News and updates
What changed,
and when.
Our own dispatches and the outside reporting worth your time. Everything dated, everything sourced.
Lowndesboro's well is out. Its backup is Pintlala.
Lowndesboro says it is using its Pintlala interconnection while its well is out of service. That does not settle the question of what Pintlala can provide for Project Red Clay. It makes the question urgent: before another large obligation is considered, existing customers deserve a public accounting of the water reserved for service and emergencies.
Read the dispatch →Cloverleaf published a list of five grant recipients. One of them says it was never offered the money, and has now voted not to take it.
On August 26 the developer said $155,520 of its first $1 million had been awarded, and named the Burkville fire department for $14,234. The department said that had not happened. Two days later the Central Alabama Community Foundation put its own distributed total at $141,286. The two figures are $14,234 apart, which is the Burkville line exactly. We are not going to tell you what that means about anyone’s intent, because the record does not say. We will tell you what the record does say, which is enough.
Read the dispatch →The Lowndes Signal: Burkville volunteers suspend accepting data center funds
Lanell Downs Smith reports that the Burkville Volunteer Fire Department board met on the evening of August 27 and voted unanimously to suspend accepting any donation or grant originating from Cloverleaf until it is clear a data center is going to be built. Board vice president Charles Madaris said the Central Alabama Community Foundation had been prepared to deliver a check for $14,234 and that it was turned down ahead of the vote. The department sits directly across Lowndes County Highway 37 from the proposed project entrance. The article notes that Cloverleaf’s own statement two days earlier had listed Burkville among three fire departments receiving money, which the board says was not the case.
Read at The Lowndes Signal →Letter to the Editor: Data center nightmare disturbs home dream
A letter to the editor by Lester Pitts, who writes that he bought 105 acres directly across from the proposed site and wanted a quiet piece of land to raise his son on. He argues that roughly 250 homes around the site would be affected by the sight, sound and unknown effects of the data center, that only a handful of people would be employed by the final user, and that most of those benefiting would come from outside the county. He asks why elected officials would go against the wishes of so many people in the area. Carried as a record of what a named person published, not as evidence for the assertions inside it. The job and acreage figures in the letter are his own and are not this site’s.
Read at The Lowndes Signal →The gavel came down. The room did not back down.
At least 150 residents filled the courthouse on August 24. The chairman polled his own dais, said the county was holding nothing back, and was answered with boos from the benches. He gavelled speakers at the two-minute mark, and it took a vote of his own board to let the coalition’s lawyer finish. The developer’s evening statement finally confirmed Sandstone Cliffs DevCo is Cloverleaf’s and priced the development stage at "at least $1.5 billion," while still refusing to name the operator. Five months of asking, and the county says it has nothing to give. Monday made one thing unmistakable: this community is not going anywhere.
Read the dispatch →al.com: Small Alabama county takes step toward zoning after data center backlash
Hannah Denham’s account of Monday’s meeting is the fullest of the three. Chairman Charlie King Jr. went down the line asking each commissioner and the county attorney whether they had information to share, said "We do not have any information that we’re holding back," and was answered with shouts of "Boo! Liar!" from the benches. King enforced a two-minute limit with the gavel, cutting off several speakers and raising his voice, and the commission had to vote to let SELC attorney Ryan Anderson continue. Residents Marvenita Scott and Felicia Williams pressed the commission on transparency, noise, and an independent environmental study. Commissioner Robert Harris, who introduced the zoning resolution, says he has been trying to get the county to adopt zoning for two decades, and that the Legislature does not resume session until February.
Read at al.com →Alabama Reflector: Lowndes County residents demand transparency in hyperscale data center development
Anna Barrett’s account of Monday’s meeting: at least 150 residents, a roughly 350-signature petition read into the record by John Urquhart, commissioners saying they had no information to share, the developer’s statement naming Sandstone Cliffs DevCo as Cloverleaf’s and putting the project’s cost at "at least $1.5 billion," Commissioner Robert Harris’s unanimous resolution seeking state zoning legislation, and SELC attorney Ryan Anderson’s remarks on the records request, including the moment Chairman Charlie King Jr. gavelled her mid-statement and Vice Chair Dickson Farrior’s motion to let her finish.
