Community members asked city leaders to apply pressure on SpaceX by demanding a written agreement to resume building their wastewater treatment facility. These demands come after Memphis Mayor Paul Young took to social media to announce that SpaceXAI president Michael Nicolls said they were “committed to resuming construction” on the facility “no later than Q1 2027.” Young called this “an important step forward for Memphis, our aquifer, and the long-term sustainability of our city.”
This announcement was a response to an “indefinite pause” on xAI’s wastewater reuse facility. In April, xAIMemphis posted the following on X:
“xAI is committed to building a state-of-the-art water recycling plant in Memphis. This plant will protect billions of water each year. The team is currently prioritizing other more immediate projects at the site but our plans to build the water plant have not changed.”
During a Memphis City Council committee meeting on Tuesday, Memphis Light, Gas, and Water CEO Doug McGowan said they learned about the pause in construction at the same time as the public. McGowan said he and Young then reached out to SpaceX leadership to discuss the future of the project, asking for a commitment to restart construction, to which SpaceX officials verbally affirmed their commitment.
“The reason it’s not restarted today and why it takes till 2027 is because they have to get an entirely new engineering team on the ground,” McGowan said. “The engineers here are no longer here.” SpaceX’s CEO has promised to provide a “written timeline in the weeks to come.”
These comments came shortly after Young made the announcement on Tuesday. While McGowan and Young said they heard from the company, community members and advocates pressed leadership for a more substantial confirmation. “This needs to be done writing,” a Facebook user named Alanna Spears Cameron said. “This company has proven time and time again they do not keep their word. SpaceX destroyed every single community they have invaded. Are you really gonna allow Memphis to be next?”
Sarah Houston, executive director of Protect our Aquifer (POA), asked the Memphis City Council to leverage their power to hold the mayor accountable for a concrete confirmation from the company. Houston pointed out that Anthropic is currently using the Memphis aquifer, and Google will soon use it.
She also referenced a letter sent to Young and Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris asking for a public meeting on xAI’s water impacts. According to Houston, the Mayor declined saying “the City will not be hosting a public meeting on this matter.”
Houston said she didn’t expect the mayors to “have all the answers” but asked the City Council to use their power to hold leadership and the company accountable. “We need some contractually, legally binding information so the community knows what is and what isn’t occurring,” Houston said. “We need SpaceX at a public hearing to provide a timeline on the facility.”
Councilman Jeff Warren asked if the city could make the company build the facility. Tannera Gibson, chief legal officer for the city of Memphis, said they could not but have “protections in place” if it is not built.
“We can claw the land back, and we’ll negotiate what happens with any improvements,” Gibson said. “However the implications of clawing the land back with improvements is something that has to be discussed at a higher level. It’s quite easy to say what we would do if there’s a half-built facility, but what would we do? We don’t think about the funding or the financing or all the things that kind of come into play in that instance. That part would have to be negotiated, but in the instance the greywater facility is not built or if xAI decides to stop using the land for greywater, we can claw the land back.”
