Press

HAYNEVILLE, Ala., July 27, 2026.

Protect Lowndes County announced today that it is working alongside the Alabama Rivers Alliance in opposing Project Red Clay, a proposed 800-acre hyperscale data center on farmland along U.S. Highway 80 in Lowndes County, Alabama¹. The Southern Environmental Law Center and the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a public-records request with the Lowndes County Commission the same day, on behalf of both organizations².

The request, filed under Alabama's Open Records Act, asks the county for ten categories of documents: confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements touching the project, site-selection and economic-development records, utility and infrastructure planning, incentive and tax-abatement discussions, the governance records of the Lowndes County Economic Development Commission, property transactions tied to the project, environmental and noise studies, permit applications and permits issued, and the minutes of every meeting where the project was discussed. Alabama law requires a written response within ten working days of receipt, putting a response due on or before August 10, 2026³.

Project Red Clay is a proposed data center campus reported at roughly 800 acres and 3.01 million square feet, with an electrical request of roughly 1,500 megawatts, about ten times the threshold at which Alabama's new large-load statute requires state utility review⁴⁵. The developer, Cloverleaf Infrastructure, has not named the facility's eventual operator⁶.

Protect Lowndes County is a residents' group formed around one question: whether a thirty-year commitment involving an unnamed operator should be decided before the community has seen the underlying contracts. It does not oppose growth and is not a law firm. The Alabama Rivers Alliance is a statewide network that has spent nearly thirty years building and supporting more than a hundred community and watershed groups working for clean water across Alabama.

Press contact
Protect Lowndes County
info@protectlowndescounty.org