Louisiana
Lawmakers advance bill to intervene in land dispute for wealthy drug distributor • Louisiana Illuminator
State lawmakers advanced a bill Tuesday that intervenes in a land dispute and threatens to block construction of an interstate power line at the behest of a small group of north Louisiana landowners, including the wealthy owner of a large pharmaceutical company that made billions during the opioid crisis.
Paul Dickson Sr. is a principal owner and former board chairman of the Shreveport-based Morris & Dickson Co., one of the largest wholesale pharmaceutical distributors in the nation. It was the target of a federal investigation that revealed one of its own agents was secretly negotiating with the company to preserve its federal license.
Senate Bill 108, sponsored by Sen. Alan Seabaugh, R-Shreveport, stands to benefit Dickson in his dispute with a Texas power company. It cleared the House Committee on Civil Law and Procedure without objection and will head to the House floor for consideration.
The bill is tailored in ways that would effectively prohibit a single business from exercising its expropriation rights, which allow governments and certain companies to force the sale of private land for public use. It’s typically used for development of a project that serves a public need, such as a new highway or, as in this case, a power line. In exchange, the owner must be paid, at minimum, fair market value for their land.
Proponents of Seabaugh’s measure tout it as a way to protect landowners from businesses and projects that don’t benefit the people of Louisiana.
“We’re here because of one project,” Seabaugh told the committee.
The project Seabaugh targets — Pattern Energy’s Southern Spirit Transmission line — would deliver electricity to the regional power grid that covers most of the state.
The Southern Spirit Transmission project is a 320-mile line that will begin at a power station in DeSoto Parish and deliver wind power from the Texas grid to a power station in Choctaw County, Mississippi, crossing through North Louisiana. Onshore wind has been the cheapest source of electricity for the past several years in the United States and around the world, according to a study by the financial firm Lazard.
Although the line would end in Mississippi, it would feed electricity into Louisiana by way of the regional Midcontinent Independent System Operator grid. The MISO grid covers most of Louisiana, and Mississippi and spans into a large swath of the Midwest and into Manitoba, Canada.
Dickson told the committee Seabaugh’s bill won’t kill Pattern Energy’s project but will merely give the landowners a better advantage in their negotiations.
“It needs to be negotiated in the private sector,” Dickson said. “It will get done well… Right now, the landowner’s hands are tied behind his back. Senate Bill 108 gives the landowner the ability to negotiate by removing the threat of expropriation.”
Pattern Energy has claimed the project will bring economic development to towns and parishes in North Louisiana, but Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell, D-Bossier City, said he hasn’t heard from any of those local officials. Campbell is against the Pattern transmission project but has not taken a position on Seabaugh’s bill.
“I’m troubled by the way they do business,” Campbell said in a phone interview, referring to Pattern Energy. He said it has been difficult to get straight answers from the company.
Seabaugh told the committee the power line would not deliver “one watt of electricity” to Louisiana and that the company would claim lucrative state tax incentives such as the Industrial Tax Exemption Program (ITEP). When it was his turn to testify, Pattern Energy executive Adam Renz failed to give concise answers in response to Seabaugh’s accusations, neither of which were accurate.
Instead, Renz gave lengthy, detailed explanations on the concepts of inter-regional interconnection, the history of the Southern Spirit project and the geography of the MISO grid. His long discourse continued even after lawmakers specifically pointed it out, asking for shorter answers.
Louisiana legislation could jeopardize flow of power from Texas
When Renz finally did say electricity would indeed flow to Louisiana and that “we’re not using ITEP — you have my word,” half of the committee members had long ago left the room.
Pattern Energy land director Shannon Gwen and attorney Scott Keaty were more concise in their testimony. Gwen explained how the company has nearly acquired 60% of the land needed for the project and that it begins land negotiations with offers of at least 120% of market value. Keaty said he had deals worked out with the two landowners until Seabaugh filed his bill.
“We have not taken anybody’s property,” Keaty said. “We have not initiated any expropriation proceedings.”
The company has rerouted the transmission project 11 times at the request of one landowner who is still not satisfied, he said.
Even if Pattern Energy were to initiate expropriation proceedings for the land, it would have to do so through lawsuits filed in the landowner’s parish and would have to show the judge why the project is in the best interest of the public. Gwen said the company also includes value for any timber on the land and even pays the landowner’s legal fees if they hire an attorney to negotiate.
