Louisiana has exactly one national forest. The Kisatchie covers about 604,000 acres across seven central and northern parishes, and more of it sits in Grant Parish than in any other. This spring, a Grant Parish businessman put forward a plan to move roughly 140,000 acres of it — nearly a quarter of the whole forest — out of federal hands and into local control. Almost everyone with a formal say said no. What actually reached Congress was a three-page tax bill with no forest in it at all. And in late July, the man behind the plan said he intends to bring the full version back.
Two different documents sit at the center of this, and it is easy to blend them. One is a 12-page draft that would have transferred the land; it was never introduced in Congress. The other is Senate Bill 4584, the only thing Sen. Bill Cassidy actually filed — and it does something far narrower. This account is drawn entirely from the public record: the bill text, the draft, a state resolution, and named local reporting, each linked below. Here is what that record shows, kept in its parts.
The controversy and the law are not the same thing.
The controversy is Carpenter's 12-page draft. According to the Louisiana Wildlife Federation, which posted the draft and its own analysis, it would have conveyed the Grant Parish portion of the Kisatchie \"for public purposes, including forestry, conservation, recreation, community development, economic development, or energy generation,\" transferred the air and mineral rights along with the land, and set no bar against oil and gas, carbon capture, or data centers on it. As Verite News and The Advocate reported, it also proposed handing the federal correctional complex at Pollock over to the parish.
The law — the only piece that made it onto a congressional docket — is S.4584. Its full text runs three pages and never mentions the forest. It carries a grand name — the \"Norma Ruth Criswell Carpenter & Clovis C. Criswell Grant Parish Restoration Act of 2026\" — but its substance is two narrow tax changes, explained below. It has no cosponsors and, since May 20, has sat in the Senate Finance Committee.
Keeping the two straight matters because the argument for one is not the argument for the other, and because a plan that was pared down after public objection is now, its author says, coming back closer to its original shape.
The number at the heart of the plan — 144,962 acres, or \"about 140,000\" in round terms — comes from Carpenter and the Grant Parish assessor, not from the Forest Service. The Forest Service does not publish a Grant-Parish-specific figure; it reports by ranger district. The district covering most of the parish, the Catahoula Ranger District, totals 121,500 acres and extends into Rapides Parish. Federal land makes up roughly a third of Grant Parish either way.
The draft's premise is that all of that land is a drag on a poor parish: untaxable, off the local rolls, and — in Carpenter's telling — poorly managed by a shrinking federal agency. His fix was to move it into local ownership and open it to development, including a parish-run solar farm he has floated to power the prison. Carpenter has not been shy about the vision. \"I'm trying to save the forest for the future by reimagining it as McDonald's,\" he told a columnist for The Advocate. He has described the prison as throwing off \"$2 to $5 million a year of cash flow,\" and, per the same reporting, floated — then called \"tongue-in-cheek\" — a $10 million commission to his own advisory firm for arranging the deal.
Carpenter is a partner at Sextant Capital Advisors, sits on the Grant Parish Chamber of Commerce board, and is a former state bank examiner. He calls himself the plan's \"lead collaborative author.\" He is not a member of the parish government — a distinction the jury has been at pains to draw.
Strip away the forest and the prison, and what Cassidy introduced is an attempt to make more of Grant Parish qualify for a federal subsidy on paper.
That subsidy is the New Markets Tax Credit — a federal program that steers private investment into poor census tracts by handing investors a tax break. A tract qualifies as a \"low-income community\" if its poverty rate is at least 20 percent, or its median family income is 80 percent or less of a regional benchmark. S.4584 makes two changes to how that test is run:
The logic threads back to Carpenter's larger complaint: he argues that the prison population and federal land together make Grant Parish look better off in Census data than its residents actually are, costing it aid it would otherwise receive. By the Census Bureau's own count, Grant Parish had about 22,000 residents, a median household income of nearly $64,000, and a 21.1 percent poverty rate (QuickFacts). The bill's tax tweaks are part of that theory that survived contact with local opinion.
Cassidy, for his part, framed the underlying concern sympathetically even as he cut the forest out. Federal control of so much parish land, he told KALB, \"slows their economic development.\" After the backlash, he said in a statement reported by Verite News that \"the locals shared their concerns about the forest … so we took out those provisions.\" His office declined to comment to several outlets.
