A decision from the Shelby County Health Department (SCHD), expected this month, will determine if Elon Musk’s supercomputer Colossus will be allowed to continue operating in Memphis, Tennessee, without lawful permits.

Memphis, which already suffers from air pollution from multiple industrial sources, has been forced to contend with pollution from methane gas-powered turbines since the summer of 2024. Community health advocates claim that since last year’s rushed construction of the data center that powers Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot for Musk’s social media company X, the permitting agencies have allowed 35 turbines to operate without any oversight. 

On June 17, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) sent a letter of intent to sue to xAI, the Musk company behind Grok, on behalf of the NAACP. The 60-day notice of intent is the prerequisite for filing a Clean Air Act lawsuit.   

“All too often, big corporations like xAI treat our communities and families like obstacles to be

pushed aside,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a press release.”We cannot afford to normalize this kind of environmental injustice—where billion-dollar companies set up polluting operations in Black neighborhoods without any permits and think they’ll get away with it because the people don’t have the power to fight back.”

xAI did not respond to Prism’s request for comment.

In April, CTC Property LLC, which manages the Colossus site at the old Electrolux factory in Southwest Memphis, applied for a permit for eight of the existing 35 turbines, along with a permit for seven new turbines. The existing turbines have the generating capacity of 420 megawatts, about the same as that of the federal Tennessee Valley Authority’s methane gas power plant in Brownsville, Tennessee, which provides power to nearly 250,000 homes. 

Industrial operations with the capacity to emit at least 250 tons of pollutants must apply for a “major source” permit before commencing activity. Advocates say that the existing turbines fall into this category, though CTC Property’s permit application requests a “minor source” permit, which are needed for facilities that pollute as much as 100 tons. 

There has been some back and forth between the local Shelby County Health Department and the regional Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) about if and which category of permit was required for the turbines, which produce nitrogen oxides, a carcinogenic ozone precursor. As Prism reported in April, Memphis consistently ranks as the leading “asthma-challenged” city across the nation’s largest 100 cities. Southwest Memphis is of particular concern as an asthma “hot spot” for its proximity to industrial polluters. And nationally, Black children are more than twice as likely to develop asthma as white children.  

Still, xAI did not apply for a permit when it began constructing the facilities last summer, erroneously claiming that so-called temporary polluting structures did not require permits, advocacy groups claim. Currently, none of the turbines are permitted.

“You can’t install and then operate equipment without a permit,” said Scott Throwe, the vice president of Throwe Environmental, who worked at the EPA for 30 years focusing on the enforcement of Clean Air Act regulations. 

“SCHD is currently reviewing the air permit application submitted by xAI for a synthetic minor source under the state regulations and the Clean Air Act,” the Shelby County Health Department said in emailed statement to Prism. “This review is being conducted in coordination with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 4 office. SCHD has been working closely with the EPA Region 4 office since xAI arrived in Shelby County.”

The health department received more than 1,700 public comments in response to CTC Property’s permit application, which it is expected to review before making a determination.

The SELC, which petitioned the EPA in June for to designate Memphis as a “non attainment” zone based on 2015 standards, provided a public comment on the issue of xAI’s air quality permits. The organization claimed that local air pollution ordinances, county regulations, and state and federal regulations all either allow for the monitoring of pollution, demand that agencies take enforcement action, or authorize them to deny permits based on air quality violations. 

The petition also claims that the region has been out of compliance with air quality standards since 2015. Known as “non-attainment,” areas with this status are subject to more stringent air quality standards until they are brought into “attainment,” Throwe told Prism. He said that air quality rules and regulations require facilities to utilize the “best available control technology” to achieve emissions reductions.  

The CTC Property permit application to the county health department asserts that the turbines are equipped with pollution-reduction technology called selective catalytic reduction (SCR). In March, the SELC took thermal images of the Colossus site to track if turbines were operational and released pollution invisible to the naked eye. These images were included in the organization’s public comment to the health department and showed that none of the turbines were fitted with SCR technology. 

The lack of proactive permitting and response from the health department is enough for the EPA to step in, Throwe said. 

“There should be an enforcement response for failing to get a permit, for operating for however long they operated without a permit, and also, I assume, without the necessary controls or the necessary monitoring,” Throwe added.

Despite the authority falling on the health department to remain apprised of sources of major pollution, it’s unclear even to elected officials what the department knows about xAI’s operations. 

“Before deciding on the permit application, I encourage SCHD to find out when these turbines were installed and how often they have been operating and to share this information with the public,” Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, who represents Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District including Memphis, wrote in a letter to the county health department. He added that if a permit is granted, there should be stringent subsequent monitoring, data collection, and public awareness around pollution levels. 

Editorial Team:
Sahar Fatima, Lead Editor
Carolyn Copeland, Top Editor
Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor