Ascension Parish leaders have hit the brakes on data-center development, ordering a 90-day moratorium while officials scramble to finalize rules for an industry that hasn’t even broken ground there yet. The move gives the Ascension Parish Council time to work out guidelines before any company can build, rather than reacting after a project is already underway.
The moratorium follows weeks of back-and-forth after the council delayed a planned vote on data-center regulations in response to what WBRZ described as strong public concern from residents. Those residents have raised worries about noise pollution and the potential for declining property values tied to the massive server farms, according to the station’s reporting. District 4 Councilman Brett Arceneaux framed the pause as a matter of getting ahead of the issue, saying the council must work out how to protect the parish from harmful aspects of data centers while still pursuing potential benefits.
Why Officials Are Moving Before a Project Arrives
Council members have said they need to address data centers before a project comes to the parish, rather than scrambling to regulate one already in motion. That urgency is notable given that no data-center project is currently waiting for regulations to be approved, per the earlier WBRZ report, and no company has formally proposed a project in Ascension. Still, the parish has reportedly been contacted by data-center operators about a possible site at the intersection of Highway 22 and Highway 44 near Sorrento, the same report notes, though no formal application or approval has surfaced.
The council previously approved a resolution directing the Planning and Zoning Commission to craft guidelines for what are being called high-impact development facilities, according to WBRZ. Part of that early draft included a half-mile buffer between a data center and the property lines of homes, schools, hospitals and churches. But a revised version of the ordinance reportedly proposed shrinking that separation for certain high-impact facilities near conservation, rural or medium-residential districts down to one-quarter mile, according to The Advocate — a discrepancy that has not been resolved in the available reporting.
Looking to Other Parishes for a Playbook
As part of the moratorium period, council members plan to visit other parishes already working with data centers, aiming to learn how those communities have approached the permitting process. That outreach comes as Louisiana sees a wave of hyperscale projects taking shape across the state. Louisiana Economic Development had announced four hyperscale data centers under development or construction as of August, according to a Tulane Water issue brief, part of a boom that Tulane Law School says includes facilities tied to Meta, Amazon Web Services, Anthropic and a project in Rapides Parish.
Water use is a central worry behind that growth. Large data centers can use between one million and five million gallons of water a day, per the Tulane Water brief, and publicly available information cited in that report shows groundwater wells registered to Meta’s Hyperion project capable of pumping up to 23 million gallons per day. Amazon’s Caddo and Bossier parish projects reportedly carry peak demand of 1.8 million gallons daily, a figure the brief says could climb to 13.5 million gallons per day with expansion. Data centers can also create localized water issues depending on their cooling technology and whether they draw from municipal systems or private wells, Tulane Law School notes.
A Nationwide Pattern of Pump-the-Brakes Moves
Ascension Parish isn’t alone in reaching for a pause button. The New Orleans City Council already passed its own temporary moratorium on data centers to give regulators time to figure out needed controls and oversight, according to Tulane Law School. In Oregon, the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a 120-day moratorium on data-center development in unincorporated areas on Oct. 22, a pause that took effect immediately unless extended or repealed, as reported by KOIN. Commissioners there said they intend to examine water availability, utility costs, land use and economic opportunities before letting projects move forward.
Texas has taken a different, more contentious path. Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to stop issuing new data-center permits until state agencies complete audits of proposed facilities, according to the Texas Tribune. Yet Texas regulators have continued processing some approvals anyway — fast-tracking or assigning engineers to 14 permits and taking other permitting actions for facilities intended to serve energy-intensive data centers since Sept. 21, per Inside Climate News.
Back in Ascension, the stakes extend beyond any single data center. One Nuclear Energy has signed letters of intent covering roughly 4,000 acres between Ascension and Iberville parishes for a proposed energy complex that could serve data centers and other industrial users, The Advocate reports. For now, though, the parish’s focus remains on the rulebook itself — with the 90-day clock running and council members hoping to have answers before any developer shows up with blueprints in hand.
