Into a transparent blue sky, the sweet-smelling smoke billows and spreads. Farmers have been burning and harvesting sugarcane this fashion for generations, however the observe creates ash fallout and unsafe air pollution. Yearly, farmers plan and coordinate the fires, to filter out pests like snakes and clear leaves, forsaking solely the stalks the place the sugar lies.
No one in Iberia Parish thinks twice. Sugarcane smoke is part of life.
However locals are cautious of the hazards they believe lurk inside a special, newer trade. This new trade goes to be the smash of Iberia Parish, they warn, with risks starting from poisonous smoke and cancer-causing chemical compounds to homegrown tornados and flying particles, even poisoned farmland and nugatory homes.
Risks which can be nearly completely imagined, say consultants, who now discover themselves as the principle line of protection in opposition to misinformation that might hamstring a significant area. It’s a dynamic being repeated nationwide.
This can be a close-knit group, a part of the Acadiana area of Louisiana greatest referred to as Cajun Nation. However final 12 months, opposition to photo voltaic farms turned so heated right here that audio system at Iberia Parish Council conferences have been dropped at tears. A whole lot of residents efficiently mounted a marketing campaign opposing a proposed utility-scale photo voltaic undertaking that might have been sited northeast of city. Opponents voiced fears that photo voltaic panels would destroy farms and poison the soil. They wore anti-solar T-shirts and staked yard indicators. They snubbed and scolded the undertaking’s supporters.
Fb
They feared fires, falling property values and panels that they mentioned would leach chemical compounds into bayous. “I’ve carried out my very own analysis. I don’t want anyone to inform me that it may well’t trigger most cancers, or that they don’t crack and issues don’t seep out,” mentioned opponent Cathrine DeGroat throughout a June 2025 council assembly.
After heated debate, the council handed an ordinance requiring utility-scale photo voltaic initiatives to be set again no less than half a mile from the closest residential property line. Photo voltaic opponents hailed it as a victory for Iberia Parish.
The ordinance seems to have successfully killed the Acadiana Photo voltaic undertaking, which might have introduced tens of millions in native tax income to Iberia Parish, a rural space that might sorely use the general public funds. The undertaking’s builders would have leased land from Andree McAnally’s household farm for a part of the undertaking, cash that might have helped pay faculty tuition and different bills in a family finances that has been tighter because the demise of her husband from COVID in 2021, McAnally mentioned. She felt the misplaced alternative extra sharply, she mentioned, because the struggle in opposition to it was not primarily based on details.
The day of the vote, in July 2025, McAnally informed parish council members that she was disillusioned in them. “I believed you have been going to name in your individual consultants and determine it out your self,” she mentioned. “Individuals are fueled by misinformation.”
McAnally herself had as soon as believed that misinformation, she informed the council. When her mother and father first agreed to place a photo voltaic farm on her household’s land, she was livid — she believed that her household was positive to get most cancers. So she dug deep into analysis. What she discovered modified her thoughts. “We’ve three generations proper there on the property. And I might not put myself or my kids in hurt’s approach,” she mentioned.
Misinformation has turn into one of many main hurdles for utility-scale photo voltaic initiatives just like the one as soon as deliberate right here. “Generally you simply have this opposition that develops from misinformation and disinformation that tends to unfold like wildfire,” mentioned Matthew Holland, power coverage outreach coordinator on the Blanco Middle, who counsels photo voltaic advocates to counter misinformation via particular details about the advantages of the initiatives. And, as photo voltaic initiatives turn into extra commonplace, some misinformation could lose its grip.
Composite picture by Dominique Hodge / Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk
For some who dwell in Iberia Parish, the standoff appears extra deep-seated. “I believe you’re seeing the animus of people that really feel like their opinion just isn’t taken critically,” mentioned Josh Trosclair, a member of the United Houma Nation and native of the small group of Lydia, simply south of New Iberia, who argued on behalf of photo voltaic in entrance of the council. After one assembly, agitated photo voltaic opponents adopted him to his automotive, he mentioned.
It appears clear that unfounded fears of photo voltaic have discovered fertile floor right here.
Fb teams and AI bots
In Acadiana, photo voltaic opposition seems to have been organized largely via a 1,200-member social-media group referred to as “NO Industrial/Utility photo voltaic in Iberia Parish” on Fb. “Panels are poisonous, contaminate the soil and water, [and] are an enormous hearth hazard,” wrote one of many group’s directors in an April 2024 put up.
The group seems to have been first created in 2024 by an area actual property agent, Angela Scott. Scott didn’t reply to a number of makes an attempt to succeed in her for this story.
Many posts categorical considerations that Iberia would not be a farming group. “There’s about 500k acres of sugarcane within the state. About 250k of them are leased for potential photo voltaic farms sooner or later,” learn a put up reshared from a gaggle for St. James Parish — which additionally noticed an anti-solar marketing campaign. “If we lose 250k acres of farmland on this state, the sugar mills will seemingly shut.”
So far, consultants undertaking that, at most, Louisiana photo voltaic would require about 87,000 acres over the following 10 years, on websites unfold out throughout the state — not simply on sugarcane fields. Solely about 1 % of Louisiana’s whole farmland can be impacted by the best estimates of photo voltaic buildout over the following decade, researchers estimate.
