The Latest on the Data Center Moratorium

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The latest on the data center moratorium. A city council committee table, members mid-discussion with nameplates in front of them, papers and cups scattered, a city seal banner behind.

This one took all day to put together.

The xAI files

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

You may have heard the Memphis City Council voted to hit pause on new data centers. Twelve months, no new permits, while the city works out what rules it actually wants.

That passed its second reading on September 1st. Memphis ordinances need three readings – so it isn't law yet.

I watched the recordings of that day, the afternoon committee session and the evening meeting. The pause already has two ways it could end early. Neither one is a secret. The council's own lawyer said both out loud, on camera.

There's also a survey going around Facebook asking Memphis voters about all of this. It's been posted on socials as coming from the Greater Memphis Chamber but I can't confirm that yet.

WHAT THE PAUSE ACTUALLY IS

It's Ordinance 5982, sponsored by four council members – Smiley, Green, Swearengen-Washington, and Easter-Thomas.

It passed on the consent agenda, which is the batch of items a council votes on all at once, without debate, when nobody objects. Ten voted yes. Nobody voted no.

A moratorium is a pause button, not a ban. It stops the city issuing certain permits for a set stretch of time, so the people writing the rules can catch up.

WHO SHOWED UP FOR IT

Sarah Houston runs Protect Our Aquifer – the group that works on the underground water Memphis drinks. She backed the pause and handed the council a list. No tax breaks for data centers. No city officials signing nondisclosure agreements. And a joint ordinance with the county, cause the county health department regulates turbines and water wells, not the city.

Sarah Gladney told the council she has a lung condition in remission, and asked them to drive out to Paul R. Lowry Road and spend some time there before deciding anything.

On a personal note – I've done this. Twice now.

I've also stayed at T.O. Fuller Park multiple times, weeks at a time, in my travel trailer. There was no noise pollution and no notable air issues. The RV portion of that park sits closer to Colossus 1 than the closest neighborhood does. It's been about a year since I stayed there, so maybe things have changed. But I want to be honest about my own experience down there.

Satellite view of southwest Memphis. Colossus 1 is circled at left, TVA Allen Combined Cycle is at top, and T.O. Fuller State Park Campground is at right.

Now on to other people's experience.

Easter Knox is 77 and lives in Boxtown. She told the council her husband had asthma, and that after the data center came he got lung cancer and died. She has COPD now. Knox also told the council on Monday about the scent and the smell in Boxtown.

I looked into that smell a few months ago. People have been reporting something like rotten cabbage in the press. That is most likely T.E. Maxson – the city's wastewater treatment plant in southwest Memphis – and not Colossus 1. It has a long, paper-backed odor history.

As to the health claims – the thing is, we need more research on this. And I've filed for some records already.

The first request was to Memphis-Shelby County Schools. I requested monthly chronic absenteeism and average daily attendance by school for the 38109-area schools – the Westwood and Whitehaven feeders – 2023 to present. Aggregate only, no student records.

That should show a pattern of higher absenteeism after Colossus 1 was built, if kids down there are truly suffering from more health conditions since the data center went up. Those records are supposed to land September 30.

The second request I made was for asthma ER data, from the Tennessee Department of Health. I asked for monthly asthma emergency department visits and hospitalizations for 38109 and 38106, January 2023 to now. Same logic on that one.

When I get those records – I'll let you know what I find.

Now, back to the moratorium.

THE FIRST WAY THE PAUSE COULD END EARLY

The same night the moratorium got its second reading, two more data center ordinances got their first.

One is Ordinance 5985, from Councilman Philip Spinosa, who chairs the planning and zoning committee. The clerk read the title into the record. It sets up a development program "to replace a blanket data center moratorium" with tiered review and a set of standards.

Allan Wade is the council's attorney, the lawyer who advises members on what they can legally do. He explained it to the committee that afternoon – that once real rules are on the books, "the moratorium is not needed anymore. You can't continue a moratorium indefinitely."

He's right about the law. A pause has to be for something. When the rules exist, the reason for the pause is gone.

So the fastest way to end a twelve-month pause is to finish the rules early.

THE SECOND WAY, WHICH I HAVEN’T SEEN REPORTED

Wade said something else that afternoon that I haven't seen anywhere.

He told the committee that a state representative has filed a bill that "may even negate the moratorium, may even make it illegal."

The council's own lawyer, telling them the legislature might take this decision away entirely.

I'm going to do more research on this one and report back.

WHO IS ARGUING AGAINST THE PAUSE, ON THE RECORD

Back on August 18, when the moratorium got its first reading, the Memphis Chamber of Commerce publicly asked the council to vote no.

Its argument is leverage. Memphis has the power, the water, and the land other cities lack – so it should negotiate from strength instead of closing the door. In its words: "A moratorium surrenders that leverage at precisely the moment when Memphis's competitive position has never been stronger."

And then there's the paragraph I keep rereading:

"The concerns being raised deserve substantive answers, and those answers exist within the reputable regulatory agencies and partners whose expertise, data, and oversight are available to any Council member who requests them."

Hold onto that one. I'll come back to it.

AND THEN THERE'S THE SURVEY

Someone is running a 36-question survey about all this, aimed at registered Memphis voters. It's hosted on Pollfish – a company anyone can hire to put a survey in front of people – and it's been circulating on Facebook.

It does not say who paid for it. Not on any screen. I pulled the page myself to check.

Question 7 asks how confident you are that a temporary pause stays temporary. Question 8 asks how often a paused project goes ahead anyway. Question 9 asks what a company does when told it can't apply for a permit for a year, and one answer you can pick is that it builds across the state line.

Question 12 is even more loaded. "If Memphis loses a major investment during a twelve-month freeze, who would you hold most responsible? The council, the company, or the mayor."

Then a page on whether you personally use streaming, online banking, telehealth, remote work, and AI assistants. Then it asks how you feel about data centers.

Then eleven pages of genuinely popular protections, one at a time. Water reporting. Air monitors at the fence line. A written guarantee your power bill won't go up.

Then question 31 asks what you'd prefer if all those protections were already law. The first answer listed is no freeze.

The last real question is question 32. It asks whether you'd be more or less likely to re-elect a council member who voted against the twelve-month freeze but voted for binding protections instead.

That question isn't measuring what Memphis thinks. It's measuring whether a council member can vote no and keep their seat.

Now back to that Chamber paragraph. The answers exist inside the regulatory agencies, it says, available to any council member who asks.

I've been asking. Forty-one records requests, ten offices, two states. It's not as easy as they are making it out to be.

But as I get those records – we'll see what they actually say.

Stay tuned.

If you like facts-first info on all this, consider leaving a tip on Venmo or PayPal – this stuff takes a lot of time to put together. And check out everything I’ve written with citations and receipts at the xAI Files.

Sources

Update, September 27th, 2026: One heading now says I haven’t seen the point reported, instead of saying nobody has.

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