Pollution threatens children’s health in Boxtown, Memphis

• Shelby County, TN, ranks high in childhood asthma-related ER visits and hospitalizations, and received an “F” for ozone pollution.
• Children are particularly vulnerable to air pollution due to their respiratory systems.

Ever since my family moved to Memphis from up north a few years ago, my son has been pummeled by the pollen that floods the air every spring. His eyes gets red and itchy, while his nose turns into a faucet of free-flowing snot. It’s as gross as it is uncomfortable.

This spring, however, was so much worse, bringing a persistent cough, one that started as a slight annoyance and eventually had him gasping – choking —  for air multiple times a day and especially at night. These episodes landed us in urgent cares, ERs and the pediatrician’s office and resulted in nebulizer treatments,  prescriptions, and several inhalers, which he is still required to use. 

He’s not the only one. An ER doctor friend told me that the number of first-time patients with wheezing issues was surging.

Some of this is probably to be expected. The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America ranked Memphis one of the 20 “Asthma Capitals” of the United States in 2024;  Shelby County, where Memphis sits, has the highest rate of children’s asthma-related emergency room visits and hospitalizations in Tennessee. 

Shelby County also scored a F in ozone pollution last year, according to the American Lung Association. Ozone is an air pollutant caused by nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds and is a key component of smog, a dangerous respiratory irritant especially for children. By nature, children breathe more air per pound of body weight than adults, breathe more through their mouths which increases pollution intake, and their developing lungs are more vulnerable due to immature immune defenses. 

This F score can be largely attributed to a brew of emissions from traffic and the large number of heavily polluting industrial sources located here, including a Valero oil refinery that has been cited for multiple environmental violations. Bearing the brunt of these emissions is Boxtown, a low-income neighborhood adjacent to the refinery, as well as a TVA gas-fired plant and 30 other industrial facilities. The community has four times the rate of cancer than the national average.

Harmful emissions

Now, this noxious stew in Boxtown and Memphis as a whole has a new destructive ingredient – the harmful emissions being spewed by Elon Musk’s xAI data center, the homebase for Grok. Appropriately called Colossus, and spanning multiple football fields a mere few miles from our house, it got up and running in record time without community consultation. According to the Southern Environmental Law Center, which has filed formal complaints with the Shelby County Health Department, Memphis’ air quality overseer, Colossus is operating 35 gas turbines, more than double the number they applied for permits, and without pollution controls, which could ostensibly reduce or capture toxic emissions. Moreover, no one knows how dangerously dirty the air is as there are no EPA or other government air monitors in the area either. The Southern Environmental Law Center confirmed through aerial thermal images that the site’s turbines are operating and that the manufacturing details indicate thousands of tons of ozone-causing nitrogen oxide are being emitted – likely making it the single largest industrial polluter of this toxic chemical in Memphis. The turbines also emit tons of formaldehyde into the air, a known carcinogen that can travel atmospherically for miles. 

Exacerbating matters, xAI’s power needs are only expected to grow to meet demand, and there’s a second xAI data center in the works just a few miles away.

Growth of AI

There is no avoiding the exponential growth of AI (three times the IT sector as a whole) and the current administration aims to meet it to ensure the US leads the sector. Even the Environmental Protection Agency, the department tasked with keeping our air safe to breathe, has listed supporting AI as one of its top priorities. 

No doubt Shelby County wants to play a role as part of Memphis’ impact on the global economy, but it shouldn’t be at the cost of entire neighborhoods or our children’s health. Protections are possible, cleaner sources of energy are available and already in use elsewhere, and actually make economic sense for these massive corporations. How do I know this? Because as a worried mom scrambling for answers, I’ve had to become a detective too. Where did I start? AI of course: “Hey Grok, Are there ways to have AI data centers and clean air for my son?”  Grok quickly replied: “Yes.”

Memphis resident Isabel Gonzalez Whitaker is Associate Vice President of Moms Clean Air Force and Director of its EcoMadres initiative.  Moms Clean Air Force is a national coalition of more than 1.5 million moms, dads and caretakers united in protecting children and children’s health from air pollution, soot, toxic chemicals, and other negative impacts of climate change.