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By the time residents of a small Louisiana town found out that a data center could be going up there, the deal was nearly done. That's because nondisclosure agreements concealed negotiations between the tech company and state and local officials. It's a tactic that is used all around the country. Drew Hawkins of the Gulf States Newsroom went to Boyce, Louisiana, where people are angry about plans that were made without them.
SHANNON MCMANUS: You know, once that truck goes by
DREW HAWKINS, BYLINE: Sure, yes.
I'm standing with Shannon McManus (ph) across from the 300-acre site where state officials say there'll be a $3.6 billion data center. We're just outside Boyce, a town of 1,000 people in rural Rapides Parish, Louisiana.
What did this look like before they started construction? What did this area look like?
MCMANUS: It was all - this is all farmland that got bought out.
HAWKINS: We're looking at a giant field that was once rows of cotton and soybeans, now a patch of dirt filled with cranes, trailers and bulldozers, surrounded by a fence with no-trespassing signs. The former sheriff's deputy says he's not against data centers. It's the secrecy surrounding the deal that brought one here.
MCMANUS: I understand that we're moving into the future, that we have to have these things. And it's good that we're going to have jobs locally. Hopefully that happens. But it's still about not being transparent with the people.
HAWKINS: Local officials involved in the negotiation signed nondisclosure agreements - or NDAs - legal contracts that prevented them from sharing information about the project.
MCMANUS: What was it, taxation without representation? That's where we feel like we're at right now. We feel like these NDAs makes us to where we are paying these tax monies and we don't have the representation anymore.
HAWKINS: Here's the timeline, according to public records requests. In late 2024, the company building the data center signed NDAs with a state economic development agency. Then in January of this year, members of a local board also signed NDAs to negotiate the deal under code names like Project Lightning. That board, called the England Economic and Industrial Development District, approved the deal with little discussion at a public meeting in April. And then in June, Rapides Parish residents met with the board in a town hall, and things got heated.
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ROBERT MADDOX: Our politicians were elected to represent us, not to represent industry.
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HAWKINS: That's Robert Maddox (ph), one of the residents at the meeting, which McManus livestreamed on his Facebook page.
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MADDOX: If there was so much transparency, what was the need for NDAs?
HAWKINS: Maddox and others demanded information on how the 300-megawatt project, enough power for about 200,000 homes, would affect local water, electricity supplies and the environment. On the receiving end of the public outcry were officials with the England Economic and Industrial Development District, including executive director Ralph Hennessy. In an interview with NPR, Hennessy downplayed the pushback from local residents.
RALPH HENNESSY: It's a typical town hall meeting where you have a vocal minority that wants to get up and pump their fist and shout a bunch of half-truths or falses, whatever.
HAWKINS: Hennessy says the deal will bring 200 permanent jobs to the area, and that the company, Dallas-based Applied Digital, wanted the NDAs.
HENNESSY: NDAs are not illegal, OK? So you're not going to change my mind on NDAs. You can go ahead and change the topic.
HAWKINS: State lawmakers and officials with a state agency called Louisiana Economic Development also signed NDAs. Agency secretary Susan Bourgeois says they allow Louisiana to be more competitive in attracting businesses.
SUSAN BOURGEOIS: The last thing that they want to have happen in the beginning of the discussions, or in any part of the discussion, is for their information that they're sharing to be disclosed publicly. So without NDAs, our work, frankly, it just doesn't happen.
HAWKINS: The CEO of the data center company, though, says he understands why people are upset. Applied Digital's Wes Cummins says NDAs are important to protect the company and local officials from possible violations of insider trading laws. But he understands why NDAs rub residents the wrong way.
WES CUMMINS: I would love to be able to get away from the NDA part because it just feels sneaky to people. I totally get that.
HAWKINS: Cummins also says they follow the lead of local officials on how to disclose information about potential projects in their communities.
CUMMINS: We take a lot of guidance from - whether it's in Rapides Parish or whether it's in, you know, Ellendale, North Dakota, or Harwood, North Dakota, as to how they engage with their constituents and with their community. We don't really dictate that.
HAWKINS: But NDAs cut out the public and give the companies an edge in negotiations, says David Cuillier. He's director of the Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida.
DAVID CUILLIER: Information is power. And these folks, they're powerful and they want to make a lot of money. So they're going to control information as closely as they can, so they have an advantage.
HAWKINS: Local officials signing NDAs, Cuillier says, keep the communities where data centers are being built in the dark.
CUILLIER: It's really important that the public finds out what is possible to come into their town. So, yeah, the public interest outweighs the company's interest.
HAWKINS: It's hard to know how often NDAs are used in data center deals across the country. In Louisiana, records requests from the Gulf States Newsroom and Type Investigations turned up 54 signed by elected officials since early 2024. Many involved data centers, including the one in Rapides Parish. But some didn't specify or included other large industrial developments. Here's Cuillier again.
CUILLIER: You know, transparency in Louisiana isn't very good. It's one of the more secretive states in the country.
HAWKINS: But NDAs are used widely, according to people in the industry and experts. Eric Bonds is a professor and environmental sociologist at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia. He and his research partner found that NDAs were used in at least 25 of 31 data center projects they surveyed last year.
ERIC BONDS: So I think, you know, just across a board is a standard practice. After we published our research in a statewide news organization called Virginia Mercury, we heard back from reporters and activists kind of around the country from Arizona, Indiana, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania.
HAWKINS: Lawmakers in a few states have pushed for laws against NDAs. And Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro last week banned their use in data center projects by state agencies he oversees. And NDAs are not always necessary to do business, even in Louisiana. Right near Boyce, in West Feliciana Parish, a $10 billion data center is being built without NDAs.
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HAWKINS: Now they're getting louder.
But back in Rapides Parish, residents didn't know what was coming. Foster Hensel (ph) runs an apiary behind his home. He says he's concerned about the potential impacts of the data center.
FOSTER HENSEL: Water use, electric use. I'm concerned about utility bills going up.
HAWKINS: He says his bees live off the nearby fields of cotton, soybeans and wildflowers. The data center will be miles down the road, maybe out of harm's way. But he's worried, even if his bees are calm.
HENSEL: And these bees aren't mad because they're busy.
HAWKINS: What makes a bee mad?
HENSEL: Noise, vibrations.
HAWKINS: He just found out about the data center weeks ago.
HENSEL: Let me quote a good writer, Shakespeare. There's something rotten in Denmark. There's something wrong with that.
HAWKINS: Any official who signed those NDAs, he says, should be prepared to face the consequences in future elections.
For NPR News, I'm Drew Hawkins in Rapides Parish, Louisiana.
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