more jobs, use less water, and less energy and are better for our community.”