Jun
11
Town Hall Held
Residents packed the June 11 town hall and pushed back. The decision now sits with the Prichard City Council, with no set date.
11
Town Hall Held
Residents packed the June 11 town hall and pushed back. The decision now sits with the Prichard City Council, with no set date.
Edged wants to build a $93 million data center on Telegraph Road, right next to historic Africatown. The company has a website making its case. This site lays out the full picture alongside it, with every claim checked against a named source, so Prichard can weigh the facts and decide for itself.
Edged is running a well-funded campaign to win Prichard over. Some of what the company says holds up, and where it does, this site says so plainly. Where it does not, you will see why, with sources you can check yourself. Here are their headline claims, one by one.
These are not fringe worries. They come from local reporting, public records, and the community’s own environmental experts.
What is on the table: a roughly $93 million, 8-megawatt data center on about 9 acres at 214 Telegraph Road, on the Prichard side of Africatown. About 18 months to build, and it could break ground as soon as late 2026.
“Waterless cooling”
Mostly true on-site, and MEJAC confirmed it first-hand. The catch: this kind of cooling uses more electricity than the water-based kind, and that extra power still burns fuel and uses water back at the plant. The “23 million gallons saved” is also measured against a different kind of data center nobody is building here.
“Networking, not AI”
A label, not a difference that matters here. An 8-megawatt load pulls 8 megawatts, throws off the same heat, and needs the same diesel backup whether you call it “networking” or “AI.” The label does not change what the building does next door.
“Quiet, like a conversation”
The daytime hum may be modest. The real problem is what sits behind it: 15 to 25 backup diesel generators that have to be test-run every month, in an airshed already ringed by polluters.
“~20 jobs over $70,000”
A real promise, but nothing is signed. And 20 is not a random number: it is the minimum a data center needs to qualify for Alabama’s tax abatement (Act 2012-210), which also reduces the local taxes the project would otherwise pay to Prichard.
What the pitch leaves out
It is worth asking what happens when the grid goes down. On the Gulf Coast, a hurricane can knock out power for days, and that is when the backup diesel generators run hardest and longest, close to homes. The company’s pitch does not get into that.
After a packed June 11 town hall, Mayor Carletta Davis said “the community has spoken very loudly,” and handed the decision to the City Council. There is no set date for a vote.
Those five council members work for the people of Prichard and Africatown. They answer to residents, not to a company. One of them (District 1) is already opposed, State Senator Vivian Figures has said she would not want this in her own backyard, and four council members still have not said where they stand. Because the site is former city land, the Council likely controls the land deal itself, not just the zoning.
This is Prichard’s call to make. Whoever you are and however you feel about the project, the people who live here are the ones who should decide it, and your council member needs to hear from you before any vote.
Strip away the slogans and a few real questions remain, the ones that hold up under a fact-check.
Nobody disputes that data centers get built somewhere. The fight is over where, how, and on whose terms.
Edged wants Prichard to take its word on all three. But none of it is in writing: not the jobs, not the emissions limits, not the “community benefit.” Right now there is nothing signed for anyone to hold them to.
Two things are worth keeping in view. The emissions and the airshed would stay in Prichard, while the servers serve Edged’s clients elsewhere. And a yes is hard to undo: once it is built it is built, for the length of the tax break and beyond, possibly under a different owner than the one making promises today.
These are the concerns that hold up:
Backup diesel generators
An 8 MW site could need 15 to 25 diesel generators plus on-site fuel storage, test-run every month. They put out NOx and fine particulate matter, likely enough to require a Clean Air Act permit. It is the one harm even MEJAC says is real.
An already-overloaded airshed
Africatown is already ringed by asphalt, chemical, cement and pipe plants, the Hog Bayou methane plant, highways and rail. The real question is not whether one more source is bad on its own. It is what a constant new source of exhaust adds to air that is already overloaded.
Jobs no one has signed
The ~20 jobs over $70,000 are a real promise with no signed commitment behind them. Where is it in writing, what share goes to Prichard residents, and what’s the claw-back if Edged doesn’t deliver?
A “benefit” that doesn’t exist yet
Edged says it is “open to a community benefit agreement.” But “open to” is not a commitment, and nothing has been drafted or signed. Good faith is measured by what a company will put in writing.
Edged is putting real resources into making its case, and that is the company’s right. Residents deserve the other half of the picture laid out just as clearly, so the choice rests with the people who live here.
However you feel about the project, the people who live here are the ones who should decide it, informed by facts and not by a company’s marketing or by rumors. If you want this data center, say so. If you do not, say that. Either way, say it before the Council votes.
If you oppose the data center, sign the petition. Whatever your view, contact your council member and show up when the Council meets.