The Battle to Stop the AI Industry’s Illegal Pollution

When Rev. Robert Tipton Jr. learned last fall that an illegal power plant was polluting communities in Mississippi, he decided to fight back.

He took on a powerful opponent: xAI, the artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk. The power plant runs one of the company’s massive data centers, and its methane gas turbines are operating 24 hours a day without federal air permits.

As the plant burns gas, it fills the air around Southaven, Mississippi, with toxic chemicals like formaldehyde, which is linked to cancer, and nitrogen oxides (NOx), which are linked to lung ailments.

Tipton has good reason to worry about lung-damaging air pollutants. He has battled sarcoidosis, which inflames the lungs and other organs, for some 30 years. He avoids smokers and fumes to manage his illness.

More air pollution from xAI could exacerbate Tipton’s condition. He also worries about those living closest to the toxic pollution in Southaven and nearby communities. Southaven sits across the state line from Memphis. Homes are within a mile of the turbines, and six schools are within two miles.

As Tipton became aware of the power plant’s health hazards, he decided to organize his community. He is branch president of the DeSoto County NAACP, which fights for environmental justice along with civil rights. In February, the national NAACP and the Mississippi State Conference NAACP filed a lawsuit against xAI, represented by Earthjustice and the Southern Environmental Law Center.

The lawsuit asks the court to declare that xAI violated the Clean Air Act, order the company to install the best available pollution control technology, and fine it for every day it has violated federal law. In addition, Earthjustice, SELC and the NAACP have asked the court to require xAI to stop operating all unpermitted turbines.

“I want to see that there are strict guidelines put in place,” Tipton says. “And I want to see that those guidelines are followed to the T. I want the truth out.”

In June, Trump’s Justice Department intervened to dismiss the lawsuit, seeking to protect xAI  from any accountability for their illegal pollution.

This case is one of more than 70 legal matters involving data centers that Earthjustice has taken on around the U.S. Across the country, towns like Southaven are facing the prospect of new data centers and power plants in their backyards to power the artificial intelligence boom and this buildout threatens their wellbeing.

An aerial view of the site where methane gas-powered turbines operate, with more being built, in Southaven, Mississippi, to power a large xAI data center just to the north in Memphis, Tennessee. (Brad Zweerink / Earthjustice)

Health Impacts, Secrecy, and Higher Costs

The projected energy demands of AI across the country are mindboggling. By 2028, it is expected that it could consume as much electricity annually as 22% of all U.S. households.

OpenAI, one of the largest AI companies, wants 250 gigawatts of computing power by 2033 – about a third of the current peak power demand for the entire nation.

To understand why this is an environmental issue, you need to know a bit about what happens inside an AI data center. AI models work by processing massive amounts of data. The computer servers and cooling technology that perform these operations in turn consume a massive amount of energy.

Most often, AI companies power the data centers that hold these servers with gas-fired turbines. The turbines spew out pollutants such as carbon and methane, contaminating the local air while also hastening climate change. Driven by data center growth, the U.S. now leads the world in the amount of new methane gas power plant capacity under development.

If you’ve ever picked up a laptop after using it for a couple of hours, you know busy computers can generate an enormous amount of heat – meaning that data centers also need a mechanism to cool down. The cooling systems consume additional energy as well as extreme quantities of water – as much as 5 million gallons a day for a large data center.

In many cases, data centers also drive up communities’ electricity bills when utilities build power plants or other infrastructure just for them. (xAI chose a different –even more problematic – path by building its own power plant illegally.)

The utilities want the data centers as customers. Data centers buy a lot of electricity. Utilities profit by building more power plants – usually fueled by methane gas – and often charge the data center a discounted rate. One way residential customers end up paying is when the utilities raise household utility bills to support the added capacity.

At Earthjustice, we believe that American households shouldn’t suffer for the tech industry’s AI buildout. That’s why our attorneys are stepping in to protect communities and fight data centers that increase pollution and electricity costs.

Thermal drone footage shows unpermitted turbines operating at xAI’s gas plant in Southaven, Miss., nearly two weeks after the EPA ruled such turbines require permits before they can run. (Evan Simon / Floodlight)

Mississippi Communities Battle a Tech Giant

The American Lung Association gave DeSoto County an F grade in 2026 for air quality because of its high number of ozone days. The county also received a failing grade for the high amount of particle pollution.

For residents living near xAI’s turbines, the additional air pollution is compounded by poor quality health care. Among the 50 states, Mississippi ranks last for health care access and heath care quality.

Abre’ Conner, the NAACP’s Director of Environmental and Climate Justice, says the national civil rights organization was so alarmed at the seriousness of the pollution problem xAI poses that a lawsuit was necessary.

“This is happening right near where people live,” she says about the gas turbines. “They’re noisy. The air shed is contaminated. There’s so much concentrated pollution that communities are having to breathe in on an everyday basis.”

The NAACP also found the lack of transparency about the illegal power plant deeply troubling.

“We didn’t want this to be a model for what data center buildouts were going to look like,” says Conner. “We felt there was such an egregious overreaching of the law.”

The unpermitted xAI turbines spew toxic nitrogen oxides, linked to asthma and other breathing illnesses, and formaldehyde, linked to cancer. (Brad Zweerink / Earthjustice)

Earthjustice attorney Mary Rock, a lead attorney on the case, worries about protecting Southaven residents and the threat posed by the data center buildout nationwide.

President Trump has encouraged data centers to develop their own power plants if they can’t meet their energy needs by connecting to the grid, says Rock. But violating the law and polluting communities should not be the response.

“This can’t be what bringing your own power looks like,” says Rock, adding: “The health of the communities around a new power plant needs to be considered and our laws need to be followed.”

xAI is operating the turbines without pollution controls necessary to protect public health, Rock says.

“If they followed the Clean Air Act, they would have had to do demonstrations to show they wouldn’t be causing a health problem in the area,” she says.  “By law, xAI would have to employ the most effective technology at preventing harmful emissions.”

Using the best available pollution control technology would reduce NOx emissions by about 90%.

Rock is concerned that other AI companies may look to the outcome of the xAI case to gauge whether they must respect environmental laws. “I imagine the other companies are watching to see what xAI can get away with and whether they want to try and get away with something,” she says.

Rock thinks communities around the country must stay vigilant. “The pace at which we are adding new gas plants in the U.S. right now is alarming,” she says.

• Want to learn more about the impact of AI data centers? Read our explainer.