Green is the color: Sundrop Fuels, a Colorado-based startup, announced plans in 2011 to build the first production facility of its vehicle-ready “green gasoline” in the Alexandria area. Now, as The (Alexandria) Town Talk reports, the firm is purchasing the vacant Cowboy Town, a former entertainment venue off Interstate 49 for $2.5 million. The $450 million plant will sit on more than 1,200 acres that surround the Cowboy Town property. More details are available in the full story here.
Turning it over: The sale of the former General Motors assembly plant in Shreveport—to be officially announced at noon today—eventually could mean employment levels at the facility last seen when the automaker’s production there was at its highest point, the Shreveport Times reports. The new tenant, yet to be named publicly, expects to bring 1,500 jobs to the area by the end of the second quarter and employ 3,000 people within three or four years, a mark near GM’s peak at the facility in 1984. At the apex of its production, in 1984, the 3.17 million-square-foot facility kept its employees working in three shifts around the clock. The full story is here.
Crumbling and tumbling: At least two dozen cemeteries across southeast Louisiana—in parishes including Jefferson, Lafourche, Terrebonne and Plaquemines—are rapidly sinking or washing away because of erosion and subsidence accelerated by the tropical punch of storms such as Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike, Lee and Isaac. Some have more than 300 gravesites. Officials say not much can be done to save the cemeteries or the sinking communities that surround them, though some towns have tried pouring concrete slabs to build up the burial sites and hold headstones in place. The Associated Press has the full feature story here.
Today’s poll question: Who do you believe is most at fault in the contract dispute between WAFB and Cox Communications?