Many others testified against Seabaugh’s bill, including Public Service Commissioners Mike Francis, R-Crowley, and Davanté Lewis, D-Baton Rouge.
Lewis said the bill is a big solution for what is a small contested issue. He said it will have “significant ramifications” for improving Louisiana’s grid and signal to other companies that Louisiana will change the rules on them at the finish line.
The Louisiana-based utility Southwestern Electric Power Cooperative (SWEPCO) currently imports cheap electricity from wind turbines in Oklahoma — in the same way Louisiana would benefit from the Southern Spirit line — through the MISO grid, Lewis said.
“If Oklahoma passed this same law, it would undoubtedly raise the rates for people in Louisiana,” Lewis said.
At the end of Tuesday’s hearing, the committee members who had left the room finally returned, having missed testimony given in support of the project. Even those lawmakers who stayed and voiced some sympathy to Pattern Energy’s position were confronted with one final question from Speaker Pro Tempore Rep. Mike Johnson, R-Pineville, who had returned to his chair just before the bill’s fate was decided.
“Sen. Seabaugh, I have just one question, and I don’t think I heard it in your testimony earlier: Do you know if the governor supports or opposes your bill?” Johnson said.
Seabaugh replied that Gov. Jeff Landry “quietly supports it” but admitted he doesn’t “quite know what that means.”
“If he opposed it, he wouldn’t likely be quiet, would he?” Johnson asked.
“I think that’s probably correct,” Seabaugh said.
When committee chairman Rep. Nicholas Muscarello, R-Hammond, asked if anyone objected to moving the bill favorably to the floor, the lawmakers remained silent.
Paul Dickson Sr., who testified at Tuesday’s committee hearing, is a principal owner and former board chairman of the Shreveport-based Morris & Dickson Co., one of the largest wholesale pharmaceutical distributors in the nation and, according to Dickson, the second oldest company in Louisiana. “I ran a company that currently does $5.5 billion a year in sales,” Dickson told lawmakers. “That’s bigger than Pattern [Energy]. I know who makes decisions in companies, and the people who will decide whether or not this power line goes through Louisiana after this bill is passed will make an economic business decision.”
Dickson was president of Morris & Dickson when it mishandled more than 12,000 suspicious large orders of the highly addictive drugs oxycodone and hydrocodone during the height of the nation’s opioid crisis, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
Last year, the Associated Press reported on secretive negotiations between Dickson and top DEA officials. The DEA was investigating Morris & Dickson’s distribution of opioids and filed formal charges against the company in 2018 for violating the Controlled Substances Act.
Dickson had met with a DEA official, Louis Milione, on at least two occasions beginning in 2016 to negotiate a way for the company to stave off punishment and keep its distributor’s license. That following year, Milione left the DEA and received a $3 million consulting contract from Morris & Dickson.
Dickson’s company continued operating under its license for over four years after a judge recommended it be revoked in 2019. The DEA’s decision to stall on the judge’s ruling was highly unusual, according to officials quoted in the AP story. DEA Administrator Anne Milgram, a Biden appointee, rehired that same agent in 2021 as her top deputy and continued to stall on the judge’s ruling until the situation made national headlines last year. Milgram revoked the company’s license in May 2023 right after the AP reached out to her for comment on the matter.
The company didn’t stay in trouble for long. In February, the DEA announced it had negotiated a settlement with Morris & Dickson in which the company admitted all wrongdoing, promised not to break the law again and paid a $19 million penalty. In return, Morris & Dickson got its DEA license back.
Dickson also owns Sports South, one of the region’s largest firearm distributors. He is also a major Republican donor, giving $24,999 to Seabaugh and more than $40,000 to Gov. Jeff Landry over the past several years. Landry’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment on this story.
Dickson has also donated smaller amounts totaling $2,000, to Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell, D-Bossier City, who opposes the Pattern Energy transmission line project Dickson wants to stop, but he hasn’t taken a position on Seabaugh’s bill.
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Volunteers from five Louisiana regions completed beautification projects as part of the Church’s annual Youth Conference in Lafayette
Lafayette man makes Louisiana mountaineering history
Dr. Linus Wilson became the first known Louisianan to reach all 50 state high points, summiting Mount McKinley solo.