The Grant Parish Police Jury — the parish's governing body — voted unanimously against the proposal on May 14, after first disclaiming any involvement in a public statement a week earlier. \"We want that land to stay with the Forest Service and remain just like it is,\" juror Roy Edwards told the Alexandria Town Talk. \"Nobody on the jury asked for this.\" Another juror, Johnny Jamison, put it more bluntly to Carpenter directly: \"Chuck, you started all of this.\" The parish manager, Sissy Pace, said the parish \"just does not have the resources even to begin to maintain the national forest.\"
State Rep. Gabe Firment filed House Resolution 343, which memorializes Congress to oppose any effort to \"transfer, divest, privatize, or dispose of\" Kisatchie land. Firment noted the resolution \"has no binding authority\" — it is a formal statement of position, not a law — and it advanced to the House floor in late May.
The Louisiana Wildlife Federation opposed the transfer and said it forwarded messages from more than 1,400 Louisianans to the congressional delegation. \"The parish may have a problem with revenue, but this is not the solution,\" executive director Rebecca Triche told Outdoor Life. \"We're just giving away the people's assets.\"
And the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians, a federally recognized tribe with a reservation in Grant Parish, objected both to the substance and to being left out. \"We are a sovereign nation. And we are opposed to this,\" Chief Elizabeth \"Libby\" Rogers said, in remarks reported by The Advocate, noting the tribe holds stewardship agreements with the forest and was never consulted.
Carpenter did not invent the idea that federal land should change hands, and he points to a national moment to explain his timing. In 2025, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah proposed forcing the sale of millions of acres of federal land across the West, then withdrew the plan under bipartisan pressure. The U.S. Department of Agriculture moved to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule, which had limited road-building on tens of millions of acres in national forests. And a Forest Service reorganization slated the agency's Southern Research Station in Pineville — co-located with the Kisatchie's own headquarters — for closure. Carpenter cites that closure as evidence that the federal government can no longer reliably manage the forest.
There is also a genuine local revenue question underneath the fight. Because national forest land can't be taxed, the federal government partially compensates parishes through two programs — Payments in Lieu of Taxes and Secure Rural Schools. A congressional caucus release, reported by KALB, said Louisiana missed about $1.57 million in Secure Rural Schools money during a lapse before Congress renewed the program in December 2025. How much Grant Parish itself receives each year through PILT is a specific figure worth pinning down — and one we're chasing.
This is a fast-moving, largely public-record story, and several things are unresolved:
We'll update this piece as those answers come in.
Spot an error? Receipts welcome: tips@kingfish.la.
", "date_published": "2026-07-31T13:28:19.000Z", "date_modified": "2026-07-31T13:28:19.000Z", "authors": [ { "name": "Bentley Hensel", "url": "https://kingfish.la/author/bentley" } ], "tags": [ "News", "Grant Parish", "Kisatchie National Forest", "Public Lands", "Taxes" ], "image": "https://media.kingfish.la/2026/07/kisatchie-national-forest-grant-parish-1.png", "_license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" }, { "id": "https://kingfish.la/comment-on-the-sunstripe-permit/", "url": "https://kingfish.la/comment-on-the-sunstripe-permit/", "title": "Comment on the Sunstripe Solar permit before the August 2 deadline", "summary": "The only public comment window on the 10,356-acre Sunstripe Solar project closes August 2, 2026. Here's the permit number, the address, and how to weigh in.", "content_html": "Right now, there is exactly one public process open on the 10,356-acre Sunstripe Solar project near Hineston — a 16-square-mile buildout on the Rapides–Vernon parish line — and it closes soon. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is taking comments on the project's federal wetlands permit until August 2, 2026. After that, this window is gone. The bigger local moments — the parish-mandated community meeting, the planning commission review, the police jury votes — are all still ahead, but this is the one that's live today.
You don't need to be an expert, and you don't need to oppose the project. By law, the Corps has to consider what you send.
Three ways to comment:
A comment is evidence, not a vote — five hundred identical postcards count as one argument made five hundred times. What carries weight is specific, local, firsthand knowledge tied to the factors the Corps must weigh: flood hazards, water quality, fish and wildlife, and the rest. The road that floods, the well you drink from, the creek the transmission line would cross.
We've written the full playbook in two evergreen guides:
For how this permit fits into the three other approvals the project still needs, see How a solar project gets permitted in Louisiana.
Part of Kingfish's coverage of the Sunstripe Solar project.
Spot an error? Receipts welcome: tips@kingfish.la.
