Comeback Town is an opinion column exploring all things Birmingham. It is coordinated by David Sher. This week’s guest columnist is Allison Black Cornelius.
A foreign-owned tech company wants to build a massive 79-acre AI Mega Factory in Oxmoor Valley that consumes as much electricity as 200,000 homes and requires enormous water resources in a county that has suffered drought conditions in 17 of the last 20 years.
They want to put it right in the middle of quiet family neighborhoods, houses of worship, parks, small businesses, nonprofits, schools, and a golf course, where it will generate industrial-scale noise, heat, light, and traffic around the clock. To power it, they would erect 125-foot transmission towers carrying 230,000-volt power lines through residential streets…