Protect People and Birds: Rally for a San José Data Center Moratorium

Join SCVBA and community allies on Thursday, October 15, to demand strong protections before data centers move forward.

Data centers are being proposed beside homes, schools, open space, and waterways. Their constant hum, nighttime lighting, air pollution, and enormous energy and water demands put communities and wildlife at risk. People and birds need quiet nights, dark skies, and protected resources. San José’s current protections must be strengthened. Watch this very short video to see and hear why.

SCVBA calls for a moratorium on accepting, processing, and approving data center applications until San José adopts strong, enforceable standards. The City must study cumulative impacts and give communities a meaningful voice in shaping these protections.

• Rally and press conference: 5:00–6:00 p.m. Civic Plaza West, outside San José City Hall, 200 E. Santa Clara Street.

• City community meeting: 6:00–8:00 p.m. City Council Chambers. Stay after the rally to speak up, or join via Zoom.

Bring a sign and help us call for no hum, no buzz, and no intrusive light - for people and nature.

Learn about the City’s proposed data center standards.

And remember to Vote NO on Prop 45

No on Prop 45 - For the Birds, the Flowers, and our Communities

The birds are asking: please vote NO on Prop 45

We care about California’s birds, wildlife, clean air and water, and our beautiful places. All are at risk. With Trump rolling back federal environmental protections, we need our state’s protections more than ever.

Prop 45 would create sweeping loopholes in those protections - making it easier to push through polluting projects and sprawl into wildlife habitat, farmland, and fire-prone areas, while giving communities less say and leaving taxpayers with cleanup bills. The damage could last generations.

Please take a few minutes to read the opinion piece I co-wrote in the Palo Alto Weekly, and pass it along to friends and family who vote in California.

More than 500 organizations oppose Prop 45, including environmental, civil rights, public health, faith, affordable housing, labor, good government, and community groups. Learn more at the No on Prop 45 campaign website.

This one really matters. Thank you for helping protect the California we love.

Shani Kleinhaus, Ph.D.

Environmental Advocate

Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance

October 2026 Conservation Corner

California Condor: Teresa Cheng

Vote NO on Proposition 45

Prop 45 is a sweeping attack on California’s environmental protections. It could fast-track sprawl into fire-prone areas, wetlands, wildlife habitat, and other sensitive lands, along with polluting projects such as roads, warehouses, and data centers. It would weaken the California Environmental Quality Act by limiting public input, consideration of less harmful alternatives, and court remedies when projects are approved unlawfully. These safeguards help communities protect public health, clean air and water, and wildlife.

Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance has joined more than 400 organizations opposing the measure, including Sierra Club California, the California Native Plant Society, the Center for Biological Diversity, the National Wildlife Federation, other Bird Alliance chapters, the County of Santa Clara, the League of Women Voters of California, and the American Lung Association.

Don’t fast-track pollution and sprawl.

Vote NO on Prop 45.

Data center proposed along Hwy 237 and Zanker Road

San Jose is developing Uniform Guidelines for Data Centers

San José is developing standards for data centers and other large energy projects. The draft addresses recycled water and renewable energy, but relies on existing air pollution rules and offers little protection from noise and light pollution. Those gaps matter: NBC Bay Area reports that South San José residents already describe a constant hum and bright lights from nearby data centers. Nighttime light and continuous noise can also disturb birds and other wildlife. San José needs clear, enforceable limits that protect neighborhoods and habitat.

SCVBA is working with San José community groups and residents to strengthen the standards. At the same time, we are asking the City to stop accepting and processing data center applications, including those already in the pipeline, until strong standards are adopted. Contact advocate@scvbirdalliance.org to get involved.

October 8: Google’s 250 MW Alviso data center - who will pay?

Google is seeking approval of a PG&E agreement to supply 250 megawatts of electricity to its proposed data center, next to Alviso Elementary School and across Disk Drive from the Burrowing Owl preserve. Google would pay substantial grid costs upfront, but could receive refunds over 15 years. How much of the cost could ultimately fall on other electricity customers?

Governor Newsom has just signed a law intended to protect ratepayers from data center grid costs, but the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has not finished updating its rules. The CPUC is expected to consider Google’s agreement on October 8. Please urge commissioners not to approve it unless they can show that other ratepayers are fully protected. Alviso schoolchildren, Burrowing Owls, and the rest of us should not bear the impacts and costs of Google’s AI needs.