Read at Alabama Reflector →WSFA 12 News: Lowndes County residents intensify fight against Project Red Clay data center
Jessica Knox reports on a tense, packed meeting, with residents Bradfield Evans and Joseph Spraggins describing well, livestock, and proximity concerns. SELC attorney Ryan Anderson says the county has acknowledged the July 27 records request but that SELC has not received any substantive documents, and that SELC plans further requests to the Pintlala Water System and the Lowndes County Economic Development Commission.
Read at WSFA 12 News →Yellowhammer News: billboards go up in opposition to Lowndes County data center
Sawyer Knowles reports on the billboard campaign this organization announced: billboards along I-85 southbound near the Chantilly exit in Montgomery, I-65 northbound near the Fairview exit, and U.S. Highway 80 entering Lowndes County, each directing motorists to ProtectLowndesCounty.org. The article recounts the project as Yellowhammer has previously reported it: more than 800 acres assembled, a planned 1,500-megawatt development spanning nearly 3 million square feet per industry trackers, and a site roughly half a mile from a field where marchers camped during the 1965 voting rights march. It notes that the eventual owner or operator has not been publicly identified, and that no formal tax abatement request had been filed as of the outlet’s previous reporting, though county officials have discussed whether the project could qualify for an abatement lasting up to 30 years.
Read at Yellowhammer News →TechCrunch: Nvidia partners with data center developer Cloverleaf
Lucas Ropek reports Nvidia is taking a minority stake in Cloverleaf Infrastructure, terms undisclosed, giving Cloverleaf access to Nvidia’s DSX data center reference architecture. The article cites the Wall Street Journal for an unofficial figure of "several hundred million dollars." Neither this article nor Cloverleaf’s own announcement mentions Alabama, Lowndes County, or Project Red Clay.
Read at TechCrunch →None of the first $125,000 addresses a single impact of this project. The rest of the promise only pays if it gets built.
On August 18 the Central Alabama Community Foundation and Project Red Clay announced the first grants anyone outside the deal can verify: $50,000 to Hope Inspired Ministries for a life coach in two county high schools, and $75,000 to OCAP for utility assistance and weatherization. Both are real work and this dispatch is not a criticism of either organization. It is about two things the published terms establish on their own. Nine of every ten promised dollars are payable only if this project advances, which means the developer wrote the promise and the project as one instrument. And not one dollar of the first round is addressed to a well, a property line, a noise reading, or anything else this campus would actually do to the people nearest it.
Read the dispatch →Inside Climate News: proposed Alabama data centers could use more electricity than every home in the state
Lee Hedgepeth’s statewide analysis, fourth in the "Wired for Profit" series, documents more than a dozen proposed data centers across Alabama and finds that at full capacity they would consume more energy than all Alabama homes combined. Project Red Clay is covered directly, described as nearly universally opposed by the county’s majority-Black residents and placed just over a mile from the Robert Gardner farm. The report also examines SB 270, which takes effect October 1, and the redactions in the one large-load contract Alabama Power has filed with the Public Service Commission.
Read at Inside Climate News →Lowndes Signal: a resident hands commissioners the permit and the option agreements
Lanell Downs Smith reports that at the Commission’s August 10 meeting, Burkville resident John Urquhart gave each commissioner a copy of the ADEM stormwater permit effective July 8 for the Red Clay Technology Campus, along with purchase option agreements covering roughly 1,050 acres. He called the entity arrangement a "shell game" that delayed permit response times until it was too late to object. The county attorney said a response to the July 27 records request would come before the thirty-day window closed. The Signal reports Cloverleaf had not responded by press time to questions about its relationship, if any, to Sandstone Cliffs DevCo LLC.