More than 260 youth and adult volunteers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spent Thursday morning giving back to one of Lafayette’s most popular public spaces.
On July 9, the volunteers completed the project at Moncus Park. The volunteers, who were in Lafayette for the Church’s annual Youth Conference at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, traveled from stakes in Monroe, Alexandria, Baton Rouge, Denham Springs and Slidell to participate in the two-hour service project, according to a news release.
Working across the park, the group helped improve the 100-acre community destination, which serves as a gathering place for recreation, events and outdoor activities throughout the year.
The project also highlighted the role volunteers play in helping maintain public spaces that thousands of Lafayette residents enjoy.
The service project was part of the Church’s annual Youth Conference, which combines faith-centered learning with opportunities for community service.
“As followers of Christ, we believe one of the most meaningful ways to show our love for God is by serving our neighbors,” Karl Winegar, Stake President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over the Lafayette and Baton Rouge areas, said. “Strong communities are built when people care for one another, and service gives these young people an opportunity to put their faith into action.”
Winegar added that, as they work alongside the community, a bigger purpose is being taught for the volunteers.
“They are learning that even simple acts of kindness can strengthen relationships, meet needs, and make a lasting difference in the lives of others,” Winegar said.
Aaron Gonsoulin is the General Assignment/Trending Reporter for The Daily Advertiser. Contact him at AGonsoulin@theadvertiser.com.
BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana Illuminator) – Hundreds of meticulously labeled vials filled with mosquitos line colorful plastic trays inside a freezer at the Louisiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory in Baton Rouge.
Each vial sitting atop the frosty shelves, aligned in rows like egg cartons on a grocery store shelf, contains up to a hundred mosquitoes sent to the lab from across the state. Scientists can extract information hidden within the mosquitos’ DNA to help stop the spread of diseases to humans and keep infections at bay.
“Look at your electric bill,” said Alma Roy, director of the lab housed at Louisiana State University. When it costs more to keep your home comfortably cool, that’s when the airborne pests — and the viruses they carry — flourish and circulate.
“When it’s wet and hot, the mosquito is out there reproducing and biting,” Roy said.
The spindly black bugs aren’t picky about what they bite, picking up diseases like West Nile virus from animals like birds and passing them on to humans.
The Louisiana Arbovirus Surveillance Program helps health professionals, entomologists and local mosquito control districts stay apprised on where a disease crops up.
Mosquito control organizations at the parish level across the state capture mosquitoes and pack them into vials. The vials are stuffed into small white boxes and shipped weekly to the lab in Baton Rouge. Around 30 of Louisiana’s 64 parishes participate in the voluntary surveillance program every year, according to the Louisiana Department of Health.
Each year the lab tests 25,000 vials of mosquitos, which are called pools in the lab. In total, the tests involve up to 2.5 million individual insects, but it can’t be done one mosquito at a time.
“We take the whole pool and puree them,” Roy said.
Lab technician Tarra Hardy adds a mixing solution and a copper ball to mash up the pool before a machine blends the sample.
The result resembles a small mosquito smoothie, which is placed into a machine that analyzes the contents and shows its findings on a computer screen. Colorful spikes on a graph show when a sample tests positive for West Nile, eastern equine encephalitis or St. Louis encephalitis — the most common diseases the lab detects.
Hardy said it only takes around 48 hours for the lab to test a sample, so mosquito control personnel can get information on where a disease is spreading fast enough to contain it.
Sarah Michaels, a clinical associate professor with Tulane University’s Department of Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease, works as a medical entomologist who focuses on insects that carry diseases passed by arthropods, known by scientists as arboviruses. This includes mosquitos, ticks and flies that can be vectors for disease.
The ability of the testing lab in Baton Rouge to turn around its test results quickly allows local mosquito abatement efforts to get out in front of mosquito-borne diseases before they spread, Michaels said. With the geographic location of a positive test result pinpointed, abatement crews can go on the offensive, and the public can take preventative measures.
“That’s kind of why it’s important for us to know if the virus is circulating locally, so we can give people information so they can take precautions to protect themselves against mosquito bites,” she said.
Spraying insecticide by truck, plane or helicopter kills the adult mosquitoes, and Michaels said larvicide is applied in areas with standing water, to halt their development. This typically uses naturally occurring bacteria only harmful to developing mosquito eggs.
