Earlier this spring, here in Memphis, my 12-year-old son ended up in urgent care and his doctor’s office four times because he needed a nebulizer to help him breathe. We weren’t alone. On one visit, five children in the waiting area were there for wheezing, and one had to be transported to the hospital by ambulance.
My son has always had bad seasonal allergies, but this scary reaction was unlike past years. I couldn’t help but wonder if living near Elon Musk’s xAI supercomputer—the world’s largest, spanning multiple football fields—had something to do with it.
For months, the facility—called Colossus and located in the Boxtown neighborhood—has been openly flouting the rules that help keep our children’s lungs healthy and safe. Thanks to a study done by the Southern Environmental Law Center, residents recently learned that to power its supercomputer, xAI has been operating 35 heavily polluting gas turbines without an air permit, in violation of the Clean Air Act. This is shocking but may soon become the norm as massive data centers pop up all over the country to power AI.
Tell the Shelby County Health Department: Protect Our Families From Elon Musk’s Toxic xAI Pollution
Gas turbines like the ones powering Colossus create harmful nitrogen oxide pollution, which can cause asthma in children and react with other chemicals to form soot and smog pollution. In addition to asthma, all this pollution can lead to lung infections, heart attacks, and premature death.
Shelby County, home to Memphis, already scores an F every year from the American Lung Association for its dangerous air, and we have the highest rate of youth asthma emergencies in all of Tennessee.
On top of the soot, smog, and nitrogen oxide pollution, according to the lawyers at the SELC, the turbines at Colossus pump large amounts of deadly formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, into our air. This is terrifying.
To make matters worse, there are no air monitors around this AI facility or in nearby neighborhoods, so we don’t even know how much hazardous air pollution is in the air at any given time. I might keep my son inside on certain days if I had that data.
Boxtown has been disproportionately impacted by industry pollution for decades. The majority-Black area is home to an oil refinery, a steel mill, and chemical plants, and its residents already have high rates of asthma, lower life expectancy, and four times the national rate of cancer—all health impacts that have been linked to industrial pollution.
Elon Musk swooped into this neighborhood in secrecy last year, getting Colossus up and running in a matter of weeks with zero community consultation. And now his massive fossil gas turbines—some estimates say they’re enough to power an entire city —are operating without air permits or accountability.
Memphis families are fighting for their lives—and so are families across the country. Supercomputer facilities to power AI are being planned and built across the nation. We can’t proceed with the Musk approach of ignoring the law and releasing carcinogens into communities, all to amass billions at the expense of our children’s health and future.
Tell the Shelby County Health Department: Protect Our Families From Elon Musk’s Toxic xAI Pollution