On solar energy, a top-down push meets bottom-up doubts

Sugar cane has always grown at the intersection of Highways 3127 and 20 in St. James Parish. Even as subdivisions gradually eat away row after neat row of pasture, the crop has survived on rural Vacherie’s landscape as an unofficial timekeeper, marking the seasons across the unincorporated community’s more than 300-year modern history.

But alongside new stalks in this area, just west of New Orleans, is a mounting conflict over a newer and fast-growing part of America’s rural economy: renewable energy development.

Last year, the New York-based hedge fund D.E. Shaw Group’s renewable energy investments arm introduced a proposal to construct a large-scale solar installation on the sugar cane acreage near the intersection. The St. James Parish planning commission’s rejection of the proposal in