I visit the hospital rooms of my family and church elders relatively regularly. I have never been to the hospital to visit any of my young cousins, but that changed a week ago. As a heat dome covered Memphis and the Mid-South, my 21-year-old cousin, Ra’Kelle Miller, was struggling to breathe after five minutes outdoors and was rushed to the emergency room. Neither her nebulizer nor asthma pump worked to open her airways. She lives a few miles away from Colossus I and only a couple of miles away from the Valero Oil Refinery. The pollution from these facilities, and the power plant with the illegal gas turbines in neighboring Southaven, are having a real impact on our community’s health now. Politicians and talking heads are leaving the people impacted by hyperscale data centers behind when discussing the “economic development” they think data centers can bring.
Memphis is becoming a testing ground for the future of artificial intelligence. But before we rush into that future, we need to pause and ask: What will it cost the people who live here?
SpaceXAI’s Colossus data center arrived in Memphis under the cover of NDAs and secret meetings that never included people from the community. That rush to secrecy and to market has led to tons of harmful pollutants being emitted into our air and lungs. SpaceXAI is raking in billions of dollars a month, and all we have to show for it is $30M in city and county tax revenue and temporary construction jobs filled by people from out of town. The tax money is a pittance compared to SpaceXAI’s value and profits. We should be ashamed, not celebrating how we are being treated.
SpaceXAI’s Colossus data center has put extraordinary demands on Memphis for electricity, water and other infrastructure. To power those demands, SpaceXAI’s founder, Elon Musk, has relied on dozens of methane gas turbines that emit nitrogen oxides and other pollutants with well-documented health risks. The full health and environmental consequences for Memphis residents continue to worsen.
The Memphis City Council has an opportunity to help us learn from this colossal mistake by pausing to think, learn and act in the best interest of the people of Memphis. The council is scheduled for a third reading and vote on Ordinance 5982 on Tuesday. The ordinance proposes pausing new large-scale data center development for 12 months to give Memphis time to study the impact of facilities like SpaceXAI’s Colossus, allow for community input on where they are built, and develop regulations that protect our air, water, land and jobs.
There’s more than enough reason to pause and research this before expanding the existing facilities or allowing more. The environmental concerns are substantial. A recent Reuters report found that Musk’s company has installed many more gas turbines than it claimed, and without proper permitting. The majority of those turbines are in neighboring Southaven, near predominantly Black communities of Whitehaven and Westwood that already face elevated rates of respiratory illness. The five-mile affected area extends across the state line into Memphis, including John P. Freeman Middle School.
The Reuters report calculated that 30 methane gas turbines with available emissions data could produce nearly 2,500 tons of nitrogen oxides, 4,000 tons of carbon monoxide, and 22 tons of formaldehyde annually, assuming they operate continuously at 80% capacity. The report says that the EPA states that these turbines typically operate around the clock at 80% capacity or more.
The American Lung Association states that nitrogen dioxide, one of the nitrogen oxides produced by these turbines, increases toxic smog, which is proven to reduce lung capacity and increase airway inflammation, coughing and wheezing. Toxic smog also worsens asthma and can cause asthma in children, leading to hospital and emergency room visits. Carbon monoxide deprives the body of oxygen, and formaldehyde is a human carcinogen. Cancer rates in South Memphis are already more than 4 times the federal cancer limit. Memphis has become the sacrifice zone for a billionaire’s wealth and profit. An investigative report by ProPublica exposes that this highly elevated cancer rate is due to cancer-causing pollution from industrial sites.
Beyond the proposed economic effects of this industrialization are the effects on the lives of the people living in Memphis. People like my cousin, Ra’Kelle.
Further, Memphis residents are being asked to not only put themselves in harm’s way for these and future data centers, but also to accommodate this massive land use without the necessary regulation. The current Unified Development Code doesn’t specify regulations for these massive data centers that so heavily consume our water, burden our electrical infrastructure, and threaten our health.
The real question isn’t whether Memphis should participate in the AI economy. It’s whether we should allow this unprecedented data center growth to continue under rules written before this technology existed and its adverse health effects were known.
We need courage from our City Council to put people at the forefront of these policy decisions. Our lives matter more than hyper-scale data centers.
I urge the council to pass Ordinance 5982, which identifies the regulatory gaps and would impose a temporary 12-month moratorium on specified permits for new and expanded data-center development while the city studies and develops permanent regulations.
Tennessee is not alone in its quest to understand the impacts of these large-scale facilities before granting permits. Last month, Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared a halt on new data center construction until the state can conduct an audit of energy and water use and the burden on Texas’ electricity grid.
Across the country and across party lines, 65% of Americans are opposed to the construction of new large-scale data centers in their communities. Celebrated environmental whistleblower Erin Brockovich tracks and details where data centers are proposed, reported, contested, and blocked. The call for stricter regulation is prevalent nationwide, but the first canary in the coal mine was Memphis two and a half years ago.
The bottom line is this: Memphians shouldn’t have to wait until the adverse effects of unchecked data center growth are felt before we implement sensible rules. The time is now. We need the 12-month temporary moratorium. Vote “Yes” for Memphis.
Pearson is the Tennessee state representative for District 86. He is a candidate for Congress to represent District 9.
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