Amazon Asked MDEQ for More Diesel Generators at Both Madison County Campuses. The Draft Permits Went to Public Comment in August and the Comment Window Has Closed.

Two Amazon data center campuses in Madison County are waiting on amended air permits, and the public comment windows on both drafts have already closed. MDEQ’s permit database lists a draft construction permit modification for the Canton campus, permit 1720-00098, with a status date of Aug. 24, 2026 and the description “Draft Permit Public Comment Period Ends.” The same database lists a draft modification for the Ridgeland campus, permit 1720-00099, with a status date of Aug. 17, 2026 and the identical description. Neither draft appears on the agency’s current draft permit notice table, which was generated Oct. 24 and lists nine facilities, none of them Amazon.

The applications behind those drafts are the ones the Mississippi Free Press reported on in February: Amazon asked MDEQ to approve more than 100 additional diesel generators across its two Madison County sites, which would take the total past 800 engines. Under the permits already issued, the Free Press reported, the two campuses hold more than 700 generators, over 300 of them in Canton, with combined maximum output near 2,000 megawatts. MDEQ air division chief Jaricus Whitlock told the Free Press that generators may run up to 100 hours a year for maintenance and readiness testing, and that 50 of those hours may be spent supplementing grid power from Entergy.

The stakes are measured in tons. Amazon’s own permit applications estimate nitrogen oxide emissions at the Canton site could exceed 240 tons a year, the Free Press reported, roughly nine times the annual NOx from Canton’s Nissan plant and more than double Entergy’s Hinds County power station, per EPA National Emissions Inventory data. Carbon monoxide at Canton could surpass 140 tons a year. Divide the 240 tons across the more than 300 Canton engines already permitted and the average engine carries less than one ton of NOx a year, which is how a facility clears a major-source threshold: each unit is small, the fleet is not.

What the drafts themselves would change is not visible in the public record the Wire could reach. MDEQ’s facility pages for both campuses list the permit numbers, the status dates and the addresses (1978 Highway 22 in Canton; 1626 County Line Road in Ridgeland) but do not attach the draft documents or a comment deadline. The agency’s Permit Board page, as of Oct. 24, still advertises a meeting for Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026 at 9:00 a.m. with the agenda marked “Coming Soon,” and the posted Oct. 13 agenda does not list either Amazon modification. A permit modification of this size would ordinarily reach the board for issuance, but the record does not show it scheduled.

The silence has a cost for anyone who wanted to weigh in. MDEQ’s own history shows how tight these windows can be: the NAACP asked the agency in March to reschedule a data center permit hearing in DeSoto County that was announced with fewer than five calendar days’ notice, set on a primary election day, and held in Jackson, nearly a three-hour drive from the affected community. For Canton and Ridgeland, the notice went out in August. Three months later, the only public trace is a status line in a database.

Madison County’s exposure is not only air. The county’s financial agreement with Amazon was approved in November 2024, and Amazon says its total planned Mississippi investment has reached $25 billion, with 2,000 jobs expected and $300 million committed to grid improvements, according to the company’s own announcement. The company also says the Canton campus will switch to recycled wastewater for cooling beginning in 2027, reusing an average of 83 million gallons a year. None of that answers the question the permit file leaves open: whether the added engines change the emissions limits the county’s neighbors are living under, and who at MDEQ signed off.

What’s next: the decision-maker is the Mississippi Environmental Quality Permit Board, which meets at MDEQ, 515 East Amite Street in Jackson, and can be reached at (601) 961-5041 to confirm meeting dates and location. The agency’s Permit Board page still shows the Oct. 13, 2026 meeting as the current one, so the next regular date is not posted. Watch the board agenda archive for permit 1720-00098 (Canton) and 1720-00099 (Ridgeland), and watch the draft permit notice table for either number reappearing with a new comment end date. Anyone who wants the draft documents before the board acts can request them from MDEQ’s Public Records Officer at PO Box 2261, Jackson, MS 39225-2261, (601) 961-5611.