An agreed order between Space XAI and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) reveals the company’s Southaven power plant project is behind schedule.
Thursday, the company sent FOX13 a statement, announcing the removal of 69 temporary turbines over the next 12 months.
FOX13 requested a copy of the agreement.
It reveals the one year was running out for Space XAI’s temporary turbines and ‘Due to supply chain challenges, the construction schedule for some of the 41 stationary combustion turbines covered by the PSD permit has been delayed.’
MDEQ said the deactivation deadline given was December 31, 2026.
FOX13 spoke to Abre’ Conner, director of the NAACP Center for Environmental and Climate Justice.
“To get that information in that way, it felt as though this was a tactic or a strategy to try to not have to work with communities regarding the health of everyday people and what they’re having to deal with,” Conner said.
This order shows the company has added turbines every month this year, including nine in the last month. It totals 69 turbines.
“The fact that the document actually demonstrates that they aren’t removing turbines, but they’re actually planning to add more gas turbines in an operation that, since its inception, has been illegal. And then to try to go around the Clean Air Act one more time in order to add more pollution is egregious,” said Conner.
The agreement says the company will still have 41 permanent turbines.
Since the project launched last summer, several lawsuits were filed about the pollution and the noise.
One of those plaintiffs – the NAACP.
“They [Space XAI] have been operating the exact same way that they have been operating in communities since Memphis, which is to mislead, to leave everyday people out of decisions and to try to operate using backroom deals and negotiations in order to allow for them to continue to pollute in communities,” Conner said.
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