", "date_published": "2026-07-29T16:06:15.000Z", "date_modified": "2026-07-29T16:06:15.000Z", "authors": [ { "name": "Bentley Hensel", "url": "https://kingfish.la/author/bentley" } ], "tags": [ "News", "Series Sunstripe Solar", "Public Notice", "Briefs" ], "image": "https://media.kingfish.la/2026/07/comment-on-the-sunstripe-permit.png", "_license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" }, { "id": "https://kingfish.la/england-airpark-permits/", "url": "https://kingfish.la/england-airpark-permits/", "title": "England Airpark to require protest permits — though no incident prompted it, director says", "summary": "The England Authority's director says no incident prompted its proposed permit rules for protests at the airport — the nation's top deportation-flight hub. A sheriff's office request did; the text posts Wednesday, with a vote in August.", "content_html": "The England Authority is advancing new rules that would require permits for protests and other \"expressive assemblies\" on its property — land that includes England Airpark and Alexandria International Airport (AEX), home to the nation's busiest hub for federal deportation flights.
The proposal grew out of a request from the sheriff's office to clarify some of the Authority's existing ordinances — not from any protest or disturbance, Executive Director Ralph Hennessy told The Kingfish Project in a written response Monday afternoon. \"There haven't been any issues here that prompted the need,\" he wrote.
The Rapides Parish Sheriff's Office provides security at England Airpark under contract with the Authority. Hennessy did not say what the office asked to have clarified or which ordinances were involved.
The Kingfish Project has requested comment from Sheriff Mark Wood's office and will update this story with any response.
Demonstrations connected to airpark property have already occurred. Last August, a group gathered outside AEX to protest the ICE staging facility at the airport, KALB reported, and the Rapides Parish Journal, which first reported the proposal, cited immigration enforcement and data center development as examples of activities that draw crowds.
Hennessy said the full text will be attached to the board's meeting agenda, which the Authority will post Wednesday. The ordinance will be introduced at the board's Thursday, July 23, session and voted on at the August board meeting, he said.
The Admin/Legal Committee reviewed a draft of the ordinance at a noon meeting on July 16. Hennessy said the committee took no vote and made recommendations that will be incorporated before the proposal reaches the board. According to the Journal, the draft provides for content-neutral regulation of demonstrations, protests, rallies, vigils, picketing, and other expressive assemblies on Authority property, sets permit procedures for certain planned demonstrations, and addresses spontaneous ones.
The committee consists of Myron Lawson Jr., chair; Charlie Weems, vice chair; and Steve Mansour. Authority Chairman Oday Lavergne serves as an executive official member. The Kingfish Project put its four questions to the three members and Lavergne as well; Hennessy answered for the Authority within the hour, and the others did not respond individually.
On Monday, The Kingfish Project also filed two public records requests with the Authority by email. The first seeks every draft of the proposed ordinance — including the original electronic files, whose properties and revision histories identify who wrote and edited them — along with communications about the proposal among Authority officials and with outside parties, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the data center developer Applied Digital, and other public bodies, a category that covers any written request from the sheriff's office.
The second seeks the Authority's security incident logs and reports from July 1, 2023, to the present, including every report involving a protest, demonstration, or other assembly — records that would test Hennessy's statement that no incidents prompted the rule. The Kingfish Project will publish both requests in full.
Louisiana's Public Records Law requires a custodian to produce available records immediately, and in all cases to provide a written determination or a time estimate within five business days — silence past that point is a legal denial (La. R.S. 44:32(D), 44:35(A)). For requests filed Monday, that window closes July 27, four days after the board's July 23 session. Wednesday's agenda posting will make the current text public, but it does not address the drafts, communications, or incident records the requests seek.
The England Authority is a political subdivision of the state, and its property is public property. Courts have long allowed governments to impose content-neutral rules on the time, place, and manner of assemblies on public land. They have struck down permit systems that give officials discretion over who may gather, including in Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham (1969) and Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement (1992). Whether the England proposal contains such discretion can be judged once the text posts with Wednesday's agenda.
The proposal arrives amid heightened national attention to Authority property. The Alexandria Staging Facility, a 400-bed ICE detention site operated on the airport tarmac by GEO Group since 2014, has become the country's top hub for deportation flights, and Human Rights First's ICE Flight Monitor counted more than 4,400 immigration enforcement flights in and out of AEX in 2025, the Associated Press reported. In late June, ICE signed a contract for a new 528-bed holding facility for families and children at the former air base, according to the AP; Hennessy confirmed the contract in that reporting. ICE describes the new site as a staging area rather than a detention center.