Read at The Lowndes Signal →WSFA: foundation and Project Red Clay award $125,000 to two Lowndes County nonprofits
The Central Alabama Community Foundation and Project Red Clay awarded $50,000 to Hope Inspired Ministries for a full-time life coach shared between Calhoun School and Central High School, and $75,000 to the Organized Community Action Program for utility assistance and home weatherization. The report says more local grants are planned and that an online application portal remains open to eligible Lowndes County organizations. These are the first disbursements under the described community-benefits package that the public can verify.
Read at WSFA 12 News →The reason the land is cheap
On August 2 a statewide politics program gave a segment to Project Red Clay, titled it Sacred Ground, and said it was against this site because the land here is cheap. The land here is cheap. This is the record of why it is cheap, what the company has said it does when a community says no, and what the county and the utility have answered.
Read the dispatch →Alabama Daily News: Jones calls for a one-year data center moratorium at a Hope Hull event
At Beulah Primitive Baptist Church in Hope Hull, before about 50 residents, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Doug Jones called for a one-year statewide moratorium on new data center construction and urged the Public Service Commission to pause approvals while transparency standards are written. He criticized non-disclosure agreements signed by public officials and the use of shell corporations and option contracts, and called for disclosure "from start to finish." This site is nonpartisan and takes no position in the governor’s race. We carry this for the same reason we carry Senator Tuberville’s statements on data centers: both nominees have now spoken, and a reader is entitled to both records.
Read at Alabama Daily News →Six local governments have gone on the record. Lowndes County has not.
On August 11 the Village of Wrightstown, Wisconsin voted 1,033 to 151 against putting village utilities behind a data center. The company that had been scouting land there is the company behind Project Red Clay. Wrightstown is the sixth local government in four states to deny, pause, or decline to advance a Cloverleaf project since October 2025, and of the four that recorded a vote count, not one of them split. No governing body in Lowndes County has taken any recorded action on this project at all.
Read the dispatch →Alabama Reporter: Lowndes data center fits a statewide pattern of secret deals
Columnist Josh Moon names Lowndes County alongside Bessemer, Columbiana, and Brookwood as data center deals struck with minimal public transparency, and calls for a moratorium and new legislation. He names no company for the Lowndes project. This is an opinion column, not an investigative report; the claims are Moon's, not independently verified here.
Read at Alabama Political Reporter →The docket, so far: what the state record already shows.
Docket 33709 is the state proceeding that will decide how large-load data-center contracts get reviewed. We read the filings. Project Red Clay is not one of them, and here is why that will still be true even after a contract exists.
Read the dispatch →The permit, in full. And the window to contest it closed August 7.
Our first look at the ADEM permit named the entity but could not confirm acreage, outfalls, or the expiration date. We have since verified all three. The permit authorizes clearing and mass grading on 270 acres, puts a government figure on the property’s total acreage for the first time, and the thirty-day window to contest it has already closed.
Read the dispatch →Five sites, one template. Lowndes County got the empty one.
Cloverleaf runs at least five near-identical community microsites for its data-center projects. Any reader can open all five. Lowndes County is the only one with no local tax figure and no named partner, and the developer has already conceded in writing, to a Michigan township, terms it has not offered here.
Read the dispatch →A seat on the board recruiting this project costs $2,500.
The LCEDC is obliged to make its governing documents available on request. We asked. Its charter says a $2,500 annual contribution comes with a voting seat, and that a county, a town, or an industrial development authority that does not pay gets a seat with no vote. A private company and the Lowndes County Commission qualify at the same price.
Read the dispatch →Alabama Power is not the developer. Here is what is disclosed.
A new page tracks what is publicly disclosed about Alabama Power’s relationship to this project: Foundation grants, PAC contributions, an LCEDC board seat, and how a comparable large-load contract looks once it reaches the state record. It includes a real negative finding, stated plainly.
