# Project Lightning — Kingfish

> Kingfish's investigation into the Applied Digital "Delta Forge 1" data center in central Louisiana — its permits, power demand, and public subsidies.

Status: ongoing. License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Attribution: Kingfish Media.

## Key facts

- **Facility:** Delta Forge 1 data center
- **Operator:** Applied Digital Corporation
- **Regulator:** Louisiana DEQ
- **Estimated interconnection cost:** $4.2 million

## Timeline

- 2024-02-01: Kingfish files DEQ records request DEQ-2024-042.
- 2024-03-15: Applied Digital files an air-permit variance application.
- 2024-05-28: DEQ fulfills the records request.

## Entities

- Applied Digital Corporation — Organization (https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_nv/applied-digital, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q123456789)
- Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality — GovernmentAgency (https://www.deq.louisiana.gov/)
- Delta Forge 1 — Place

---

# Delta Forge 1: What the first permit filings show

> The records behind Applied Digital's central Louisiana data center.

**By:** kingfish-staff  
**Published:** 2026-06-03  
**Canonical:** https://kingfish.la/delta-forge-first-permit  
**License:** CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)  
**Cite as:** kingfish-staff (2026). Delta Forge 1: What the first permit filings show. Kingfish. https://kingfish.la/delta-forge-first-permit

**Investigation:** Project Lightning — Kingfish's investigation into the Applied Digital "Delta Forge 1" data center in central Louisiana — its permits, power demand, and public subsidies.

---

Applied Digital's Delta Forge 1 data center first surfaced in state records in the
spring of 2024. The company's own filings tell the story.

In its application to the state, [the company sought relief from baseline
emissions limits](/docs/deq-2024-042-001#page=4) for the facility — a request that
would let Delta Forge 1 run its generators beyond the standard cap.

Utility correspondence obtained through the same request shows [the interconnection
was estimated at $4.2 million](/docs/deq-2024-042-002#page=2), a cost that lands on
the grid before a single server is switched on.

Both documents came from a single Louisiana DEQ records request, fulfilled in May 2024.

---

## Sources

- [Air permit variance application — Delta Forge 1](https://kingfish.la/docs/deq-2024-042-001) — Louisiana DEQ, request DEQ-2024-042 (p.4)
- [Interconnection cost estimate — Delta Forge 1](https://kingfish.la/docs/deq-2024-042-002) — Louisiana DEQ, request DEQ-2024-042 (p.2)

---

## Citation formats

### BibTeX

```bibtex
@misc{kingfish-delta-forge-first-permit,
  author = {kingfish-staff},
  title = {Delta Forge 1: What the first permit filings show},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {Kingfish Media},
  howpublished = {\url{https://kingfish.la/delta-forge-first-permit}},
  note = {Accessed: June 5, 2026. License: CC BY 4.0}
}
```

### CSL-JSON

```json
[
  {
    "id": "kingfish-delta-forge-first-permit",
    "type": "article",
    "title": "Delta Forge 1: What the first permit filings show",
    "author": [
      {
        "literal": "kingfish-staff"
      }
    ],
    "issued": {
      "date-parts": [
        [
          2026
        ]
      ]
    },
    "publisher": "Kingfish Media",
    "URL": "https://kingfish.la/delta-forge-first-permit",
    "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
  }
]
```