ST. FRANCISVILLE — Construction is underway on a Hut 8 data center in West Feliciana Parish, and the parish president is speaking out about what the project means for the community.

West Feliciana Parish President Kenny Havard says his parish took a deliberate approach to bringing in the project, which was one of the first major data centers to locate in Louisiana.

"There was a little bit of apprehension about it at first because of the water issues that everybody was excited about and scared of, and those were all valid, but I think we addressed them," Havard said.

Water use is one of the main concerns raised by those who oppose data centers. Havard insists Hut 8 will not draw from the existing water supply and will instead operate on a closed-loop cooling system.

"They designed their system around a closed-loop water system, which basically works like a radiator in your car," Havard said. "You fill it up with glycol, a mixture of glycol and water, and it runs for about 3 years. They drain it, fill it back up. The only water being consumed daily at that facility is to flush the toilets and run the sinks."

Havard also says Hut 8 will cover the cost of its own electrical hookups, which he says keeps those costs off regular utility customers' bills.

"They paid for the conductor cables coming to it," Havard said. "They put a big chunk of money down, a deposit and those sorts of things. So that's what kept it off the rate base."

Jackson Voss with the Alliance for Affordable Energy says questions remain about those arrangements and what they could mean for other utility customers.

"And I think the truth is that these things are complicated," Voss said.

"They're big projects. They have a lot of different inputs. The best thing that our policymakers can do is to be very transparent, to make sure that people are aware of what all the benefits are, what are all the costs, and not sugarcoating these things. I think it's important for people to level with us honestly, make sure people know what they're actually getting," he said.

Havard says teachers, parish employees and the sheriff's office have already received pay raises because of Hut 8's commitment to the parish.

"My administration's goal, and I think every politician's goal should be kind of like a doctor: do no harm," Havard said. "If you're going to build something in our community, if you're going to come to our state, if you're going to ask us to burden the infrastructure and the traffic and those sorts of things, then the benefits should go back to the people."

Officials expect the first phase of the data center to be fully operational in about a year and a half.