Take action
Each one makes the next one stronger. None of them requires you to be an expert, and none of them takes an afternoon.
The fastest of the five, and new as of August 2026. Our petition puts four demands to the Lowndes County Commission, all of them about transparency: comply with the July 27 records request, name every entity and tenant, disclose the water and energy data, and put every document on a county-run dashboard. It is not the Change.org petition that circulated in the spring, so even if you signed that one, this one needs your name too.12
Read and sign the new petitionMembership is a public count of neighbors who want the whole truth before any vote. It costs nothing, commits you to nothing but staying informed, and it grows the count the other actions stand on.
Become a MemberCommission meetings are where the county’s part of this project is decided in public, and where commissioners answer questions on the record. Rooms that are full change what happens in them: residents filled the Charles Smith Building to standing room only in April 2026, and the project has been publicly contested ever since.3
See meeting datesOn July 8, 2026 the Alabama PSC opened Docket 33709 to decide how Alabama Power’s large-load data-center contracts get reviewed. Both public windows have now closed, on August 6 and August 21, and what went in is public and worth reading: Alabama Power asked that contracts stay redacted to everyone but Commission staff and the Attorney General, and the Attorney General argued the Commission must vote on each contract rather than let staff deem it approved. Eight replies landed in the final round, from the Southern Environmental Law Center, Alabama Power, Energy Alabama, the Alabama Industrial Energy Consumers, Manifest Energy, a state senator and two residents. The docket is still open and the Commission has not ruled. Two things follow. Alabama Power’s own consent says a contract filed before October 1, 2026 is judged under the current rules whatever the Commission decides. And this project’s own contract, if it is ever filed, will not appear in Docket 33709 at all: individual contracts get their own "D-" numbered dockets, and nobody finds those unless they know to look.45678910
Read what was filed in Docket 33709A document, a name, a date, a thing you saw or heard. Every contact field is optional, and we verify before we publish anything.
Submit a tipAction four, in detail
Docket 33709 is a generic proceeding the Alabama Public Service Commission opened on July 8, 2026 to review Alabama Power's large-load data-center contracts4. Both public windows have closed, the first on August 6 and the reply window on August 21, 20265. Eight replies were filed in that final round6. The docket is still open and the Commission has not ruled.
That means a letter written today is not a reply comment and the Commission is under no obligation to consider it. The next real opening is a different docket. Individual large-load contracts are not filed inside Docket 33709; each gets its own "D-" numbered docket9. If this project's electric-service contract is ever filed, that is where it appears, and that is when a Lowndes County resident's letter carries the most weight. The Commission's docket page below is where to check.
Keep this. You do not need legal training, and a useful letter says four things:
What we are asking for
The operator determines the real load, the real water draw, the noise, the job count, and the tax posture. A vote without a named operator is a vote on an unknown.1112
Peak and makeup demand, blowdown, fire flow, and wastewater volume and disposal are all absent from the public record. Elsewhere the executed contract and the public figure have differed by a wide margin.1314
Residents have been assured that current ratepayers will not be affected. The document that would demonstrate it has not been released, and the Public Service Commission has opened a docket to examine exactly this question. When an Alabama Power large-load contract for another county did reach the state record in July 2026, the public version came with the term, the capacity, the price, and the minimum bill removed. Those are the figures that decide whether an assurance is true.1541617
The county is being asked to decide on a thirty-year commitment whose value to the applicant, and cost to the county, has never been put in public numbers.1819
Nine of the ten million dollars is contingent on milestones. If the project is assigned or sold, it is not established that the promise survives or that the county could enforce it.2021
Not a ban. Disclosure, before the vote instead of after it. A good project survives all five.
If you have more time
Alabama’s Open Records Act lets any citizen request public records. The documents that would answer the biggest questions are the executed water-service contract, the electric-service agreement, the site plan on file, any option or deed instrument, and any executed community-benefit gift agreement. Asking creates a record of having asked.
What to request →You do not need to be an engineer to ask a good question. Who is the tenant. What is the peak water draw, not the average. How many generators, burning what, for how many permitted hours. What is the abatement worth in dollars. Who can enforce the community benefit if the project is sold.111318
Read the open questions →The most useful thing you can share is a sourced fact, not a rumor. Every number on this site carries its source so you can hand someone the citation, not just the claim. If we get something wrong, tell us and we will correct it in public.