Posts within the group echo the hazards cited by opponents in council debates, together with a couple of new alleged hazards, together with “elevated ambient temperatures” and strategies that photo voltaic panels themselves create unstable climate, significantly tornadoes.
Many posts within the group are cross-posted from “Cease Photo voltaic-Wind-BESS-Carbon Seize Scams,” a bigger, 11,000-member Fb group, which has turn into a hub for individuals who oppose photo voltaic throughout the nation. It was created in 2020 by Indiana resident Franklin T. Wike.
A pinned put up by Wike beneath the title “David Herman” seeks individuals prepared to be educated to unfold anti-solar messages: “We’re searching for volunteers that might be excited about studying the best way to HELP run anti-Photo voltaic or anti-Photo voltaic and Wind web sites. We’re prepared to coach the people if wanted,” reads the put up. “The place will principally contain copying and pasting information hyperlinks from varied Fb Teams we run, then writing a brief introduction to the information articles.”
Wike additionally didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Some members of the community of anti-solar teams are sharing practically an identical posts of AI-generated anti-solar content material, tailor-made to completely different U.S. states.
“As soon as Louisiana is gone, there’s no strategy to get it again,” reads one AI-generated graphic, shared by person Sheila Thomson, the phrases showing on an indication with a farm and crimson barn within the distance. “Photo voltaic panels belong on roofs, not on farmland.” In a Fb group for Texans, a special person posted an identical picture tailor-made to Texas: “As soon as Texas is gone, there’s no strategy to get it again,” reads the signal. The identical message and graphic seems in different teams tailor-made to Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and elsewhere.
The accounts have been linked to a community of “AI slop machine” accounts, per an evaluation launched earlier this month by the risk intelligence firm Alethea. The community has additionally focused information facilities. Most of the accounts are anonymously run, are primarily based in Bangladesh, and seem like quickly producing a quantity of “emotionally resonant, domestically focused content material … to fabricate the looks of natural, grassroots consensus.”
Extremely charged concern divides neighbors
Iberia Parish is extra conversant in a special side of the power sector. Parish employees fabricate components for oil and fuel infrastructure, like offshore platforms and pipelines. They work for petrochemical corporations that, traditionally, are available in, extract sources, and depart behind poverty and air pollution — and loss. Trosclair’s uncle, whom he’s named after, was doing oil and fuel fieldwork when he was killed by a burst pipe in 1980 at 20 years outdated.
Fossil fuels additionally don’t present the roles they as soon as did: A report this summer time from The Information Middle, a Louisiana nonprofit, discovered that oil and fuel manufacturing and transportation within the New Orleans metro space misplaced over 6,500 jobs between 2004 and 2023, a 47 % lower.
Photo voltaic, however, will continue to grow, say analysts, as a result of the expertise has merely gotten so environment friendly and inexpensive that the low value will preserve driving demand regardless of the hostile federal coverage panorama. Scientists say that the world should transition to renewable power as rapidly as potential as world local weather change worsens. Vitality generated by photo voltaic within the U.S. not too long ago overtook coal for the primary time. Even President Trump’s allies not too long ago softened their once-hostile tone and commenced championing photo voltaic outright.
Maybe due to their fraught historical past with oil and fuel, locals may be cautious of huge new developments on agricultural land. They rallied the council final 12 months to debate the dangers of carbon seize and sequestration and weighed instituting a moratorium. For the previous a number of years, the photo voltaic trade has instilled worries, turning longtime pals into enemies.
“This can be a extremely charged, emotional concern, not only for me however for all of my neighbors who’re my pals,” McAnally informed the Council, her voice shaking. “Or — have been my pals.”
Sugarcane has lengthy been the dominant crop in Iberia Parish, the place some farms have been handed down via 4 or 5 generations. The tons of of acres of sun-drenched land additionally appealed to Recurrent Vitality, a division of Canada Photo voltaic, which chosen about 1,000 acres for his or her proposed photo voltaic undertaking, initially dubbed “Acadiana Photo voltaic.” It will have been a $175 million funding.
However amid passionate public opposition, Iberia Parish handed its first solar-related ordinance in February 2024, a moratorium on photo voltaic farms, described as a short lived measure till everlasting rules might be agreed upon. A 12 months later, in July 2025, the council handed the second ordinance, requiring that photo voltaic farms within the parish be sited no less than a half mile from the closest residential zones and occupied buildings.
On the state degree, Louisiana legislators handed their first photo voltaic restrictions final 12 months, with Home Invoice 459, which requires that photo voltaic initiatives 75 acres or bigger be set 300 ft from the closest residential property line. The legislation additionally permits native governments to set bigger setbacks.
Louisiana’s setback legislation is “one of many bigger distances that you just’ll see within the nation,” Mark Zappi, government director of the Vitality Institute of Louisiana, informed 1012 Business Report in April. The Iberia Parish ordinance, with a setback that’s greater than eight instances bigger, is among the many most restrictive within the state.
