Lowndes County, Alabama Residents Call for Accountability and Transparency Around Proposed 800-Acre Data Center
Hayneville, AL -- Lowndes County residents presented the County Commission with a petition Monday night, asking for details on a proposed 800-acre hyperscale data center, Project Red Clay, in their community. County commissioners have not publicly shared project details, leaving many with questions about the scope and scale of the project and its potential impact on community resources.
“I plan to pass my land on to my children and grandchildren. Some of my neighbors have been in Lowndes County for generations. Now this data center threatens everything we’ve built, including our health and livelihoods,” said John Urquhart, a Lowndes County resident whose home is next to the proposed data center site. Urquhart read the petition to commissioners during the meeting Monday. “Transparency is the bare minimum. We will not stand by and allow these life altering decisions to happen behind closed doors.”
The developer, Houston-based Cloverleaf, has released few details about Project Red Clay including who the end user of the data center would be.
On Monday night the resident-led group Protect Lowndes County submitted a petition to the Commission with the following requests:
- Comply with an Open Records Act request submitted by NRDC (Natural Resource Defense Council) and (SELC) Southern Environmental Law Center by providing all records on the proposed data center.
- Make the entities involved in the development of Project Red Clay public.
- Disclose all data on water and energy use projections, wastewater disposal plans, economic projections, employment estimates, infrastructure impacts, and all other details.
- Develop a county-run online dashboard where all relevant information on Project Red Clay can be housed and made publicly accessible.
The petition was signed by more than 350 residents after only a few days.
“Transparency isn’t a courtesy the commission extends to the public. It’s the law, and it’s the foundation of the public’s trust in how this decision gets made,” said Ryan Anderson, a staff attorney in the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Alabama office. “We’ve seen very troubling situations across Alabama where out-of-state developers attempt to keep the public in the dark. The people of Lowndes County are refusing to let that happen.”
It’s estimated that Project Red Clay would need up to 100,000 gallons of water per day from the Pintlala Water System and is requesting 1.5 GW of energy – more than 11 percent of Alabama Power’s current generating capacity, or the equivalent of around 900,000 residential homes in Alabama. Alabamians pay some of the highest energy bills in the country, and, unlike neighboring states, much of the state’s energy planning happens behind closed doors.
A data center would generate industrial wastewater that would strain local resources and infrastructure. This is particularly troubling in Lowndes County because many residents lack access to safe sanitation systems, and Lowndes County has compromised wastewater treatment, which creates an ongoing public health crisis.
“The proposed data center poses severe, uncalculated risks to an already overburdened community, threatening local water supplies, public health, and local infrastructure,” said Rob Friedman, NRDC’s director of environmental health for the southeast. “We have seen the impacts that data centers have in other communities across the country and they are asking residents to blindly trust that these harms won’t happen here.”
Background:
Project Red Clay is a proposed 800-acre hyperscale data center campus on farmland in Lowndes County, Alabama, near the junction of U.S. Highway 80 and Alabama Highway 21 at Burkville; roughly six miles southwest of Montgomery – along the historic Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights Trail. The project would be approximately four times the size of Meta’s existing facility 12 miles away in Hope Hull, Montgomery County
Houston-based Cloverleaf Infrastructure, incorporated in 2024, is the company behind the proposed project. An end user for Project Red Clay has not been disclosed. By proposing to site this hyperscale data center in Lowndes County, Cloverleaf made a decision that ignores, rather than remedies, decades of disinvestment there that is reflected in an ongoing sanitation crisis. The county does not have adequate or safe surplus water, power, or sewer capacity for its residents.https://eji.org/news/u-s-justice-department-abandons-lowndes-county-residents-suffering-longstanding-sewage-problems/ .
For more information, go to https://protectlowndescounty.org/
NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Established in 1970, NRDC uses science, policy, law and people power to NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) confront the climate crisis, protect public health and safeguard nature. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Beijing and Delhi (an office of NRDC India Pvt. Ltd).
The Southern Environmental Law Center is one of the nation’s most powerful defenders of the environment, rooted in the South. With a long track record, SELC takes on the toughest environmental challenges in court, in government, and in our communities to protect our region’s air, water, climate, wildlife, lands, and people. Nonprofit and nonpartisan, the organization has a staff of 250, including more than 160 legal and policy experts and advocates, and is headquartered in Charlottesville, VA, with offices in Asheville, Atlanta, Birmingham, Chapel Hill, Charleston, Nashville, Richmond, and Washington, DC.
selc.org