At first blush, a plan to give 140,000 acres of to Grant Parish’s government and school board is ridiculous. Farcical, even.
The idea that the leaders of Grant, with roughly 22,000 residents, are in any way equipped to handle such a transfer, much less maintain and operate more than 200 square miles of forest, beggars belief.
Nonetheless, the idea found its way into a draft of federal legislation proposed by U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, at least until the locals weighed in.
Grant Parish manager Sissy Pace told this newspaper’s Alex Lubben that the parish simply “does not have the resources to even begin to maintain the forest.” Kisatchie may appear serene, but national forests require substantial management, she noted.
So it’s good that, after soliciting some public feedback on a draft of the proposal — including from the local officials to whom the massive tract would have been bestowed — Cassidy dropped it from his legislation in what he called an example of listening to local feedback.
The idea didn’t originate in the hallowed halls of the U.S. Senate, however. Cassidy’s draft was done at the behest of Grant Parish resident Charles Carpenter, who blames federal rules for holding Grant Parish back.
Per what Carpenter told Lubben, his proposal on Kisatchie was aimed at preserving the forest while also benefiting the local entities.
Some of what is now national forest, he argued, could be used for solar power that could help generate revenue. Local ownership could also be used for other revenue-generating uses, he said, though he noted he did not want drilling, carbon capture or a data center.
Instead, Carpenter envisioned something more established.
“I’m trying to save the forest for the future by reimagining it as McDonald’s,” he told Lubben.
The image should draw a (golden) arched eyebrow or two, but it risks distracting from the issues Carpenter was trying to address and that Cassidy put in his draft. Those are real and not limited to Grant. They hit any parish with a large federal installation, even harder in rural ones.
The problem boils down to this: Land owned by the federal government is essentially out of commerce and not subject to local property taxes, even when communities provide some local services, such as law enforcement, as Grant does in Kisatchie. The feds do provide a small payment, but it is a pittance.
Grant Parish is about 665 square miles, or 425,000 acres. The Kisatchie segment in the parish is about 140,000 acres, or 218 square miles. That means that roughly one-third of the parish is mostly off limits for economic activity that benefits the parish. Add in the federal prison complex in Pollock and even more land is off the table.
That makes it even harder than it normally is to lure major economic development or increase revenue. Carpenter’s plan, while a bit outlandish and rightly rejected by locals, is at least an attempt to resolve this.
It’s worth mentioning that his proposal also noted that federal inmates are counted in the U.S. Census, which affects Grant in such a way that certain federal awards are off the table. Cassidy did file legislation to fix that problem, and rightly so.
All of these are legitimate problems that deserve serious policy solutions. Those solutions, however, do not include handing over one of Louisiana’s natural jewels to the local police jury.
Not even special sauce could make that idea palatable.