Is St. Charles Parish a Data Center Candidate?
The industry has published criteria for where data centers get built. St. Charles Parish meets most of them. Here's what the evidence says.
Why This Page Exists
During the April 6, 2026 moratorium debate, Parish President Matthew Jewell argued against the moratorium by saying: "The only thing that Richland Parish and St. Charles Parish have in common is that they're both in Louisiana and humans live there. We're sitting here talking about the big data centers. And again, based on our geographic location and our land constraints, we're not a candidate for the Meta data center."
The statement is narrowly accurate: St. Charles Parish probably can't accommodate a 2,250-acre campus like Meta's Richland Parish project. But the data center industry doesn't build only one type of facility. It builds everything from 10-acre colocation centers to 500-acre hyperscale campuses. The question isn't whether St. Charles is a candidate for one specific project — it's whether the parish meets the criteria the industry uses to select sites. The answer, based on published industry standards, is yes.
Source: St. Charles Herald Guide, April 2026
What the Industry Looks For
Data center site selection criteria are not secret. They're published by commercial real estate firms (JLL, Cushman & Wakefield), engineering consultancies (Bohler, GE Vernova), law firms (Reed Smith), accounting firms (BDO), utilities (Entergy, Dominion Energy), and state economic development agencies across the country. The criteria are consistent across sources. There are eight of them.
| Criterion | Industry Standard | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Power | The #1 factor. JLL calls "speed to power" the primary driver of site selection. Hyperscale facilities need 100+ MW; AI campuses need 200–1,000+ MW. Developers must secure multi-decade power commitments. Proximity to high-voltage transmission (230/345/500 kV) is critical. | JLL 2025 Global Data Center Outlook; Build Inc |
| Land | Minimum ~40 acres for baseline facilities. Hyperscale campuses: 100–500+ acres. Rule of thumb: approximately 1 acre per MW of critical power. Flat, contiguous, industrially zoned parcels required. | Bohler Engineering; LightBox |
| Water | Medium-sized data centers use ~300,000 gallons/day. Large facilities use up to 5 million gallons/day. Cooling accounts for 30–40% of operating costs. Proximity to water sources and permitting for discharge are critical. | Environmental and Energy Study Institute; BDO |
| Fiber Connectivity | Multiple redundant fiber providers required. Proximity to Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) and major fiber backbone routes essential. Minimum 10–100 Gbps; hyperscale needs terabits per second. Latency adds ~0.82 ms per 100 miles. | Data Center Knowledge; Site Selection Magazine |
| Tax Incentives | Property tax, sales tax, and corporate tax incentives significantly influence location decisions. Utility costs (tariff per kWh) are a core evaluation factor. Capital-intensive nature makes property tax abatements especially valuable. | Area Development Magazine; Data Center Knowledge |
| Zoning & Permitting | Permitting timelines range from 6 months to 3+ years. Many jurisdictions lack specific data center zoning. Faster permitting environments are preferred. Industrial or technological zoning required. | Reed Smith; Bohler Engineering |
| Natural Disaster Risk | Evaluated over 25–100 years of historical data. Floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and seismic activity assessed. Cooler climates reduce cooling costs. | Data Center Frontier; Site Selection Magazine |
| Labor | Skilled workers within 60–90 minute commute. More than half of operators report difficulty finding/retaining staff. Transportation access for heavy equipment delivery also evaluated. | Data Center Frontier; Site Selection Magazine |
St. Charles Parish: Criterion by Criterion
Here's how St. Charles Parish measures against each of the eight industry-standard site selection criteria, using only verifiable facts and cited sources.
1. Power — Strong
St. Charles Parish is one of the most power-rich parishes in Louisiana. It has three existing power plants: the Waterford nuclear facility, the Little Gypsy gas plant (1,003+ MW), and the St. Charles Power Station (980 MW combined-cycle, operational since 2019). Entergy is building a new 754 MW combined-cycle gas plant at Waterford specifically to support data center load, expected operational by end of 2029. New 500 kV and 230 kV transmission lines are being routed through the parish as part of a major grid expansion.
Entergy advertises Louisiana as having "some of the lowest power rates in the country" and has recruited $49 billion in total new data center investment across its service territory.
Sources: Entergy LPSC Approval; Entergy Data Centers; JLL 2025 Outlook
2. Land — Mixed
St. Charles Parish has M-1 (light industrial) and M-2 (heavy industrial) zoned land, including the St. Charles Industrial Park. The parish is actively marketed by LED for industrial development. Louisiana's Certified Sites program requires a minimum of 25 contiguous, buildable acres — a threshold the parish can meet.
Where it gets complicated: Jewell is correct that St. Charles Parish cannot accommodate a 2,250-acre campus like Meta's Richland Parish project. But that's a single project type. A 40–200 acre parcel in an existing industrial zone would qualify for mid-to-large scale data center facilities under every published industry standard. Entergy's own minimum site requirement for data center prospects is 25 acres.
