Morehouse Parish solar farm brings roughly $3 million sales tax revenue. New solar farm underway. - KTVE - myarklamiss.com

Morehouse Parish solar farm brings roughly $3 million sales tax revenue. New solar farm underway.

OAK RIDGE, La ( KTVE/KARD) — Officials with the Morehouse Parish Economic Development Corporation say the recent completion of the Oak Ridge Solar Farm generated roughly $3 million in total sales tax revenue during its construction period from December 2022 to December 2023.

This multimillion-dollar project not only makes an impact on Morehouse Parish, but other parishes throughout Northeast Louisiana. From hotels to grocery stores, and local businesses. Mayor of Oak Ridge, Malcolm Williams says this was very beneficial for local farmers.

“The farmers are going to make more money off of this land this way than they would farming. They won’t have to do anything.”

The 1,400 acres of land is privately owned. The estimated investment in the project was $245 million, purchased by Amazon as its first renewable energy project. It provided over 325 jobs during peak construction.

“They asked if there was anything that we needed because they knew that the town was going to be put out a little bit by all these constructions. They had 415 construction workers there at one time,” Williams explained.

Kay King with the Morehouse Parish Economic Development Corporation said almost half of the sales tax revenue went to the Morehouse Parish School Board. Other amounts went to the police jury and law enforcement. Williams says they received a generous donation for a brand-new generator.

“We had to put a generator in for our water system here. That was a state law that it changed. So, they donated $10,000 to put on that project, as goodwill. The generator was almost $30,000 for the whole setup. In a little town like ours, that money is hard to come by. We don’t have real business here that generates any tax revenue.”

King said the parish lost nearly $3 million in local taxes after the International Paper Mill shut down.

She said their goal is to rebuild the parish through these projects. She said the tax benefit from the solar project is expected to be 55 to 60 times more off of the land. This will allow the parish to support services to citizens and purchase asphalt to fill in potholes throughout the parish, among other projects.

In addition to the Oak Ridge Solar farm, Morehouse Parish officials confirmed the current construction of the new solar farm, Bayou Galion.

Microsoft Corporation will purchase 100 percent of the energy and renewable energy credits produced by Bayou Galion Solar to support its goal to be carbon negative by 2030.

The $160 million project is expected to be operational by fall 2024.