The board's monthly session is scheduled for Thursday, July 23, with the proposed ordinance due to appear on the agenda that the Authority posts on Wednesday. The Kingfish Project will publish the text and any records produced in response to its requests.
", "date_published": "2026-07-20T23:33:49.000Z", "date_modified": "2026-07-21T02:25:09.000Z", "authors": [ { "name": "Bentley Hensel", "url": "https://kingfish.la/author/bentley" } ], "tags": [ "News", "England Authority", "First Amendment", "Immigration" ], "image": "https://media.kingfish.la/2026/07/eeidd-permits_kingfish-news-piece-1.png", "_license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" }, { "id": "https://kingfish.la/about-sunstripe-solar/", "url": "https://kingfish.la/about-sunstripe-solar/", "title": "The 10,356-acre solar project quietly taking shape near Hineston", "summary": "Treaty Oak Clean Energy — owned by funds tied to Cleco's co-owner, which also bankrolls a local data center — wants federal approval for a 16-sq-mi solar buildout on Rapides/Vernon timberland. No public announcement. The only comment window closes Aug. 2.", "content_html": "A Texas company wants to build one of the largest solar projects in Louisiana history on timberland around Hineston, and the first formal public notice of any kind appeared eleven days ago — in a federal permit filing most people will never see.
The project is called Sunstripe. The developer is Treaty Oak Clean Energy, LLC of Austin, Texas, working through a subsidiary named TO LA Solar 1, LLC. On July 13, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' New Orleans District published a public notice — permit application MVN-2026-00184-WLL — asking for comments on the company's request to build:
That's 10,356 acres in total — about 16 square miles, an area roughly 60 percent the size of the city of Alexandria. The project site is centered at 2307 LA Highway 121 in the Hineston community, in the pine country where Rapides Parish meets Vernon Parish. The notice and its 47 pages of maps and drawings are public. Kingfish found no press release, no news coverage, and no public announcement of the project anywhere before that notice appeared.
The Corps notice covers one narrow question: whether Treaty Oak may disturb federally protected wetlands and streams. Under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, anyone who wants to fill, clear, or build in \"waters of the United States\" — including forested wetlands — needs a permit from the Corps first.
According to the notice, the solar panels themselves are sited to avoid jurisdictional wetlands entirely. The impacts come from the 9-mile transmission line — what the industry calls a \"gen-tie,\" the private power line that carries electricity from a plant to the grid. Building it would permanently convert 18.5 acres of forested wetlands to lower-growing cover: 8.53 acres of cypress/tupelo swamp, 5.03 acres of bottomland hardwoods, 2.86 acres of pine savanna, and 2.02 acres of pine plantation, plus about a hundredth of an acre of permanent fill where poles go in. The line crosses the upper Calcasieu River. Treaty Oak proposes to offset the damage by purchasing credits from a wetlands mitigation bank — in plain terms, paying for restoration work somewhere else in the watershed.
The Corps' initial wildlife screening found the project \"may affect\" two federally protected species: the Louisiana pinesnake — one of the rarest snakes in North America, native to the longleaf pine woods of west-central Louisiana and East Texas — and the northern long-eared bat. On July 21, the Corps confirmed to Kingfish that it has reached out to the Fish and Wildlife Service for consultation under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act, and that its preliminary \"may affect\" finding covers the pinesnake, the northern long-eared bat, and critical habitat. The company's own maps show the Phase 2 site sitting against the Kisatchie National Forest boundary, with Cooters Bog — a natural area known for its carnivorous pitcher plants — and mapped pitcher plant habitat flagged at the site's southwestern edge.
Two caveats worth knowing. First, the Corps itself states that the information in the notice was furnished by the applicant and has not been independently verified. Second, there's a geography discrepancy: the notice text says the project is \"within Rapides Parish,\" but the applicant's own engineering drawings are titled \"Rapides and Vernon Parishes,\" and the maps show the parish line running through both solar sites. Kingfish asked the Corps to clarify. On July 21 it answered that the project site does span both Rapides and Vernon parishes, but the areas \"with potential impacts regulated under Section 404 are within Rapides Parish,\" which is why the Corps lists its permitting review under that parish. That resolves which parish governs the federal review — but not which set of local rules applies to Phase 2, a question taken up further down.
Treaty Oak is an independent power producer — a company that builds power plants and sells the electricity — and a portfolio company of Macquarie Asset Management, the giant Australian investment manager, with a reported 17.3-gigawatt development pipeline across the U.S.