Send a correction →Records Request for Documents related to Project Red Clay Data Center, Southern Environmental Law Center and Natural Resources Defense Council (2026-07-27). Letter addressed to the County Administrator’s office, naming Kimberly McGrew-West as custodian — view source
Accessed 2026-07-28Prevent big DATA CENTERS from building in Lowndes County and Hope Hull, Change.org (2026-04-09). Signature counter on the petition page — view source
ReportedAccessed 2026-08-10Residents pack Lowndes County meeting over proposed data center, WSFA 12 (2026-04-29). Meeting coverage — view source
Accessed 2026-07-27Docket 33709 public comment and reply information, Alabama Public Service Commission (2026-07-08). Generic proceeding — view source
Accessed 2026-07-12Docket 33709 public comment and reply information, Alabama Public Service Commission (2026-07-08). Comment and reply deadlines — view source
Accessed 2026-08-31Docket 33709 docket details and document list, Alabama Public Service Commission, public access (2026-08-21). Documents tab; filer names and filing dates as listed — view source
Accessed 2026-08-31Alabama Power initial comments and consent, Docket 33709, Alabama Public Service Commission, public access filings (2026-08-06). Initial comments; consent filed 2026-07-13 — view source
Accessed 2026-08-07Attorney General initial comments, Docket 33709, Alabama Public Service Commission, public access filing (2026-08-06). Initial comments — view source
Accessed 2026-08-07SELC’s Initial Comments on Large-Load Contracts, Docket No. 33709, Alabama Public Service Commission, filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center (2026-08-06). Page 4, footnote 11 — view source
Accessed 2026-08-11Public can read Alabama Power’s data center contract, just not parts that could affect bill, WBRC (2026-07-30). Reporting by Jennifer Horton, quoting Alabama Power’s consent filing — view source
ReportedAccessed 2026-08-10Records Request for Documents related to Project Red Clay Data Center, Southern Environmental Law Center and Natural Resources Defense Council (2026-07-27). Request scope: confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements — view source
Not disclosed by the projectAccessed 2026-07-12Project Red Clay / company description, Cloverleaf Infrastructure (2026-07-10). Developer website, corroborated by Yellowhammer News — view source
ReportedAccessed 2026-07-27Records Request for Documents related to Project Red Clay Data Center, Southern Environmental Law Center and Natural Resources Defense Council (2026-07-27). Request scope: environmental and noise studies — view source
Not disclosed by the projectAccessed 2026-07-12Water-service contract obtained by open-records request, Montgomery-area water system (2026-05-01). Open-records production
ReportedAccessed 2026-07-27Stakeholders consider potential data center project, The Lowndes Signal (2026-05-26). Utility statement — view source
ReportedAccessed 2026-07-27Public can read Alabama Power’s data center contract, just not parts that could affect bill, WSFA 12 (2026-07-30). Reporting by Jennifer Horton, listing the redactions — view source
ReportedAccessed 2026-08-04Public can read Alabama Power’s data center contract, just not parts that could affect bill, WSFA 12 (2026-07-30). Reporting by Jennifer Horton, quoting the utility’s filing — view source
ReportedAccessed 2026-08-04Records Request for Documents related to Project Red Clay Data Center, Southern Environmental Law Center and Natural Resources Defense Council (2026-07-27). Request scope: incentive and tax-abatement discussions — view source
Not disclosed by the projectAccessed 2026-07-12Stakeholders consider potential data center project, The Lowndes Signal (2026-05-26). Commission meeting — view source
ReportedAccessed 2026-07-12Cloverleaf emphasizes data center benefits amid community concerns, The Lowndes Signal (2026-06-01). Developer statements — view source
ReportedAccessed 2026-07-12Central Alabama Community Foundation, IRS Form 990 (EIN 63-0842355), ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer (2026-01-01). Nonprofit Explorer — view source
Accessed 2026-07-27Last updated
Signed the petition already? This is the next step, and the one the rest of the ladder stands on. A bigger public count means a fuller room on September 28 and a louder docket.
Become a Member