Louisiana

Louisiana wants to give away Highway 90 bridges to be repurposed

Published

2 years ago

August 17, 2024

Louisiana wants to give away Highway 90 bridges to be repurposed

PEARLINGTON, Ms. (WVUE) – Residents in a small Mississippi community believe their town is dying a slow death as a major artery connecting Louisiana and Mississippi remains closed for more than two years, and the state in charge of the closed road says it’s seeking potential takers for historic yet unnavigable bridges.

Highway 90, which serves as an eastbound exit from New Orleans to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, has been shuttered since May 2022 when inspections found four bridges to be structurally unsafe for drivers.

Pearlington, Mississippi sits on the edge of the state line, along the thoroughfare where cars used to pass from the other side of the water on a daily basis.

“Pearlington is a small town of about 1,000 families, and it is reducing every day,” said Michael Mavenyengwa, owner of the Pearlington Rocket Express.

His business used to function as a gas station and convenience store, but he said he hasn’t been able to afford to keep the pumps running.

“Due to that closure, we have experienced a major loss of business. We have lost maybe 50 to 75 percent of our business,” Mavenyengwa said. “The income we are having, the problems we are having, cannot sustain maintaining the pumps and paying all the bills we need to pay.”

“My business is dying.”

He said Pearlington has many older residents who would often take 90 to the hospital in Slidell.

When accidents on I-10 cause backups or closures of the highway, there is no other way to reach Louisiana or vice versa without traveling to Picayune, Mississippi.

“We feel like we are Americans like everybody else and pay taxes, and we are here trying to survive. It’s where we want to live,” Mavenyengwa said. “We need help here. Because 5 years, 10 years or 2028, maybe this town will be extinct.”

Louisiana is in charge of the bridges, and state and local leaders have often called for an expedited replacement.

But the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) said the replacement would cost over $300 million, and the state currently has a backlog of road repairs and infrastructure upgrades totaling more than $18 billion.

The state said it is seeking proposals for the removal of four bridges, all built in the 1930s: West Pearl River Bridge, West Middle Pearl River Bridge, Middle Pearl River Bridge, and East Middle Pearl River Bridge.

Each would cost approximately $520,000 to demolish, which the state will eventually have to do if an entity can’t be found to remove and repurpose the bridges.

“We need to get these bridges removed from our waterways,” said Daniel Gitlin with DOTD. “If they’re not going to be fixed, if they can’t be reconditioned, we cannot just leave them out there in the water, these are protected environmental waters.”

Gitlin said DOTD is currently in the environmental studies phase of the bridge replacement project.

Latest estimates put the replacement of the bridges sometime in 2028, but it’s unclear whether the state remains on that timeline still.

“This may be an opportunity for local governments, maybe St. Tammany, or some of the cities down there, to say, ‘Hey, we would like to relocate this to a public park,’” Gitlin said. “The state will not only give the bridges away, but they will pay for the cost of basically what it would take.”

MORE

DOTD closes multiple bridges in the New Orleans region

Pearl River bridge closures choking traffic, businesses east of New Orleans

For Pearlington residents, a fix may be awhile away. Gitlin said patch repairs to the bridges, which are more than 90 years old, would only extend their lifespan by a year or two.

Marine traffic has to be considered in the replacement, and so the ideal scenario would be one long spanning bridge over the water, he said.

But it comes down to securing the funding to do so.

“When you’re talking about state funding and you’re talking about groups like the transportation committees in Baton Rouge, they’re going to be looking at the long-term effect of how we spend our money and what we can do for the community,” Gitlin said.

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Related Topics:90 bridge closures DOTD environment Featured giving away highway Hwy LA Louisiana remove replacement repurpose

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Louisiana

Meta orders 10 gas-fired power plants for its Hyperion AI campus in rural Louisiana—more than triple the initial plans | Fortune

Published

1 hour ago

March 27, 2026

Press Room

Meta orders 10 gas-fired power plants for its Hyperion AI campus in rural Louisiana—more than triple the initial plans | Fortune

Meta will pay for a total of 10 gas-fired power plants—enough to power more than 5 million homes—to electrify its rapidly expanding plans for its massive AI data center complex in northeastern Louisiana, dubbed Hyperion.

Meta’s agreement with New Orleans–based Entergy, announced March 27, is to build and finance seven new power plants in Louisiana. That comes on top of plans approved last year to build three gas power plants for the sprawling AI hub. The 10 power plants with 7.5 gigawatts of capacity would represent a more than 30% increase to Louisiana’s entire grid capacity, not even counting up to 2.5 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity, including battery storage, that Meta also agreed to help fund.