Sunstripe would be Treaty Oak's third and by far largest Louisiana project. In October 2025 the company announced power purchase agreements with Meta for the 185-megawatt Beekman project in Morehouse Parish and the 200-megawatt Hollis Creek project in Sabine Parish — deals Meta's energy chief tied directly to powering its AI data center in Richland Parish. Treaty Oak closed roughly $809 million in combined financing and started construction on both in early 2026, targeting operation in late 2027. Dashiell, the high-voltage contractor on those projects, is the same firm whose name appears on Sunstripe's transmission drawings.
\"Our commitment in Louisiana extends well beyond these two projects,\" Treaty Oak CEO Chris Elrod told POWER magazine in November. Sunstripe appears to be what he meant.
The Macquarie connection is where central Louisiana readers should pay attention, because funds managed by Macquarie Asset Management currently sit on three sides of the region's energy map:
Two fairness points. Different Macquarie-managed funds, with different investors, hold these different stakes — a shared manager is not the same thing as a single owner, and the Cleco stake is on its way out the door. And nothing in the public record says who will buy Sunstripe's power, or that it has anything to do with Delta Forge. Treaty Oak's interconnection request predates any public word of the data center by more than two years. Kingfish has asked Treaty Oak, Cleco, Macquarie, and Applied Digital directly.
Two of them have now answered, and both drew a line between themselves and Sunstripe. Applied Digital, in a July 22 statement attributed to Nick Phillips, its executive vice president of external affairs, said \"there is no connection between Applied Digital and the potential solar facility,\" while allowing that \"it's possible that both companies may have had dealings with a common investor at some point in time.\" The company said it has no renewable-energy or power-purchase agreement — including a virtual PPA or renewable-attribute purchase — tied to Cleco's system or to any specific Louisiana generation project, and that it had no role in or awareness of Cleco's transmission or generation planning in the Boyce/Hineston area when it sited Delta Forge. It confirmed Delta Forge is designed for a 430-megawatt peak load and is expected to be served under a \"large-load contract with Cleco.\"
Cleco, for its part, said the Hineston project in the MISO queue \"is not a Cleco project,\" that Cleco \"did not submit the interconnection request,\" and that under federal open-access rules it \"cannot comment on non-Cleco transmission projects.\" Both responses are consistent with the public record as we have it; neither is independently verifiable, and both come from parties with an interest in the answer.
Sunstripe has been in the works far longer than eleven days. Records from MISO — the multi-state grid operator Louisiana belongs to — show project J3479: a 200-megawatt solar project at a point of interconnection called \"Hineston,\" in Rapides Parish, with Cleco Power LLC as the transmission owner. The request was filed in MISO's 2023 study cycle, meaning by that spring. MISO's rules require an applicant to document control of the project land when it applies — so Treaty Oak had Hineston-area acreage locked up by 2023, two years before anyone in parish government voted on a solar ordinance.
The queue entry lists a February 2027 in-service date. That date is not going to happen. MISO's own current schedule shows Sunstripe's study cycle — 23 projects totaling 4,676 megawatts across MISO's southern region — still in the middle of its second study phase, with the interconnection agreements (the contracts that actually let a plant plug in) not projected to be signed until August 2027 at the earliest, a date that slipped by 15 days in the last month alone. Realistically, that puts construction and first power in 2028 or later.
One more detail: 200 megawatts accounts for roughly one of Sunstripe's two phases. The engineering drawings for \"Sunstripe II\" list a facility of about 224 megawatts on its own. Kingfish has not identified a second interconnection request, and the project's total planned capacity has not been disclosed.
The federal wetlands permit is the only public process running right now. It is not the biggest hurdle. There are three layers:
1. The Corps — the Section 404 permit described above, plus a state water quality certification from LDEQ that \"may be required.\" The Corps told Kingfish on July 21 that if LDEQ determines a certification is required for this project, \"this certification must be obtained before USACE can render its permit decision\" — meaning the state agency holds an effective veto over the timing of the federal permit. As of this week, Kingfish could find no LDEQ file opened for the project.
