Richland Parish, Louisiana
Meta Hyperion. What it’s like to work here, what it costs, and the tax trap nobody mentions on the phone.
Seventy-five hundred workers are moving into a parish of twenty thousand
Richland Parish has 20,043 people, almost all of them rural. Meta’s Hyperion data center expects more than 7,500 construction workers at peak on a campus near Holly Ridge that has grown to about 4,000 acres.
That’s more than a third more people, landing on farmland with two‑lane roads, one grocery store in Rayville and no hotel rooms. Everything else in this guide follows from that.
Who’s building it
A joint venture of Turner, DPR and Mortenson. Work started in late 2024. Your employer is the company doing your trade’s work — not Meta, not the JV. Get its name before you agree to anything.
Twenty-five more of these are coming
One guide is written. Leave an address and the next one reaches you when it is done — nothing here is behind a wall, and nothing else gets sent.
Each new site guide when it’s done, and a note when a new tool goes up. Nothing else, ever.
There is no housing. There are gravel lots.
Hotels in Rayville, Delhi and Monroe are booked. Rentals are gone — locals have gotten eviction notices so landlords can rent to Meta crews. You’re coming in a trailer or splitting a room.
Where to call
- DPR built its own camp — 130 acres, more than 300 full‑service RV sites. Ask your employer if you can get a spot, and what it costs. That answer is worth more than anything else on this page.
- Boggy Bayou RV Park — 181 Caston Road, Rayville. (318) 417‑6760. Leave a message; Shooter, the owner, calls back. No answer doesn’t mean no vacancy. $1,000 a month, electric included, laundry on site. Five minutes from the gate. 198 spots plus 75 cabins, 92% full when we called.
- 3M RV Park, Mer Rouge — (318) 789‑9320, ask for Kara. $600 a month, but 45 minutes out. Full when we called, but spots open up. Call back.
- New gravel parks are going in on old farmland along the routes in. Most fill by word of mouth before they’re listed anywhere.
Don’t drive down without a spot. The closest park is 92% full and the cheap one had nothing. Show up hoping and you’ll end up an hour out — more fuel, longer drive, less money kept.
The roads are the real problem
This is what will change your day, every day.
Two‑lane farm highways. A head‑on between dump trucks that needed a helicopter. A fatal crash in August. An 18‑wheeler driven with no valid license. A near‑miss with a train.
Two miles from the gate is not five minutes at shift change. Plan the time. And this is your drive to work, in the dark, twice a day, for the whole job.
Groceries, laundry, and the things that eat a per diem
- Rayville has one grocery store for a parish that just grew by more than a third. Expect empty shelves by evening.
- Shop in Monroe. About 20 to 25 minutes west on I‑20, with the warehouse clubs and the supercenter. One trip on your day off beats five expensive ones.
- Food trucks park at the lots at quitting time. A hot plate every night adds up fast. It’s the surest way to turn a per diem into nothing.
- Ask if laundry’s included before you count on it.
- Summers here are brutal and humid. The RV air conditioner never stops. If your power is metered, that’s a real bill.
The halls
- IBEW Local 446 — 805 North 30th Street, Monroe, LA 71201 · (318) 323‑3350 · business manager Ken Green. The electrical local for Monroe and West Monroe.
- Pipe trades: Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 141 is in Shreveport, not Monroe. Call and ask who holds Richland Parish.
Ask whether your package is union, merit shop, or both. It decides your rate, your overtime and whether a hall can help you.
How the one-year rule works
What counts is how long the job was expected to run. Not how long it actually runs.
- Expected to run a year or less, and it does. Per diem stays out of your wages.
- Expected to run longer than a year. Wages from your first day, however long it actually runs. An eighteen‑month term is this case.
- Expected short, then extended past a year. Wages from the day a year or less stopped being realistic — not your 365th day, and not when the paperwork catches up.
It doesn’t reach back. Expect nine months, get extended at month eight, and the first eight months stand. That’s the IRS’s own example. The day you were told matters more than anything else here.
Keep three things: what you were told at the start (offer letter, requisition, the recruiter’s text), the day the extension came down and who it came from, and proof of a home you pay for while you’re away. Without that last one, none of the per diem was tax‑free to begin with.
What you’d actually keep here
The per diem rate for this parish, the tax trap on long assignments here, a cost table using real lot rents, and what to ask before you accept.
Richland Parish gets the standard rate
No special rate here. Since 1 October 2026 it’s the federal standard: $113 lodging plus $68 meals, $181 a day.
That’s the most that can come to you tax‑free. Anything over it is wages and lands on your W‑2, whatever the recruiter calls it. Rates reset every 1 October.
If your assignment here is expected to run past a year, your per diem is taxed from your first paycheck. Not from month thirteen. From day one — or, if the plan changes mid‑job, from the day it changes.
That hits harder at Hyperion than almost anywhere. The campus won’t open until 2030, and eighteen‑month and two‑year terms are normal. “$150 a day tax‑free” on an eighteen‑month term doesn’t exist.
What the one-year rule costs on an 18-month term
Same job, same $150 a day, seven days a week. The only difference is whether the job counts as under a year or over.
| Per month | Under a year | Over a year, 18 months |
|---|---|---|
| Per diem paid to you | $4,550 | $4,550 |
| After tax | $4,550 | $3,064 |
| Lot rent, closest park | −$1,000 | −$1,000 |
| Food, fuel, propane | −$500 | −$500 |
| Kept per month | $3,050 | $1,564 |
| Over 18 months | $54,900 | $28,160 |
The one‑year rule costs about $1,486 a month here — about $26,700 over eighteen months. Taxed at 22% federal, 7.65% Social Security and Medicare, and Louisiana’s flat 3%. Your numbers will differ. The direction won’t.
Two things to settle before you sign. Ask them to withhold right from day one, so you don’t carry a five‑figure bill into April. And if the per diem is taxed, the rate has to make up for it — the tax‑free pitch is already priced into the offer.
The one thing you control: the lot. Boggy Bayou at $1,000 is five minutes from the gate. 3M at $600 saves $400 a month and costs 45 minutes each way. On a six‑day week that’s nine hours of your life and most of the $400 back in diesel. Run both through the calculator before you assume cheaper is cheaper.
Before you accept
- How long is the job expected to run? Will they put it in writing?
- Is the per diem taxed from day one, or could it get reclassified later?
- Who is my employer?
- Can I get a spot in DPR’s camp, and what does it cost?
- Is the per diem paid seven days a week, or only days worked?
- What’s the local hire rate against what I’m offered to travel — and does the difference survive if I move here?
- How many hours are guaranteed, and is overtime daily or only past forty? (Union daily overtime doesn’t count for the federal overtime deduction.)
If they can’t answer the first two, you don’t have enough to decide.
Run the whole offer through the calculator.
Sources
- Population: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020.
- Workforce, campus size and opening date: Meta. Builders: the Turner, DPR and Mortenson joint venture.
- Lot rents, capacity and contacts: our phone calls to the parks, August 2026.
- Crash and traffic counts, evictions, the DPR camp: local reporting, 2024 to 2025.
- Per diem rate: GSA, fiscal year 2027.
- The one-year rule: IRS Publication 463 and Tax Topic 511.