The total results of that setback are unclear: Although Recurrent Vitality has by no means formally introduced that its undertaking was canceled, there’s been no motion on the undertaking because the ordinance handed, native advocates say.
Photo voltaic panels don’t leach toxins
It’s clear that, for photo voltaic improvement in Louisiana, some of the formidable hurdles is misinformation.
Some inaccuracies are unfold amongst pals and neighbors, by mouth or by social media. Generally disinfo is unfold intentionally by politically-linked teams or digital entrepreneurs sharing AI-generated posts.
Or, as Terrence Chambers, the not too long ago retired director of the College of Louisiana-Lafayette’s Middle of Effectivity and Sustainable Vitality, testified in entrance of a Louisiana legislative committee in 2021: “I’ve not too long ago heard many considerations expressed by members of the general public, a few of that are primarily based on incorrect info, and I want to deal with a few of these considerations, in order that public coverage may be primarily based on correct info.”
In his testimony and within the 17-page written testimony that he provided the committee, Chambers set the document straight. “The photo voltaic cell is totally shielded from air and water throughout regular operation, and as such, rainwater doesn’t wash any poisonous supplies into the soil,” he mentioned. “Photo voltaic racks can simply be designed to wind speeds of 150 mph or larger,” he wrote, noting that information from 50,000 operational photo voltaic installations reveals that “photo voltaic crops arise effectively to hurricanes and hail.” Additionally, as a result of photo voltaic panels are principally fabricated from non-flammable supplies like metal, glass and aluminum, they won’t catch hearth.
A December research from Chambers and different researchers at UL-Lafayette reached an identical conclusion: “There are not any dangerous emissions or runoff from solar energy crops that might negatively have an effect on the soil.”
Some opponents’ considerations have been legitimate a long time in the past, however have now been largely addressed. As an illustration, residents expressed worries that photo voltaic panels would depress property values, turn into eyesores amid the panorama, or — just like the “orphan wells” typically left behind by fossil-fuel corporations — that the initiatives gained’t be correctly decommissioned when the initiatives finish, leaving farmland plagued by growing older photo voltaic panels.
Research have drawn differing conclusions about property values, however one other UL-Lafayette paper factors to 2 current ones, by appraisers in North Carolina and Virginia who discovered that photo voltaic initiatives haven’t any impact. Deserted panels are much less of a priority now since Louisiana legislation requires each undertaking to have a decommissioning plan, which should account for closure in case of catastrophe and be up to date each 5 years, with the prices put aside earlier than building begins. The way in which photo voltaic initiatives are designed has improved dramatically as effectively, mentioned Stephen Barnes, director of the Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Public Coverage Middle at UL-Lafayette.
At this time’s initiatives are designed to be much less seen than older ones, partly as a result of it’s turn into normal for initiatives to incorporate vegetative boundaries – tall crops and bushes used to mix photo voltaic arrays with surrounding panorama. “The fact is that most individuals that dwell in a parish that does have a photo voltaic farm don’t give it some thought ever,” mentioned Barnes. “You could possibly be driving previous one and by no means even realize it.”
Photo voltaic continues to develop, and supply wanted tax income, regardless of hurdles
Throughout Louisiana, 19 photo voltaic initiatives are working. 5 started working after Iberia handed its strict ordinance.
Rural parishes that will in any other case see little funding are reaping large tax advantages by embracing photo voltaic initiatives, researchers at UL-Lafayette say. Even when photo voltaic services are granted large tax exemptions, they’ll generate no less than 40 instances extra native property tax than farmland.
Close to Iberia, in Pointe Coupee Parish, the Oxbow photo voltaic undertaking — the most important within the state — is projected to generate $9.7 million in native tax income inside the first three years. Morehouse Parish has already introduced in about $3 million in gross sales tax income because of the Oak Ridge Photo voltaic Farm that started working in 2023, about half of which went to the College Board.
The UL-Lafayette research predicts photo voltaic will usher in about half a billion {dollars} in state taxes via 2035. And as soon as constructed, Barnes mentioned, photo voltaic initiatives “have a tendency to sit down quietly with little or no exercise, producing important, regular, predictable stream of tax income,” with out requiring the elevated public companies — like hearth safety or higher roads — that different massive improvement initiatives want, mentioned Barnes. Funding in a photo voltaic facility may also draw different companies in, or immediate funding in bettering the native electrical grid — what Barnes calls “broader spillover financial advantages.”
“There might be continued growth,” mentioned Monika Gerhart, government director of Gulf States Renewable Vitality Industries Affiliation. “The query is whether or not these initiatives might be over the state traces in Texas or Arkansas or Mississippi, or whether or not Louisiana goes to have the ability to avail itself of that income.”
Regardless of its opposition, Iberia Parish, too, has begun to see spillover advantages from investments in photo voltaic power.
Final 12 months, an organization referred to as First Photo voltaic opened a $1 billion solar-panel manufacturing facility in Iberia Parish. It is going to manufacture 3.5 gigawatts of photo voltaic panels yearly and is the most important funding in Iberia Parish historical past.
The plant now employs tons of of locals.
This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an impartial reporting community primarily based on the College of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with main funding from the Walton Household Basis.