2. The State of Louisiana. Act 279 of 2025 made it illegal to build or operate any solar facility of 75 acres or more without a permit from the state — now the Department of Conservation and Energy. The law also wrote statewide siting standards (setbacks, noise limits, decommissioning security) for large solar farms, applying to projects that start construction after Jan. 1, 2026 — with one big exception, which brings us to:
3. Rapides Parish. On June 9, 2025, the Rapides Parish Police Jury unanimously adopted a Solar Farm Ordinance drafted by the Rapides Area Planning Commission (official minutes). Then on Dec. 8, the jury voted to opt out of the state's siting standards — a move Act 279 allows for parishes with their own ordinances (official minutes). The practical effect: in Rapides Parish, the parish's rules — not the state's — govern where and how Sunstripe can be built. The state permit is still required either way.
The parish ordinance has real teeth. Before construction, a solar developer must:
The ordinance also reserves the jury's right to accept, reject, or modify any industrial tax exemption (ITEP) — Louisiana's program that can wipe out most of a project's property taxes for years — while explicitly leaving the door open to a PILOT, a negotiated payment in lieu of taxes. As of a July 17 search, no ITEP filing for Treaty Oak, TO LA Solar, or any Sunstripe-related entity appears in Louisiana Economic Development's project database for Rapides or Vernon parish.
And Vernon Parish? The maps show Phase 2 crossing the line. Kingfish could not locate a Vernon Parish solar ordinance or Act 279 opt-out as of publication — if none exists, the state's siting standards would govern the Vernon side, meaning one project could be built under two different sets of rules depending on which side of the parish line a panel sits. We've asked the Vernon Parish Police Jury.
As of publication, Kingfish found no record that Treaty Oak has applied for either the parish permit or the state permit. We've asked the planning commission, the state, and the company.
In the spirit of receipts over rhetoric, here is what we don't know: who owns and leased the 10,000-plus acres; who will buy the power; the project's total capacity and price tag; whether Treaty Oak will seek a tax exemption, a PILOT, or neither; whether Delta Forge or any data center figures in the plan; whether the required Vernon Parish rules even exist; and when — or whether — the parish and state applications will be filed.
The Army Corps answered on July 21, and Kingfish has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the complete application file — the permit application, the wetland delineation report, the alternatives analysis, and the compensatory mitigation plan. We will publish the rest of the answers, and the records, as they come.
Any member of the public can comment on the federal permit. The Corps says comments are used to decide whether to issue, modify, condition, or deny the permit, and to determine whether a public hearing is needed.
Every source for this story is public: the Corps public notice and full drawing set; MISO's interconnection queue and study schedule; the Rapides Parish Police Jury minutes of June 9, 2025 and Dec. 8, 2025, archived with agendas at kingfish.la; Act 279 of 2025 and the state's solar permitting guidance; Applied Digital's FY2025 annual report and press releases; and company announcements from Treaty Oak, Macquarie, and Cleco.
We keep our stories honest by updating them in the open and telling you what changed. This is the running log for this piece.
July 22, 2026 — The Corps answered our questions. On July 21, Ricky Boyett, chief of public affairs for the Corps' New Orleans District, responded to the four questions Kingfish filed on July 17. We updated four passages above to reflect his answers. In short:
July 22, 2026 — Applied Digital and Cleco responded. Both distanced themselves from Sunstripe. Applied Digital said \"there is no connection between Applied Digital and the potential solar facility,\" while allowing the two companies \"may have had dealings with a common investor at some point in time,\" and said it holds no power-purchase agreement tied to any specific Louisiana generation project.
Cleco said the Hineston project \"is not a Cleco project,\" that it did not submit the interconnection request, and that federal open-access rules bar it from commenting on non-Cleco transmission. Both statements are folded into \"Who is behind Treaty Oak\" above.
Rapides Area Planning Commission director Matt Johns responded and agreed to discuss the local permitting process by phone; we'll report what we learn. As of this update, Treaty Oak, Macquarie, the Louisiana Department of Conservation and Energy, and the Vernon Parish Police Jury had not responded.
Kingfish contacted every company and agency named in this story with detailed questions. The Army Corps of Engineers responded on July 21; those answers are folded in above and logged in the Updates section. Responses from the other parties will be added as they arrive.
Corrections and tips: tips@kingfish.la.
", "date_published": "2026-07-18T02:05:45.000Z", "date_modified": "2026-07-22T19:17:01.000Z", "authors": [ { "name": "Bentley Hensel", "url": "https://kingfish.la/author/bentley" } ], "tags": [ "News", "Investigations", "Series Sunstripe Solar", "Treaty Oak", "Rapides Parish Police Jury", "Cleco", "Macquarie", "energy", "Records" ], "image": "https://media.kingfish.la/2026/07/sunstripe-hineston-solar.png", "_license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" } ] }