Meta initially announced plans for a $10 billion investment in December 2024 for a 2,250-acre data center campus in northeastern Louisiana in rural Richland Parish. But Meta recently, and quietly, acquired an additional 1,400 acres, as Fortune reported in February. In October 2025, Meta entered a joint venture with funds managed by Blue Owl Capital to finance, build, and operate the Hyperion campus with up to $27 billion in total development costs, seemingly ensuring the mega-campus will serve as a long-term, multiphase AI hub.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said Hyperion would cover a “significant part of the footprint of Manhattan.”

“Our Richland Parish data center serves as a symbol of the ambition and scale of next-generation AI infrastructure,” said Rachel Peterson, Meta vice president for data centers, in a statement. “We are building foundations for the future of AI innovation right here in the United States. We’ve been working closely with Entergy since early on-site planning to ensure our power needs are met and, importantly, so that Entergy’s other consumers aren’t paying our costs.”

The Louisiana Public Service Commission will still need to approve the projects. The previous three power plants received regulatory authorization last year.

Entergy’s stock jumped 7% on March 27, lifting its market cap to a new record high of about $50 billion. The stock has risen almost 125% in two years.

Entergy is emphasizing that Meta is paying for the projects, rather than shifting the costs to other ratepayers. Entergy argues that the deals will save Louisiana taxpayers billions of dollars over several years.

The 10 power plants are estimated to cost nearly $11 billion. Critics contend ratepayers could be stuck with the bill after 15 years, which is the length of the contractual terms, if Meta no longer requires so much power after that span.

“This agreement reflects what’s possible when strong partners align around long-term growth and value,” said Phillip May, president and CEO of Entergy Louisiana, in a statement. “Working with our customers, regulators, and state leaders, we are making targeted investments that strengthen reliability, support economic development, and deliver meaningful benefits to customers—all while keeping energy rates affordable.”

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Louisiana

Guest Column: Louisiana can only win with a stronger workforce

Published

13 hours ago

March 27, 2026

Press Room

Guest Column: Louisiana can only win with a stronger workforce

Louisiana’s recent tax reforms have improved the state’s competitiveness, but lasting economic growth will stall without a stronger workforce. That is why enacting policies to help businesses meet their workforce needs must start now.

Across industries, employers continue to report difficulty finding workers with the skills required for their jobs. At the same time, many Louisianans struggle to connect with opportunities that offer good-paying jobs and long-term career paths.

This disconnect is the reason Public Affairs Research Council and Leaders for a Better Louisiana are joining forces to call for the state’s renewed and sustained focus on workforce development, particularly in the ongoing legislative session.

This is not simply a labor shortage. It is a persistent mismatch between the needs of businesses and the preparation, awareness and mobility of our workforce.

If Louisiana wants to fully capitalize on its economic reforms, infrastructure investments and emerging industries, we must strengthen the systems that connect education and training to the needs of employers.

The challenge is visible in the data.

Steven Procopio.jpg — Steven Procopio, president of Public Affairs Research Council, has been with the organization for 10 years.
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Louisiana’s labor force participation rate hovers around 58% — 43rd worst among states and several points below the national average. That gap represents over 100,000 working-age adults who are neither working nor actively seeking work. Even modest improvements would translate into significant gains for families, businesses and the state’s economy.

At the same time, the state reports roughly 124,000 jobs open statewide, compared with about 88,000 individuals actively seeking employment. This imbalance reflects issues involving workforce solutions for employers, skills relevance and alignment in education and the ability of individuals to navigate from education or training into the available jobs.

These pressures are unfolding at a pivotal moment for Louisiana’s economy.

The state has seen significant jobs announcements and capital investment in recent years across manufacturing, energy, technology and other sectors. While these projects create opportunity, these announcements alone do not guarantee broad-based prosperity.

Without a workforce prepared at the necessary scale with the right skills or employers able to address their talent shortages, Louisiana risks constraining growth and limiting the benefits of that investment.

This is not a failure of workers or employers: It is a systems challenge.

Louisiana’s workforce development, education and economic development efforts often don’t operate in alignment. Students struggle to understand how academic choices connect to careers. Employers struggle to find training partners responsive to rapidly changing skill needs. Workforce programs are difficult to navigate, fragmented across agencies and inconsistent in their coordination.

Improving outcomes requires strengthening these connections. Better career counseling can help students make informed decisions about education and training pathways. Clearer workforce signals can help institutions align programs with high-demand fields. Stronger partnerships among business, higher education and workforce agencies can accelerate the transition from classroom to career.

Louisiana already has examples of progress to build upon.

