Who we are
Neighbors who want
to read the contract.
We are residents, landowners, and families along the Highway 80 corridor in Lowndes County, Alabama.
What we are
Protect Lowndes County is a residents' group formed around one question: whether a thirty-year commitment involving roughly 800 acres, a reported 1,500-megawatt power request, and an unnamed operator should be decided before the community has seen the documents.
We are not against growth, and saying so is not a hedge. This county needs investment, jobs, and a tax base. What we oppose is a decision made faster than disclosure.
What we are asking for
Name the operator. Publish the executed water-service contract and the electric-service agreement. State the dollar value of the abatement. Make the community benefit enforceable and say who can enforce it. Hold the vote after all of that, not before.
A project that is good for Lowndes County survives being looked at. That is the whole argument.
Where we come from
Organized opposition to this project in Lowndes County began in spring 2026, when neighbors of the proposed site learned about it through reporting rather than through notice. Public meetings followed, then county meetings that filled to standing room, then national coverage.
Protect Lowndes County carries forward the sourced record built during that period. It remains a separate organization from Four Five Strong LLC, and nothing on this site should be read as speaking for that entity.
On July 27, 2026, at the Commission's regular meeting, Protect Lowndes County announced that it is working alongside the Alabama Rivers Alliance. The Southern Environmental Law Center and the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a public-records request with the Commission that same day, on behalf of both organizations, seeking the confidentiality agreements, site-selection records, utility and incentive filings, and meeting minutes described on our public record page. Outside of that filing, Protect Lowndes County has not authorized any organization to speak on its behalf.
How we work
Six rules we hold ourselves to.
Sources, or it does not go up
Every figure on this site names where it came from and when it was last checked. If a claim has no source, it does not publish. That is enforced by the build, not by good intentions.
We publish what cuts against us
A study finding that homes near data centers in Northern Virginia sold for more is on our site, because leaving it off would make everything else less believable.
Structures and decisions, not people
We write about how a decision was made, who had the authority, and what was disclosed. We do not run dossiers on private individuals or trade in allegations we cannot document.
Disputed figures stay side by side
When the record contains four different job numbers, we show four, with their dates and speakers. We do not average them and we do not pick the convenient one.
Unknowns are labeled, never filled in
Where the project has not disclosed something, the page says so in a marked gap rather than substituting an estimate that would look more complete.
Corrections in public
If we get something wrong and you tell us, we fix it and note what changed. A record that cannot be corrected is not a record.
Our status, plainly.
Protect Lowndes County is a residents’ group. It is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. On July 27, 2026 the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a public-records request with the Lowndes County Commission on behalf of the Alabama Rivers Alliance and Protect Lowndes County; that filing is on our public record page. Outside of it, Protect Lowndes County has not authorized any organization to speak on its behalf, and no tax-exempt status is claimed.
Some organizational details below are still being finalized and are shown as pending rather than filled in with something that sounds official. We would rather show you a blank than a placeholder you might mistake for a fact.
- Organization
- Protect Lowndes County
- Tagline
- Citizens for Responsible Economic Development
- Legal name
- Protect Lowndes County [LEGAL ENTITY NOT YET FORMED]
- Entity type
- [ENTITY TYPE TBD]
- County
- Lowndes County, Alabama
- info@protectlowndescounty.org
Photo credits
Every photograph on this site is a real photograph of a real place. Nothing is AI-generated. Credit and license for every openly licensed photograph are listed below. We do not publish photographs of identifiable residents at public meetings without a consent or attribution record.
- The Lowndes County Courthouse, Hayneville. Where the Commission meets.Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA
- Lowndesboro C.M.E. Church, built 1833.Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA
- Lowndesboro First Missionary Baptist Church, built 1880.Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA
- The Viola Liuzzo memorial on U.S. Highway 80, where she was murdered in 1965 driving marchers home from Montgomery.Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA
- Holly House, 1836, Lowndesboro Historic District.Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA
- The Will Stone Store, 1820, Lowndesboro Historic District.Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA
- Hayneville, the county seat.Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA
- Black Belt timber and farmland just east of the proposed parcel.U.S. Geological Survey, National Map · Public domain
- Longleaf pine, the ecosystem this part of Alabama sits in.USDA NRCS via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
- Six-mile context aerial centered on the proposed site near Burkville. Imagery is USGS and may be one to three years old.U.S. Geological Survey, National Map · Public domain
- The same six-mile field of view as a USGS topographic map.U.S. Geological Survey, National Map · Public domain
- The proposed parcel near the junction of U.S. 80 and AL-21, about a mile and a half across. USGS imagery, not a site plan.U.S. Geological Survey, National Map · Public domain
- High-voltage transmission infrastructure. Illustrative, not the proposed route.Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
- An industrial diesel backup generator at a data center. Illustrative: the number, fuel, and permitted hours proposed here have not been disclosed.Wikimedia Commons · CC0 public domain
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