The majority of West Nile cases reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control are between June and October, with steep drop offs when cooler temperatures curb mosquito breeding.
But Michaels described how, with summertime temperatures starting sooner and lasting later in the year and frequent storms bringing in standing water perfect for mosquitoes to live and reproduce in, keeping a watchful eye is more important than ever.
“Mosquito season, which is getting longer and longer here, is kind of near the peak of it right now, June through September,” she said. “Surveillance really zeroes in on where and when it’s happening, and then hopefully can suppress those mosquito populations before that becomes widespread and puts more people at risk.”
West Nile was first detected in the United States in Queens, York, in the late 1990s and spread around the country. The virus was first detected in Louisiana in August 2001 when an infected crow in Kenner tested positive. That fall, it showed up in horses from three coastal parishes, along with Louisiana’s first human West Nile case.
Case numbers climbed to their highest point nationally in 2003 with about 9,800, and the count has remained relatively stable below 3,000 cases over the past 10 years.
“It can be mild and transient, but it can be really severe as well,” Michaels said
West Nile virus is relatively uncommon, affecting less than 5,000 people in the United States in a typical year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. By comparison, the most prominent flu strain in 2024-25 infected more than 51 million people, the CDC reported.
While most cases of West Nile don’t produce any symptoms, those that do usually cause mild, flu-like reactions like fever and muscle aches. Symptoms can last anywhere from days to weeks.
If the virus enters the central nervous system, it can result in complications such as brain swelling and paralysis. Less than 1% of people infected develop symptoms this severe, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, but some cases can require hospitalization or even result in death.
Louisiana recorded four West Nile-related deaths last year and three in 2024. No human infections have been reported this year as of early July.
Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com. Follow Louisiana Illuminator on Facebook and X.
Copyright 2026 Louisiana Illuminator. All rights reserved.
NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – Louisiana health officials are tracking a rise in cases of cyclosporiasis, a stomach illness caused by a parasite that can be found on contaminated food or in contaminated water.
The Louisiana Department of Health has confirmed 23 cases of Cyclospora infection in the state, according to information obtained by Louisiana Illuminator. One person has been hospitalized, and no deaths have been reported in Louisiana.
The number is slightly above Louisiana’s recent average. LDH said the state has averaged 20 reported cases over the same time period during the past five years.
“Because many of these cases are still under investigation, this number is preliminary and subject to change,” an LDH representative said.
Cyclospora is a microscopic parasite that causes an intestinal illness called cyclosporiasis. The CDC says people can get sick after eating food or drinking water contaminated with the parasite.
The illness is often associated with fresh produce. Past outbreaks in the United States have been linked to items such as leafy greens, herbs and berries.
Symptoms usually begin about a week after a person eats or drinks something contaminated, though the CDC says symptoms can appear anywhere from two days to two weeks or more after infection.
The most common symptom is watery diarrhea, sometimes with frequent and explosive bowel movements. Other symptoms can include stomach cramps, bloating, nausea, fatigue, loss of appetite and low-grade fever.
If left untreated, the illness can last from a few days to more than a month. Symptoms can also go away and then return.
Health officials say cyclosporiasis is not likely to spread directly from one person to another. The CDC says Cyclospora must spend at least one to two weeks in the environment after passing in a bowel movement before it becomes infectious.
Cases typically rise during warmer months. The CDC considers May 1 through Aug. 31 the yearly cyclosporiasis season.
Louisiana is not the only state tracking cases. The CDC said in its June 16 update that it had received reports of 145 domestically acquired cases in 17 states, with 20 hospitalizations and no deaths. Federal officials said there was no evidence at that time of one single multistate outbreak linking all cases, but several clusters remained under investigation.
Since that update, some states have reported larger increases. Michigan has reported one of the largest outbreaks in the country, with over 700 cases.
Federal and state health officials have not identified a clear source for the current illnesses.
The CDC says people with symptoms should contact a health care provider. Testing for Cyclospora may require a specific lab test that is not always part of routine stool testing.
Health officials recommend washing hands before handling food, rinsing fresh produce under running water and cooking vegetables when possible. Washing produce can reduce the risk, though it may not remove all Cyclospora from contaminated food.
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