Industrial emissions and asthma disparities in Shelby County

At a glance

Based on auto-generated captions; names and details may be misheard.

What: a presentation by Dr. Randolph, interim director of the Shelby County Health Department, on asthma emergency visits and industrial emissions by area.
Where it stands: the presentation was not finished at the 10/19/2026 hearing; he will send the slides to the council.
Next: members floated tighter zoning near homes and joint city and county testing requirements.

Emergency room visits for asthma fell across the county from 2024 to 2025, but the gap remains: the zip codes with the most visits are in South and North Memphis near large industrial sources, and the highest was roughly 8 times the lowest (Germantown area).
A map for 2023 showed carcinogen releases concentrated in those same areas, shown as about 60 times higher than in wealthier areas.
Large emitters named on the slides included TVA and several industrial plants whose names the captions garble (likely Valero and Nucor). The captions say the xAI site emitted about 34 tons compared with about 760 for the largest source, and about 2.6 tons of sulfur dioxide against about 268 for one steel plant. Figures come from health department inspections of permitted facilities only; the airport itself is not permitted but FedEx would be.
Staff said residents near sites can complain and the department inspects; one company that removed controls was shut down.
Logan said many of these sites are in industrial zones and the council could change zoning where residences are left unprotected.

About 19 minutes across 1 meeting (from transcript timestamps; approximate).

Meeting	Minutes
2026-10-19 - Planning & Zoning	19

2026-10-19 - Planning & Zoning — Presentation on asthma visits and emissions by zip code; cut short for time.