Applied Digital told KALB in June that its Delta Forge 1 data center near Boyce would use 1,200 to 4,800 gallons of utility water a day for "office-type" uses, plus a one-time cooling-loop fill of about 1.7 million gallons. The state's announcement of the project in May touted "proprietary waterless cooling." Neither mentioned the two wells that had been pumping groundwater at the site since April. In written answers on August 12, the company put their production at about 12 million gallons. The company says those figures describe the finished data center rather than the construction.
Detailed water records were withheld from KALB as trade secrets. Louisiana requires no meter and no usage report for an industrial well in Rapides Parish. The filing that would have put these wells into a record a citizen can search is the registration their driller owed the state within 30 days of finishing them, and it has not arrived.
On August 7, the state office that maintains Louisiana's groundwater records answered a written question about those wells: it "does not appear that the proposed wells have been installed at this time." The Kingfish Project photographed both finished wellheads from the air on July 30, standing at the coordinates the company's driller filed with the state in March.
Both accounts describe the same two wells, 40-0252 and 40-0253, notified to the state on March 31, 2026, acknowledged on April 6, and drilled that month. The notification forms put their combined pumping capacity at 594,000 gallons per day and estimated completion by May 31. Applied Digital says both wells were finished between April 9 and April 21.
The company's dates set the filing deadline for the second and third weeks of May, about eleven weeks before the state's August 7 answer. Asked why nothing has reached the state, Applied Digital said the registration filings "have been made by the contractor." A SONRIS search on the morning of publication returned no registration for either well.
The paper trail#
The wells entered the record on the morning of March 31. At 10:26 and 10:30 a.m., R.A.M. Drilling, LLC of Bunkie called in two Louisiana 811 locate tickets (260214966, 260214988) for "WATER WELL DRILLING" at James Road and State Highway 121 in Boyce, work "being done for APPLIED DIGITAL," work to begin April 6. The same day, driller Alan Miller signed two state notification forms for the wells' owner of record, Applied Digital of Dallas. Well #1: four-inch casing, 120 feet deep, "Pumping Rate (Gallons Per Day): 144,000." Well #2: eight-inch casing, 120 feet deep, 450,000 gallons per day. Both list up to 200 pumping days a year and an estimated completion date of May 31, 2026.
The state's Office of Permitting and Compliance wrote back on April 6, assigned the well numbers, and found the proposed withdrawal "should not adversely affect water withdrawal from other registered water wells in the area or to the sustainability of the aquifer." Rapides Parish sits outside Louisiana's designated groundwater areas, so that letter is the only review these wells get. The driller often files the notification on the owner's behalf.
On July 30, we photographed the site from the air and plotted the forms' coordinates onto the frames.
The Site#
The equipment yard holds both wells; the row of white tanks about a quarter-mile away is the water storage and lime operation.
The Wells#
Insets A and B enlarge the two installations, plotted from the coordinates on the notification forms: Well #1, 40-0252, notified at 144,000 gallons per day, and Well #2, 40-0253, notified at 450,000. Both are finished wellheads, and no drilling equipment appears anywhere in the frame.
The Corridor#
The dashed line is our annotation, drawn along ground marks running between the wells and the tank row.
The Fill Point#
A tanker truck loads at the stand beside the row of water storage tanks.
The other water source#
Rapides Island Water Association serves the property through a residential connection, and the water it delivers goes to the house on the tract for ordinary household use rather than to bulk fill for trucks. The tanks that supply the trucks and the lime-slurry rig sit at the end of the line that runs from the equipment yard, where both wells stand.
The Lime Operation#
Dry-bulk trailers work beside the water tanks, dust rising off the white residue on the pad. The company began delivering lime as a water-based slurry after receiving a dust citation in May.
Then we searched SONRIS (Direct Search), the state database where every registered well appears. For industrial wells completed in Rapides Parish in the past six months, the search returns one record: a well at Cabrini Hospital. We asked the state's groundwater office whether we were reading its search wrong. Nicole R. Hall, a professional geologist with the Department of Conservation and Energy, reviewed the office's files and replied within two days: "My search results were the same as yours."
Eleven quiet weeks#
Governor Landry announced the $3.6 billion campus on May 26. The wells were filed in March and finished in April, and the deadline to register them passed before he spoke.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| March 31 | Notifications filed; both 811 tickets called in |
| April 6 | State acknowledges the wells; 811 work window opens |
| April 9–21 | Wells completed, per Applied Digital |
| April 26 | 811 tickets expire |
| May 9–21 | Registration deadline, 30 days from completion |
| May 26 | Governor announces the project |
| July 30 | Kingfish photographs completed installations at both locations |
| August 7 | State: no registrations received; wells appear uninstalled |
| August 12 | Company: about 12 million gallons pumped; filings "made by the contractor" |
The water figures the public got#
Applied Digital says the wells are used "solely for dust mitigation and lime slurry mixing for construction." The 12 million gallons the company reported on August 12 is the first public number for the water already coming out of the ground at Delta Forge 1: about seven times the one-time cooling fill it disclosed, and, spread across the days since the wells came online, an average near 100,000 gallons a day. The top daily figure it gave KALB was 4,800.
The wells' combined notified rate of 594,000 gallons per day would fill the cooling loop from the ground in under three days. A notified rate is an estimated maximum on a form. What the wells have pumped since spring rests on the company's word.