Read the dispatch →The entity, and the permit.
Two questions we have been asking since this site launched now have partial answers. Who is actually filing paper on this project, and does any environmental permit exist yet. Both trace to the same company, and neither answers the bigger question this site keeps asking: who will actually run the facility.
Read the dispatch →In rural Alabama, voters feel sold out to massive data centers: ‘Slap in the face’
Ruth Serven Smith reports from the 54-home neighborhood next to the proposed site, with photographs by Eric Kiekeben. Residents are named and quoted: John Urquhart, Adrian Johnson, Ann Burgwin Faulkner, Perman Hardy, and Tom Gardner. A Cloverleaf spokesperson told al.com the project expects to use up to 1,500 megawatts provided by Alabama Power and up to 100,000 gallons of water per day from the Pintlala Water System, and that the company anticipates average daily water use to be significantly lower. Jim Byard said the county has received no request for tax abatements or other incentives. Tom Ellis, a business owner and volunteer member of the county Economic Development Commission, said the company has been transparent and that most of the project’s facts have fallen on deaf ears. Charles Miller said Alabama has no rules governing how much water a user may withdraw. The article gives the site as 1,050 acres, a third figure that matches neither the roughly 800-acre plan figure nor the roughly 1,700 acres reported under option; all three are carried separately and none is reconciled. Much of the piece concerns this year’s congressional race. This site does not endorse candidates.
Read at al.com →He didn’t bow.
On August 2 a statewide politics program gave a segment to Project Red Clay and titled it Sacred Ground. The panel says it is for data centers. It says this is the wrong ground. Our cut of the segment, captioned, is below.
Read the dispatch →Data centers emerge as top Alabama election issue as community concerns grow
Statewide reporting on data centers as an issue in this year’s midterms, driven by concerns over public health impacts and a lack of transparency. Both major-party nominees for governor have stated positions and they differ: Tommy Tuberville said Alabamians would not pay more for new data centers, and Doug Jones called for a one-year moratorium while guardrails are written. The article does not mention Lowndes County or Project Red Clay; the project it names is Project Marvel in Bessemer. Carried for statewide context only. This site does not endorse candidates.
Read at Alabama Reflector →State Sen. Arthur Orr: Data centers needed, ‘just need to be deliberate about it all’
State Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, said Alabama needs data centers but should be deliberate about approving them, and that residents do not want power rates rising because of them. He also said heavy data center power use could leave less capacity for other employers considering the state. Orr represents Decatur and was speaking about North Alabama. He did not mention Lowndes County or Project Red Clay. Carried because the cost-allocation question he raises is the question under review in Public Service Commission Docket 33709.
Read at Yellowhammer News →Red Clay project threatens our heritage, health, future
An opinion piece by R. Bernard Lee, president of the Lowndesboro School Alumni Association. He argues that large industrial complexes sited in rural, majority-Black communities have produced little local employment while imposing environmental burdens, and that the project threatens the county’s civil rights heritage. He writes as the grandson of a man who marched from Selma to Montgomery in March 1965. Carried as a record of what a named person published, not as evidence for the assertions inside it. It names no company and gives no water, power, or abatement figure.
Read at The Lowndes Signal →Residents press Commission to reject data center
Logan Self’s account of the July 27 Commission meeting, and the Signal’s second and fuller story on that night. Residents spoke against the project during public comment and one asked the county to require the project’s maximum water demand in writing, reviewed by county counsel. No commissioner voted on the project, answered substantively, or committed to anything. The Commission then entered executive session and returned only to adjourn, without discussing the project in public.
Read at The Lowndes Signal →Read her column. Then read what is still not public.
U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell published a guest column opposing the proposed data center in Lowndes County. She asks that residents get independent analysis of the project’s water demands before it moves forward. That analysis does not exist in public, and neither do the documents anyone would need to write it.
