Residents file lawsuit challenging noise pollution from Elon Musk's data center

The loud noise from massive gas turbines never stops at Elon Musk's data center near Memphis. Residents are suing.

Transcript

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

It is noisy for people living south of Memphis, Tennessee, along the Mississippi border. They live near Elon Musk's xAI data center campus. That data center runs Grok. That's the AI chatbot for Musk's social media platform X. From member station WPLN, Caroline Eggers explains.

CAROLINE EGGERS, BYLINE: The sprawling xAI campus looks like a small boomtown. Buses transport workers in and out all day amid clouds of construction dust. There are fences, security personnel and signs that warn against drones. One fence shields what's juicing this operation. About 60 gas turbines - at least from view.

(SOUNDBITE OF GAS TURBINES RUMBLING)

EGGERS: Their sound is not so easily hidden. They rumble like airplanes because some of them are designs adapted from jet engines. And they never turn off.

JASON HALEY: 24/7, and we're over a year of this now.

EGGERS: That's Jason Haley, who can see the plant from his yard. He says he's lost sleep. He doesn't enjoy gardening anymore. He feels stressed.

HALEY: I feel like I've had ringing in my ears. I don't know if that's, like, my body trying to fight off this noise or if I've developed tinnitus now.

EGGERS: He's joined a lawsuit challenging the noise pollution. XAI did not respond to requests for comment, but in July the company promised that it would replace these turbines in one year with quieter permanent ones. And a few weeks ago, Elon Musk announced that the campus could be expanding to 10 times its current capacity, fed mostly by, quote, "the power plant." He did not give details on that power plant. So Haley isn't optimistic.

HALEY: You know, I was told, I think in November, that the noise will be better next week. And here we are. It's not gotten any better.

EGGERS: Protecting people from noise starts with how we measure it.

JAMIE BANKS: Noise has a lot of different characteristics.

EGGERS: That's Jamie Banks, president of the health advocacy group Quiet Communities. She says noise is usually only measured in one decibel system called dBA. So let's compare two noises that can emit the same decibel level - a pedal harp crescendoing in Tchaikovsky's "Waltz Of The Flowers"...

(SOUNDBITE OF HARP PLAYING)

EGGERS: ...And a gas-powered leaf blower.

(SOUNDBITE OF LEAF BLOWER ROARING)

EGGERS: DBA doesn't tell the full story. It's designed to show how noise can damage hearing. Think of being inside a noisy club. Step outside and you'll only hear and maybe feel the thumping subs. That's low-frequency noise, and dBA doesn't really capture it. Banks says that's a critical gap for industries like data centers. Their low-frequency noise travels far and penetrates barriers.

BANKS: It cannot be shut out by closing doors and windows, and so when people hear it in their home, they're not able to get away from it. It's inescapable.

EGGERS: This noise from data centers is still being studied, but Mathias Basner says we already know how other noises can cause a stress response and impact heart and brain health over time. He researches traffic noise pollution at the University of Pennsylvania. He says a lot of harm happens at night while people sleep.

MATHIAS BASNER: Our whole sensory array is still monitoring the environment, and the most important long-term sensor is our hearing.

EGGERS: Basner says the stakes are high. Given the rapid growth of data, that could bring more gas-powered turbines with never-ending noise to communities across the country. For NPR News, I'm Caroline Eggers in Memphis.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOONSTARR'S "DETRIOT (MIXED)")

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