Sources: Louisiana Site Selection / LED Certified Sites; Entergy Data Centers (25-acre minimum); Build Inc (~40 acres minimum); Bohler Engineering
3. Water — Strong
St. Charles Parish sits on the Mississippi River and operates two water treatment plants with a combined capacity of 14 million gallons per day (east bank: 6 MGD, west bank: 8 MGD). Average daily production is 4.6 million gallons — meaning more than 9 million gallons of daily capacity is available. The parish also has documented industrial groundwater resources.
For context: the Environmental and Energy Study Institute reports that large data centers consume up to 5 million gallons per day. St. Charles Parish's existing water infrastructure could support that level of demand — though it would consume a significant share of available capacity, which is exactly the kind of impact a moratorium would have allowed the parish to study.
Sources: St. Charles Parish Waterworks; EESI; USGS Fact Sheet 2014-3118
4. Fiber Connectivity — Adequate
The I-10 corridor through St. Charles Parish is a fiber route. Stantec documented a fiber optic deployment project through the River Parishes along I-10. Major carriers — Lumen, AT&T, and Zayo — serve Louisiana. Approximately 78% of St. Charles Parish households have fiber, cable, or DSL access, with speeds up to 4,453 Mbps available in some areas.
New Orleans, 20–25 miles away, has data center facilities with peering and interconnection services, including Cogent Communications and EdgeConneX. St. Charles Parish is not Northern Virginia — the national leader with the densest Internet Exchange Point cluster in the country — but it's on a major fiber backbone corridor with access to regional connectivity hubs. For facilities that don't require sub-millisecond latency to a major IXP, it qualifies.
Sources: Stantec I-10 Fiber Deployment; DataCenterMap / New Orleans; EdgeConneX New Orleans
5. Tax Incentives — Strong
St. Charles Parish receives the full stack of Louisiana data center incentives. Act 730 provides 20-year state and local sales tax rebates on data center equipment and software (minimum: 50 jobs, $200M capital investment). The Industrial Tax Exemption Program (ITEP) offers 80% property tax abatement for up to 10 years on new manufacturing investment. Louisiana Economic Development advertises $32 billion in total announced data center investment attracted by these incentives.
These incentives apply to St. Charles Parish identically to every other parish in the state. They are, in fact, the same incentives that attracted Meta to Richland Parish, Amazon to Bossier/Caddo, and Hut 8 to West Feliciana.
Sources: LED Data Center Incentives; Act 730 (HB 827); ITEP Program
6. Zoning & Permitting — Currently Easy
Reed Smith and Bohler Engineering note that many jurisdictions lack specific data center zoning, and that faster permitting environments are preferred by the industry. St. Charles Parish has no data center–specific regulations on the books as of April 2026. The proposed ordinance hasn't been voted on yet. DEQ has eliminated its mandatory pre-filing meeting statewide. From an industry perspective, this is an easier permitting environment, not a harder one.
The parish has M-1 and M-2 zoned industrial land. Act 36 (2025) explicitly classifies data centers as "industrial purpose" under Louisiana law, clearing any ambiguity about zoning eligibility. This is exactly the regulatory environment the industry's site selection guides describe as favorable.
Sources: Reed Smith; Bohler Engineering; Act 36 (SB 79, 2025)
7. Natural Disaster Risk — Elevated (but mitigated)
This is St. Charles Parish's weakest criterion. The parish is in the Gulf hurricane zone and experienced significant flooding from Hurricane Isaac (2012) and Hurricane Ida (2021). Industry site selection evaluates 25–100 years of storm history, and the Gulf Coast carries inherent risk.
However, the parish has invested heavily in mitigation. The $1.2 billion West Shore Lake Pontchartrain project is expected complete by end of 2026, designed for 100-year storm surge protection. The Cross Bayou Pump Station in Destrehan provides 100-year interior drainage capacity. The parish is actively upgrading levee systems on both banks.
It's also worth noting that the industry is not avoiding Louisiana's disaster risk profile. Meta chose Richland Parish (tornado-prone northeast Louisiana), Amazon chose Bossier/Caddo (also hurricane-exposed), and Hut 8 chose West Feliciana. If hurricane risk disqualified a parish, none of these projects would exist.
Sources: St. Charles Parish Levee Update; NOLA.com; Data Center Frontier
8. Labor — Strong
St. Charles Parish is 20–25 miles from New Orleans (metro population ~1.2 million), well within the 60–90 minute commuting radius the industry requires. The parish has a deep industrial workforce from the petrochemical corridor — workers experienced with power systems, cooling infrastructure, and large-scale industrial operations. LED advertises Louisiana's "world-class workforce" capable of supporting "complex projects at scale."
For comparison: Meta chose Richland Parish (population ~20,000, median household income under $35,000, 30 miles northeast of Monroe). St. Charles Parish's labor market is objectively stronger.
