Opponents of the Scout Clean Energy Nimbus Wind Farm have been hopeful that the 1998 Carroll County Land Use Management Plan might provide protection for their wells, springs, and wildlife resources. But the attorney for the group opposing the project has received a letter from the Carroll County Attorney’s office that appears to dash those hopes, while improving prospects that landowners in the area of County Roads 905 and 920 will be able to earn revenue from leases for the wind project.
In a letter from attorney Matt Bishop, representing landowners who oppose Nimbus, to Carroll County Judge David Writer and County Prosecutor Tony Rogers, Bishop gave a May 1 deadline for the county to comply with the 1998 Carroll County Comprehensive Land Use Management Plan. Bishop said the ordinance requires the quorum court and/or the county judge to: Develop a definition of natural hydrologic environment so as to assess the use of water in the county. Ord. No. 98-2; Develop a water use policy to ensure water quantity and quality. Ord. No. 98-2; Establish a threatened and endangered species committee. Ord. No. 98-2; Establish a Carroll County Wildlife Committee. Ord. No. 98-2; Develop monitoring and compliance standards for the foregoing. Ord. No. 98- 2; Once those standards are established, monitor the condition of grazing lands, timber lands, wildlife and wetlands.
“I have been to several quorum court meetings and have heard these prior land use plans were only intended to stop federal government encroachment,” Bishop wrote. “I find it an odd position for elected representatives to state they are extremely concerned about possible degradation of the Carroll County natural environment by our own government, yet believe themselves to be utterly helpless in the face of a foreign corporation’s actions, particularly when the Arkansas Supreme Court has repeatedly held that local governments are not so helpless.”
However, Carroll County’s attorneys have responded that they don’t think the 1998 Land Use Management Plan is still valid.
“The county’s position is that the 2011 land use plan repealed the 1998 ordinance,” Bishop wrote in an email. “So, I’m going back through the 2011 one to see if it’s got much. It’s 100 pages, but most of them are the county proclaiming the federal and state governments must follow the law. They took the 1998 ordinance that had some useful provisions whereby the county would at least establish baselines for determining adverse environmental impacts and damage to our water resources, and replaced it with a lot of words that ultimately don’t say much. However, there is at least one actionable provision in that damage to groundwater or surface water is declared a trespass.”
Bishop said his clients who oppose the massive wind farm in this area “are not a $800-billion Canadian corporation backed with Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund petrodollars, so they have to spend their money more judiciously, and are determining next steps.”
Scout has argued that green energy projects like Nimbus are necessary to protect from the negative impacts of climate change, and that the county will benefit greatly from tax revenues and property owners from lease revenues.