An update on the air around xAI's Colossus 1

Here’s an update on what’s happening near Colossus 1 – and how the air issues around it are being handled.

The xAI files

Every essay in this series is pinned to a question on the board at rachelandthecity.com/the-xai-files.

Two things happened this week. The Shelby County Health Department finally told me when the new South Memphis air monitor started. And Mayor Young hit pause on a road the city has wanted to build through that same part of town since 2017.

I’ll start with the monitor.

Back in July I wrote about the $411,000 EPA gave the Health Department in August 2024 to build a real air monitor in South Memphis – the first official one there in more than ten years. When I wrote that, it wasn’t reporting any data. Then the county’s own readings started showing up on the federal air site, AirNow, at 5 PM on August 16th. No announcement went out – the county says it made none, and there’s nothing on record from the state or EPA. I only found the reading by accident.

So on September 5th I emailed Michael Goldstein, the Health Department staffer whose name is all over the grant records EPA sent me, and asked him straight out – is August 16th the start date, and did anybody announce it?

Today the Department’s press officer, Joan Carr, sent me a statement.

Here’s what the county says. There was no announcement, and the Department says no federal rule requires one. EPA approved the site to become operational on July 1st. The ozone data started uploading to AirNow on August 16th, and the six weeks in between were for testing and calibrating the instruments.

And the carbon monoxide monitor at the site is not running – “technical difficulties with the equipment as it was delivered.” They’re working with the manufacturer, and there’s no date on when it might be fixed.

The grant was for carbon monoxide. EPA’s own amendment still describes the project as improving “the monitoring of carbon monoxide in Shelby County.” Ozone got added later – the records show it going into the budget in December 2025 at $33,000, on the same sheet where a $50,000 staff position dropped to zero.

So the pollutant this grant was for is the one that’s down. And ozone here is seasonal – the county runs it March through October – so come November if the issue isn’t fixed – the monitor will not be reporting anything.

Plus, it still doesn’t measure fine particles – the thing the neighborhood groups formally asked the county to add – or nitrogen dioxide. The nearest nitrogen dioxide monitor is still nine miles away, in Arkansas. It’s about five miles from Colossus 1.

Then there’s the year it took.

The county’s statement says the project was “delayed primarily by a federal funding freeze in January 2025.” That freeze was real. In late January 2025 the White House paused federal grant money, EPA grants got caught in it, and EPA said by the end of February it had unfrozen them.

But I filed a records request with EPA in July for the whole grant file, and what came back was 339 pages of the county and EPA writing to each other about this exact monitor. The word “freeze” doesn’t appear in any of them. At the time, the county told EPA the holdup was “unforeseen delays,” and EPA said its own extension paperwork was late because the officer on the grant got reassigned – and it apologized in writing. That extension got signed 36 days after the grant it was extending had already run out, and the county has since asked for six more months.

So what does all this mean? Honestly, most of it is normal. Grants run late. Trump’s EPA cut about a quarter of its staff last year, and its own inspector general said in March it had lost more than a hundred of the people who manage grants. A press office is going to give you the cleanest version of the story. I don’t think anybody here did anything wrong.

But that still doesn’t mean this whole process hasn’t been a clusterfuck. Two years and $411,000 got South Memphis one ozone sensor that runs March through October. The pollutant the money was for isn’t working. The pollutants people in Boxtown are actually worried about were never on the list. And the reason the county gave EPA at the time and the reason it gave me today are different reasons – which is the whole case for asking for the records instead of asking the press office.

The station’s been on for more than three weeks, and the way the public found out was somebody asking. And according to the county, no rule makes it anybody’s job to tell you.

I sent Ms. Carr five follow-up questions today, including when the 2026 data goes into EPA’s official database, what’s wrong with the carbon monoxide equipment, and whether there’s any record showing this grant’s money was frozen. When she answers, I’ll add it here.

Now for the road.

Paul R. Lowry Road is the road that runs into Colossus 1. Since 2017 the city has had a plan to extend it out the far side of Pidgeon Industrial Park and up to the Coro Lake neighborhood, so the park has a second way in and out. The city says that’s mostly for fire trucks. On Tuesday Mayor Young paused it. Per the Daily Memphian, his statement said “a great deal has changed around Paul R. Lowry Road,” that residents have raised “legitimate concerns,” and the city will “pause, listen, and take a fresh look” – including whether it should be built at all.

So, it’s paused, not dead. The city still wants an emergency route into the park. The options are redo the plan, find another route, or drop it.

Here’s what the project’s own records say. Its meeting notes from January 2023 – more than a year before Colossus broke ground – say the main topic was “the potential of air quality concerns in Pidgeon Industrial Park now and in the future.”

Residents asked how they could be sure new factories wouldn’t be releasing harmful pollutants. The city’s answer, in its own FAQ, was that the studies for the road “include air quality tests. So current air quality will be identified.”

So there’s a city air study of this exact area, promised in writing in 2023. I haven’t seen it. The project’s site says the city chose the shorter federal environmental review and is “not following the entire” federal public-involvement process that goes with the bigger one. Then the project went quiet for three and a half years. Its first public meeting since then was set for August 27th – and got cancelled the day before, with no reason posted. Twelve days later came the pause.

I’m not saying one caused the other. The mayor’s own words are that things changed and residents spoke up. But the neighbors’ worry about this road was the air, and it was the air before xAI got here. The study that was supposed to answer it is the next record I’m asking the city for – along with the city’s own two-day air test from June 2025, the one that said that xAI was not causing any air issues that residents should be worried about.

Stay tuned.

#ratcclips #xaifiles

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Update, September 27th, 2026: The county says the station was approved to operate on July 1st and started posting readings on August 16th, so this now says it wasn’t reporting data when I first wrote. The lines about the announcement now say what the county told me.

Everything I have written about AI is in one place at rachelandthecity.com/the-ai-files.

The xAI files

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