Sources: Data Center Frontier; LED; Louisiana Illuminator (Meta Richland Parish details)
What the Watchdogs Say About Where Data Centers Really Go
Industry site selection guides list power, land, water, and fiber as the top criteria. But watchdog organizations and investigative reporters have documented another set of factors that don't appear in the glossy brochures — factors that consistently predict where data centers actually get built.
Targeting Vulnerable Communities
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance reports that 9 of the top 10 counties most affected by AI data center expansion are low-income communities with predominantly Black populations. Dr. Shaolei Ren, an AI researcher, documented that economic factors — cheap land, proximity to power grids, available tax incentives — drive siting decisions into communities with limited political resources to push back.
Capital B News quotes NAACP leader Benard Simelton: tech companies target areas where they believe "if they can get the political leaders on their side...they won't have people beating on their doors." The Lens reported on fears of a "Digital Cancer Alley" in Louisiana, noting that Big Tech is building data centers in the South in communities with "large Black populations" and limited power to resist.
Sources: ILSR; Capital B News; The Lens
Weak Regulation as a Feature, Not a Bug
The Sierra Club documents that data centers have "virtually no restrictions on locations" in many states. The Union of Concerned Scientists' "Data Center Power Play" report found that communities "often lack information on energy use, water consumption, and emissions" from data center operations. Good Jobs First found that only 11 of 36 states with data center tax exemptions even disclose which companies receive them.
A regulatory environment where there are no data center–specific rules, no mandatory water reporting, no demand response requirements, and 20 years of sales tax rebates with no wage standards is not a deterrent to site selection. It's an invitation.
Sources: Sierra Club Virginia; Union of Concerned Scientists; Good Jobs First
The Cost to Residents
The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that data centers could increase U.S. electricity system costs by $24–37 billion by 2050. In 2024 alone, homes in Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia faced $4.3 billion in additional transmission costs for data center infrastructure. Virginia — the #1 data center market — loses nearly $1 billion per year in sales and use tax revenue to data center exemptions.
Good Jobs First calculates that in Illinois, data center subsidies average $1.4 million per subsidized job.
Sources: UCS Data Center Power Play; Good Jobs First, "Cloudy Data, Costly Deals"; JLARC Virginia
The Scorecard
| Criterion | Industry Threshold | St. Charles Parish | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Power | 100+ MW, high-voltage transmission | 3 existing plants (2,900+ MW total); 754 MW new plant under construction; 500 kV and 230 kV lines being routed through parish | Exceeds |
| Land | 40+ acres (baseline); 100–500+ (hyperscale) | M-1 and M-2 industrial land available; industrial park; cannot support 2,000+ acre campus | Partial |
| Water | 300K–5M gallons/day | 14 MGD treatment capacity; 9+ MGD available; Mississippi River access; groundwater resources | Exceeds |
| Fiber | Multiple carriers, backbone access | I-10 fiber corridor; Lumen, AT&T, Zayo; 20–25 mi from New Orleans IXP | Meets |
| Tax Incentives | Sales/property tax abatements | Act 730 (20-yr sales tax rebate); ITEP (80% property tax, 10 yr); low electricity rates | Exceeds |
| Zoning | Industrial zoning; fast permitting | M-1/M-2 zones; no data center rules on books; DEQ pre-filing eliminated; Act 36 classifies DCs as industrial | Exceeds |
| Disaster Risk | Low hurricane/flood/seismic | Gulf hurricane zone; Isaac (2012), Ida (2021) flooding; $1.2B levee project underway | Elevated |
| Labor | Skilled workers within 60–90 min | 20–25 mi from New Orleans metro (1.2M pop); industrial workforce from petrochemical corridor | Exceeds |
Result: St. Charles Parish meets or exceeds industry thresholds on 6 of 8 criteria, partially meets 1 (land — sufficient for mid-scale but not mega-campus), and falls short on 1 (hurricane risk — elevated but actively mitigated). By published industry standards, the parish is a viable data center location for any facility that doesn't require thousands of contiguous acres.
What This Means for Residents
The point isn't that a data center is coming tomorrow. The point is that the conditions that attract data centers — abundant power, available water, tax incentives, weak regulation, industrial zoning, and proximity to a major metro — already exist in St. Charles Parish. Several of those conditions are getting stronger, not weaker: a 754 MW power plant is under construction at Waterford, DEQ has eliminated its pre-filing requirement, and Act 730's incentives apply parish-wide.
The argument that "we're not a candidate" conflates one project type (a 2,250-acre hyperscale campus) with an entire industry that builds facilities across a wide range of sizes and configurations. It also ignores that Entergy is actively building power generation infrastructure in St. Charles Parish to support data center load elsewhere in Louisiana — infrastructure that makes the parish more attractive to future data center developers, not less.
That's why the proposed ordinance matters. That's why residents are showing up to council meetings. And that's why having regulations in place before a developer applies matters more than having them after.