Read the dispatch →Why I oppose the proposed data center in Lowndes County: op-ed from U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell
A guest column from the U.S. Representative for Alabama’s 7th Congressional District, published the day after her July 30 town hall. She writes that she supports innovation and wants the Black Belt to benefit from it, names water as her most immediate concern, and asks for independent analysis of the project’s water demands, groundwater impact, and effect on existing infrastructure before it moves forward.
Read at al.com →Public can read Alabama Power’s data center contract, just not parts that could affect bill
Jennifer Horton reports on an Alabama Power electric-service contract submitted to the Public Service Commission for a data center in Jefferson County, a different project from this one. The public version withholds the contract’s term, the customer’s capacity, the pricing, the financial security, the load-buildup period, the energy thresholds, and the minimum bill. Alabama Power states the deal recovers all incremental costs and shifts nothing onto other customers. Those are the exact figures a ratepayer would need to test that.
Read at WSFA 12 →We agree with the first three paragraphs.
A letter in the July 28 Lowndes Signal made the case for Project Red Clay. Its opening is accurate and we will not argue with it. The jobs paragraph is where the letter and the record part company.
Read the dispatch →Citizens unite for Protect Lowndes County
Independent coverage of the July 27 Commission meeting confirms the public-records request and the Alabama Rivers Alliance partnership. A north Lowndes County resident told commissioners the opposition has never been more unified.
Read at The Lowndes Signal →Tuberville defends data centers, downplays local concerns
A Lowndes Signal editorial points to Senator Tommy Tuberville, a candidate for governor, calling concerns that data centers harm the climate "bull crap" at a July 14 conference, and says he did not address Lowndes County’s situation directly.
Read at The Lowndes Signal →We asked for the paper. Here is the letter.
At tonight’s Commission meeting, Protect Lowndes County announced it is working alongside the Alabama Rivers Alliance. The Southern Environmental Law Center and the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a public-records request on both organizations’ behalf the same day, with a legal deadline attached.
Read the dispatch →Candidates in Alabama’s governor’s race discuss data centers in the state
Data centers, including Project Red Clay by name, became a topic in statewide campaign coverage, with candidates offering differing views on how the state should treat large-load projects.
Read at WSFA 12 →Mystery data center could receive 30-year tax break beside sacred Selma march ground
As of publication, no tax-abatement request had been filed and no operator named, while the project continued. Chairman Charlie King Jr. is quoted saying the power bill will not go up, and a Lowndesboro resident with 30 years of data-center experience warned commissioners of continuous fan noise known as acoustic roar.
Read at Yellowhammer News →Dr. Charles Steele Jr. op-ed: Build it. Just not there.
An opinion piece by the former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who chaired the Alabama Senate committee that recruited industry. He argues for the jobs and against the site, asking that the project be built somewhere other than the Selma to Montgomery route. It puts the distance from Campsite 3 at half a mile, which differed from the figure this site used at the time and matches the one it uses now.
Read at Yellowhammer News →PSC candidate calls for protections when reviewing data center contracts
Sheila McNeil, a candidate for Public Service Commission Place 2, filed formal comments in Docket 33709 arguing large-load customers should fund their own grid infrastructure and calling for public hearings in affected communities.
Read at Alabama Political Reporter →What the record shows, and what it still does not
A plain accounting of what is established about Project Red Clay, what is contested, and what remains undisclosed as of mid-July.
Read the dispatch →Alabama PSC opens review of data center power contracts, sets August comment deadlines
Public comments in Docket 33709 were due August 6 and replies are due August 21. The proceeding reviews cost recovery only; reporting confirms it does not cover siting or environmental review for any specific project.
Read at mynbc15 →The state opened a docket. Your letter belongs in it.
On July 8 the Alabama Public Service Commission opened a generic proceeding reviewing Alabama Power’s large-load data-center contracts. It is open for public comment.
