The estimated cost of litigating the 380 agreement was provided by the same office that came up with the contract, a contract that most experts agree is terribly drafted. 

Until the city has a transparent and unbiased assessment on what breaking the contract will entail, we can only make educated estimates.

The cost of litigation to get rid of the exploitative industry would be a flat fee, whereas the cost of having this data center in our community will be ongoing and rising exponentially over time, long after the lifespan of the data center. 

In my opinion based on my research over the past year on what many communities across the nation are facing:

The cost incurred over getting rid of it can be budgeted over time, and taken out of a city that has diversified revenue beyond property taxes, it can be handled and it does not need to signify a burden on the community. That is, with the right representatives and advocates. 

In contrast, the cost of rising electrical costs, which we are already seeing, the cost of rising water costs, already scarce in our desert, the cost of the data center’s gas plant the citizens are expected to subsidize, and the incurred medical costs from having the known pollutant in our city, create a much bigger financial burden on the residents of El Paso at large.