The M.J. Foster Promise Program is funding working-age adults to earn credentials in high-demand fields. Industry partnerships, apprenticeships and technical training programs are expanding in key sectors. Regional collaborations are demonstrating how employers and educators can work together to meet workforce needs. These efforts show that targeted investments and intentional alignment can produce real results.

But isolated successes are not enough. Louisiana must scale what works and remove barriers that limit participation.

That means simplifying how individuals access education and training, strengthening coordination across agencies and institutions, improving transparency around outcomes and ensuring accountability for results. Workforce development should function as an integrated strategy, not a collection of disconnected programs.

The stakes extend beyond economic development. Workforce policy is also economic mobility policy. When Louisianans can access training that leads to stable, well-paying careers, families benefit. Communities benefit. Employers benefit. The state benefits.

Conversely, when individuals remain disconnected from opportunity, the consequences are felt in lower incomes, reduced growth and widening inequality.

Louisiana has meaningful economic opportunity ahead. The question is whether the state can connect its people to that growth at the scale required. Workforce development is the bridge between economic development and shared prosperity for Louisiana families. We believe that workforce reform is one of the urgent issues Louisiana leaders must address during the 2026 legislative session.

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Louisiana

ULM Pelican Cup 2026: Student entrepreneurs win $140,000 in Louisiana’s premier startup competition

Published

1 day ago

March 26, 2026

Press Room

ULM Pelican Cup 2026: Student entrepreneurs win 0,000 in Louisiana’s premier startup competition

MONROE, La. (KNOE) – Months of planning came down to 90 seconds. For one Louisiana State University Shreveport team, that pitch was worth $50,000.

RX Connect, a prescription navigation app developed by LSUS graduate students, took first place in the graduate division of the 2026 ULM Pelican Cup competition. The team also won the elevator pitch competition, earning an additional $2,000.

Team leader Kurtis Alton said the journey tested his commitment. He works full-time, attends school and has a family.

“Questioning myself whether it’s worth putting in all the effort,” Alton said. “This isn’t the first competition, but I learned from what I didn’t gain prior so I can implement it here to get better. I didn’t give up.”

RX Connect addresses a problem in the healthcare system: what happens when a prescription can’t be filled. The app helps patients navigate the system to find solutions.

Team member Wendy Alton said there were moments of doubt during development, but she believed in the vision.

“There were moments that I told myself, where are we going?” she said. “But I know that in my heart, he had the passion, he had the drive. And I just believed that this was going to be something.”

Graduate division winners

The Pelican Cup competition is open to students from any major at any Louisiana university. Faculty advisor Mike McDaniel said the winning proposal will change lives beyond the team.

“Where they have taken this idea and then turned it into this winning proposal that will change lives, not only theirs, but all of the patients in our healthcare system that need this help immensely,” McDaniel said.

First Place – $50,000

RX Connect (Louisiana State University Shreveport)Team Leader: Kurtis Alton Team Members: Jyotish Batra, Wendy Alton Advisor: Mike McDaniel Also won Elevator Pitch Winner – $2,000

Second Place – $25,000

Hustlr (University of Louisiana Monroe)Team Leader: Dylan Hayden Team Members: Chase Gunn, Nokia Masengu Advisors: Joyce Zhou

Third Place – $10,000

Bio-Pod (University of Louisiana Lafayette)Team Leader: Natasha Syed Team Members: Matthew Hasling, Mansu Acharya Advisor: Jonathan Shirley

First, second and third place faculty advisors receive $3,000.

Undergraduate division winners

Social Bridge AI, a University of Louisiana Monroe team, won $25,000 in the undergraduate division. The platform uses artificial intelligence to help people with autism practice communication and social skills through roleplay.

Team leader Anjan Mandal said the company will stay rooted in Louisiana.

“I’m glad that we have started this company from Louisiana and we’re going to impact the millions and millions of lives in the whole United States, but we’ll start that from Louisiana,” Mandal said. “We win that money. We’re going to put that money in our company and that company will be only from Louisiana.”

First Place – $25,000

Social Bridge AI (University of Louisiana Monroe)Team Leader: Anjan Mandal Team Members: Roshani Pathak, Pradeep PoudelAdvisors: Prasanthi Sreekumari

Second Place – $15,000

Xplify (University of Louisiana Monroe)Team Leader: Damir Filaretov Team Members: Viktor Motov, Connor Pauley, Katie McCullars Advisor: Veronika Humphries Also won Elevator Pitch Winner – $2,000

Third Place – $10,000

Sensory Sync (University of New Orleans)Team Leader: Pranish GhimireTeam Members: Simant Singh, Krish Neupane Advisor: Shafin Khan

First, second and third place faculty advisors receive $3,000.

Competition organizers said they have seen teams develop from classroom concepts into businesses with millions of dollars in investment.

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