Read the dispatch →The company already wrote down its own standard
An email released under Michigan’s open-records law states when Cloverleaf will not proceed. Lowndes County is entitled to the same standard.
Read the dispatch →Rural Alabama Community Opposes Hyperscale Data Center
The first major national reporting on Project Red Clay, including the company plan describing roughly 3.01 million square feet and the company’s statement that final power and water demand had not been determined.
Read at Inside Climate News →Commission hears more data center opposition
A resident told the Commission that Cloverleaf representatives gave conflicting answers on the identity of the eventual long-term tenant.
Read at The Lowndes Signal →Cloverleaf, residents meet at open house
CEO David Berry, Chief Development Officer Aaron Bilyeu, and Development Principal Michael Evans attended the June 3 open house at Hayneville Middle School, while a peaceful protest was held outside a law-enforcement perimeter.
Read at The Lowndes Signal →Cloverleaf responds to Lowndes County data center concerns after weeks of resident pushback
The company’s first on-record response: a closed-loop cooling claim of up to 100,000 gallons per day as a one-time fill, and a facility said to typically run under 60 decibels at the property line.
Read at WSFA 12 →Cloverleaf emphasizes data center benefits amid community concerns
Chief Development Officer Aaron Bilyeu described the facility as quiet and low-traffic and put the permanent job count at roughly 50, most requiring only trade-school training.
Read at The Lowndes Signal →Commission resists transparency amid growing data center opposition
Residents asked LCEDC Chairman Thomas Ellis, who also sits on the Pintlala Water Authority board, and Commission Chairman Charlie King Jr., who is the LCEDC’s vice chairman, to recuse from votes on the project. The county economic development commission has no written conflict-of-interest policy.
Read at The Lowndes Signal →Cloverleaf to hold community open house for Lowndes County data center project
Advance notice of the June 3 come-and-go open house at Hayneville Middle School, with staff at informational tables on water, energy, noise, lighting, and economic impact.
Read at The Lowndes Signal →More than 1,000 sign petition opposing proposed Lowndes County data center as debate intensifies
A petition opposing the project surpassed 1,000 signatures, more than 10 percent of the county’s population, tying the opposition explicitly to the Selma-to-Montgomery Trail’s proximity.
Read at WSFA 12 →Stakeholders consider potential data center project
Coverage of the May 26 Commission meeting, including the $1.5 billion investment claim and the $75 million projected annual tax revenue figure.
Read at The Lowndes Signal →Lowndes County debates data center project
Detailed account of the April 28 Commission meeting. Probate Judge Adrian Johnson estimated 251 homes, roughly 750 people, fall within a two-mile radius of the site.
Read at The Lowndes Signal →Residents pack Lowndes County meeting over proposed data center
Residents filled the Charles Smith Building to standing room only as the project became publicly contested.
Read at WSFA 12 →An 800-acre data center is being quietly pushed in Lowndes County
The opening coverage: neighbors of the proposed site learned about it through reporting rather than through notice.
Read at Yellowhammer News →Cloverleaf backs out of data center project in Greenleaf, Wisconsin
The original report behind the Greenleaf withdrawal: offers of $50,000 to $120,000 per acre, and the village telling Cloverleaf the project was off the table.
Read at DataCenterDynamics →Cloverleaf drops initial plans for Michigan data center; council votes to block water supply
The original report behind the Dundee withdrawal: a 750-acre site, a unanimous council vote to deny water, and Cloverleaf’s own statement that it should have done more to communicate and listen.
Read at DataCenterDynamics →Vantage explores data center development on Cloverleaf site in Port Washington, Wisconsin
The original report on the Port Washington flip: Cloverleaf’s assembled site changing hands to Vantage Data Centers. Names Cloverleaf co-founder Brian Janous, a former Microsoft energy executive.
Read at DataCenterDynamics →
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