If you are available and willing to speak at the October 8 CPUC meeting, please contact advocate@scvbirdalliance.org 

Bear Creek Redwoods OSP: Carolyn Knight

Speak up for roadless lands by October 6

The U.S. Forest Service proposes to repeal the Roadless Rule, which protects designated roadless areas on Forest Service lands from most new road construction and logging. New roads can fragment wildlife habitat, damage watersheds, and bring more sources of wildfire ignition into remote areas. Please submit a comment by October 6 urging the Forest Service to keep the rule.

SB 954 vetoed

We are deeply disappointed that Governor Newsom has vetoed SB 954, legislation that would have closed a major loophole created by last year’s SB 131.

SB 131 created a sweeping California Environmental Quality Act exemption for qualifying “advanced manufacturing” projects. SB 954 was passed by the Legislature to narrow that exemption and restore environmental review for projects that can have significant impacts on wildlife, habitat, air and water quality, and nearby communities.

SCVBA joined environmental and community organizations across California in supporting SB 954 because projects with potentially significant environmental impacts should not receive a blanket exemption from environmental review simply because they fall within a broadly defined industry category.

The Governor’s veto means the SB 131 exemption remains in place. This makes local land-use decisions even more important, particularly where advanced manufacturing facilities are proposed near sensitive habitat, open space, waterways, or communities already burdened by pollution.

Thank you to everyone who contacted legislators and the Governor in support of SB 954. The bill passed the Legislature because of a strong statewide coalition, and we will continue working with our partners to protect meaningful environmental review and public participation.

The Author of SB 954, Sen. Catherine S. Blakespear of Encinitas, has expressed her disappointment. We expect her to try again next year.

Sept. 30: Lehigh community meeting

Join Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga for an update on demolition, Permanente Creek restoration, the upcoming environmental review, and the future of the Lehigh-Heidelberg Cement Plant and Quarry on Wednesday, Sept. 30, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Zoom.  

Cupertino: Vote YES on Measure L

Measure L would protect Cupertino’s parks, open space, wildlife habitat, recreational areas, and safe bike and school routes by requiring voter approval before these protected lands can be converted to other uses.

September 2026 Conservation Corner

This month has been another reminder of just how important the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is for birds, wildlife, and the places they depend on. 

CEQA is fundamentally a disclosure law: it requires us to look before we leap. Before approving a project, agencies and developers must identify significant environmental impacts, consider less damaging alternatives, mitigate those impacts where feasible, and give the public an opportunity to understand what is proposed and weigh in. Many of the protections we routinely seek, for creeks and wetlands, mature trees and habitat, nesting birds and wildlife movement, bird-safe design and better lighting, come through this process. 

But CEQA is being steadily weakened. Most housing development has already been exempted or streamlined, and recent state laws are extending exemptions to other kinds of development. For SCVBA, that makes our work protecting open space, creeks, oak woodlands, Baylands, and the urban-wildland edge even more important. Without environmental review, impacts to birds and wildlife may never be fully disclosed, less damaging alternatives may never be considered, and mitigation that could make a project better may never be required.

We saw why this matters in projects across the Valley this month. In Los Gatos, we called for a full EIR for Twin Oaks, a residential development proposed amid creek, oak, and riparian habitat. In Saratoga, we joined residents in asking for denial of the Masson Estates development, where CEQA review identified significant and unavoidable wildfire risks. In Los Altos, we submitted comments on the demolition of Halsey House, seeking better protection for Adobe Creek and wildlife during work at Redwood Grove Nature Preserve. In the City of Santa Clara, we asked that CEQA review address the removal of mature trees and potential impacts to nesting birds from the reconfiguration of Pruneridge Golf Club. And in Morgan Hill, we commented on a Builder’s Remedy housing proposal, raising concerns about groundwater, wildlife habitat, and the project’s reliance on new private wells and an onsite wastewater treatment system.

In San José, we challenged the rezoning of part of the former IBM Almaden Research Center, where new industrial zoning could allow future projects to avoid CEQA review altogether. With no project proposed, why give away environmental review now?

Read Shani Kleinhaus's opinion: Almaden IBM Rezoning: When CEQA Disappears, So Does Your Voice — San Jose Inside

The lesson from this month's work is simple: protecting birds means protecting habitat and protecting the laws and public processes that give us a chance to defend it.

November Ballot Measures

1. SCVBA opposes Proposition 45, which would weaken CEQA review for projects ranging from data centers and highways to dams and mines and energy facilities and development in open space.  Vote NO on Prop 45. 

2. SCVBA endorses Cupertino’s Parks and Open Space Protection Measure (Measure L), which requires voter approval before designated parks and open space can be rezoned or developed. Cupertino residents:Vote YES on L.