The missing registration#
Hall's August 7 email, in full on this point:
The water well notifications for GWR IDs 40-0252, 40-0253, and 40-0255 were approved, but it does not appear that the proposed wells have been installed at this time. There is no timeframe in which the wells must be installed after our office approves the notifications. The driller is required to submit the water well registration(s) within 30 days of completing the well(s), but our office has not received registrations for any of the proposed wells from the notifications to date.
The third number, 40-0255, belongs to a concrete supplier's well that R.A.M. Drilling notified the same day. It is also unregistered.
Registration is the driller's duty. LAC 56:I.105 gives the contractor 30 days from completion to file, and counts a well as complete when the owner accepts it, or the contractor moves his equipment off the site, whichever comes first. Our photographs show finished wellheads on July 30 and no drilling equipment. Applied Digital puts completion between April 9 and April 21, which sets the filing deadline between May 9 and May 21, about eleven weeks before Hall wrote that the office had received nothing.
The company's answer to that gap runs one sentence: "The registration filings have been made by the contractor." Hall wrote that her office processes registrations within 30 days of receipt and posts them online about a day later. The Kingfish Project has asked Applied Digital for the filing dates, and a SONRIS search on the morning of publication returned the same single industrial well for Rapides Parish, at Cabrini Hospital, completed in February. A registration filed in recent weeks could still be in processing. It would not account for the eleven weeks between the deadline and the day Hall searched her own files.
The registration also carries more than the notification. For an industrial well, the rule calls for the electric log, the cuttings analysis, the chemical analysis of the water, and the aquifer test results to be attached where available — the technical record of what these wells draw from. Until the form is filed, everything stays with the company and its driller.
Cabrini Hospital completed an industrial well in February. A different contractor drilled it and filed the registration, and it appears in the public search as the only new industrial well the state's records show for the parish, on a spreadsheet where the previous new entry is from 2022.
The forms are captioned as 60-day prior notifications, and the rules require owners to notify the state at least 60 days before installation. These wells went from filing on March 31 to scheduled drilling on April 6, after the office had "received and responded," as a separate subsection requires of the contractor. Applied Digital says the notifications were "fast-tracked due to the need for on-site dust mitigation, in response to specific concerns about dust from local community members." The company did not cite any provision that shortens the 60-day period, and the state's April 6 letter mentions no waiver. The dust citation on file at LDEQ came in May, after both wells were finished.
Which aquifer#
The driller wrote "RED RIVER ALLUV" on both forms, the shallow Red River alluvial aquifer. The reviewing office stamped both with 122CRNB, a code for the deeper Carnahan Bayou aquifer. The finding that the withdrawal should not affect the aquifer's sustainability was made under that code.
What comes next#
Applied Digital answered five written questions on August 12 through JSA, the outside firm that handles its media relations. It dated the wells to April 9 through April 21, put their production at about 12 million gallons used solely for dust mitigation and lime-slurry mixing, said the registration filings have been made by the contractor, attributed the six-day notification timeline to dust control, and said its earlier water figures described the finished data center rather than construction. The full exchange is posted here, with private contact information redacted.
R.A.M. Drilling, which the company identifies as the party responsible for the filings, did not respond to an emailed request or a voicemail left the same day, July 29. A change in a well's use requires an amended notification 60 days before the new use begins. If the registrations surface, this story will say so, with dates: forms are processed within 30 days of receipt, Hall wrote, and appear online about a day later.
Anyone can check. Search SONRIS for wells 40-0252 and 40-0253, or write the Water Administration Division at [email protected]. The office answered our questions in two days, with its records attached.
Each approval letter carried one warning, printed on the acknowledgment itself: "there may be unregistered water wells in the surrounding area." Four months later, the wells those letters approved have pumped about 12 million gallons. Their notified capacity is 594,000 gallons a day. Neither number appears in a record a citizen can search.
Spot an error? Receipts welcome: [email protected].
Sources#
- Water well notification forms (DENR-GWR-01) and acknowledgment letters, Office of Permitting and Compliance, Department of Conservation and Energy: well 40-0252 and well 40-0253, filed March 31, 2026, acknowledged April 6, 2026 — pumping rates, depths, casings, and completion estimates quoted from the forms — and well 40-0255, acknowledged July 23, 2026.
- Louisiana 811 locate tickets 260214966 and 260214988, called March 31, 2026, R.A.M. Drilling, LLC for Applied Digital.
- Email, The Kingfish Project and Nicole R. Hall, P.G., Department of Conservation and Energy groundwater office, August 5–7, 2026, with the office's spreadsheet of industrial wells in Rapides Parish.
- LDEQ Memo to File and response package, AI 250709, Applied Digital Corporation – Delta Forge 1, May 26 – July 7, 2026 (the dust citation and lime-slurry correction).
- Kingfish Project aerial photographs, July 30, 2026, embedded above; well locations plotted from coordinates on the state notification forms.
- LAC 56:I.105 (driller registration) · LAC 43:VI.701 (owner notification)
- LED release, May 26, 2026 · KALB fact-check, June 25, 2026 (utility and cooling-fill figures, trade-secret withholding)
- Written responses from Applied Digital, provided through JSA, August 12, 2026 — full email exchange, private contact information redacted (completion dates, volume pumped, registration and notification answers quoted from it).
- SONRIS Water Wells Search, industrial wells completed in Rapides Parish, run August 12, 2026 — the screenshot embedded above.
