Scout Clean Energy is forging ahead with its proposed $300-million Nimbus Wind Farm development on ridge tops near Green Forest, having recently located an office trailer in the area to coordinate work on the project to install 46 wind turbines on 9,000 leased acres south of Green Forest. Scout is also close to securing a Road Use Agreement (RUA) from Carroll County Judge David Writer that provides for modifications to the narrow gravel roads needed for the transport of components including turbine blades about 200 feet long for the project that calls for installing some of the tallest wind turbines in the country.
Julie Morton of Van Buren, who has provided advice to opponents, scoffed at the idea that the Nimbus Wind Farm is a done deal.
“For your financiers, you have certain mileposts that you have to meet,” Morton said. “Moving a trailer into a vacant hay meadow where there is no water or electricity is good for show but doesn’t mean anything. This has a long way yet to go. For example, there are federal laws against interfering with mail routes. And Scout has not yet opened the 60-day public comment period necessary to finalize its incidental take permit for endangered species that is required by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Scout hasn’t even submitted their final plan yet. That being the case, that review process has not even begun yet.”
Caroline Rogers, founder of the opposition group Stop Wind Farms AR, also isn’t alarmed by the office trailer located about two miles south of Highway 103 South on County Road 905.
“There is still a lot of things that have to be done before they can start doing any real work,” Rogers said.
The project has dominated discussions at the Carroll County Quorum Court meetings for more than a year with opponents asking the county to protect residents from devaluation of their property, possible disruption of wells and springs, noise pollution, red blinking aviation lights on top of the towers and potential negative health impacts to people, livestock and wildlife. Residents who have signed options to lease land to Scout for the project have argued that the project could bring them significant lease revenues, which Scout estimated at about $14 million over the estimated 30-year life of the project.
The project would be the first commercial wind farm in Arkansas, potentially paving the way for other similar projects in the state. Scout has said alternative energy projects like this are critical to addressing climate change, which has led to increasingly expensive and more common natural disasters.
Proponents have successfully argued before the Carroll County Quorum Court that any restrictions like turbine setbacks from adjoining neighbors or a moratorium on wind farms would violate private property rights. Rogers and other opponents counter that Scout Clean Energy and private landowners who have leased to the company do not have the right to cause negative impacts to their neighbors who will receive no benefits from the project.
One of the biggest concerns is potential blasting to excavate foundations for the large wind turbine platforms. The karst area has caves, sinkholes and underground streams, springs and water reservoirs. Karst is an area where water has dissolved limestone to make Swiss-cheese-like fissures. Blasting and other methods of excavation have the potential to disrupt water supplies—which happened about four years to some homeowners near Eureka on County Roads 306 and 309 when dynamite was used for blasting near them.
“We don’t have the option of city water here,” Rogers said. “Everyone either gets water from a well, a spring or water catchment. If their water is disrupted, if they have to get a new well, there is a three- to five-year waiting list and it can cost up to $50,000. Finding a new spring is practically impossible. As far as water catchment, it is not ideal especially during times of drought. You can travel to buy water in Berryville or Green Forest, but that has costs for containers, fuel and wear and tear on a truck. And it takes a lot of time. It is a major imposition.”
Rogers said the project could be a huge disruption for the people like her who live in the area. She is particularly concerned with the 48 miles of county roads involved in the proposed Scout RUA that calls for widening the roads and adding gravel.
“I don’t see how people are going to be able to pass when they meet up with one of these large gravel trucks, let alone oversize trucks carrying heavy equipment like the wind turbine blades,” she said. “Residents here meeting these trucks are going to have to back up. There would be a lot of dirt clouds that would go into people’s yards and homes. The plan calls for using water to spray on the gravel to keep the dust down, but where will they get the water from, especially if we have a drought?”
Former Carroll County Judge E. Richard Williams, said he is also of the opinion that the project is far from a done deal.
“A week ago, I met with the Arkansas Department of Transportation in Harrison,” Williams, who lives in close proximity to several proposed wind turbines, said. “A representative of ARDOT said Scout has not applied for road/highway entrances to the county roads that ARDOT calls driveway easements. The most recent map I saw shows 15 entrances off state highways including Highways 103, 412 and 62. When you start putting oversize loads on state highways, you have to get permission.”
Opponents also have concerns about potential fire dangers.
“These towers are proposed in areas very prone to lightning strikes,” Rogers said. “These turbines have been described as a lightning rod on an oil can. The turbines are filled with about 80 gallons of lubricating and gear oils. When these fires happen, we are not equipped to put out a fire and our fire chief and volunteer firemen do not have the training to deal with a combination of an electrical fire and a chemical fire, which require different tactics.
“This is one reason the private property rights argument doesn’t hold up. This is an infringement on the neighbors. If a turbine catches on fire, the only thing that can be done is let it burn until components fall to the ground. Wind can spread embers long distances igniting fires and spreading fiberglass debris.”
It can be hard to visualize a turbine tower 600 to 700 feet tall. Rogers said it would be the equivalent of ten Christ of the Ozarks statues stacked on top of each other.
Rogers said some people who signed options for the project have been disappointed that earlier promises regarding the number of turbines and income have been downsized. She said there are primarily 11 large, mostly absentee landowners who would benefit. Others who signed the options don’t qualify for turbines for one reason or another.
“But they still have to connect these lines together and they need people’s property to do that,” she said. “I know 100 percent that Scout got someone to sign and told them they would get three turbines and later said only two and then only one. Most recently Scout said the landowner isn’t getting any turbines, but the land is needed for a transmission easement, which brings in very little revenue.”
Rogers points out that this is not the first time the karst environment has been under attack in Carroll County, and not the first time that environmentalists have stepped up to protect the karst. The first one was when Carroll Electric stopped cutting transmission right of ways and started spraying herbicides. After public opposition that included concerns about the spraying contaminating gardens, wells and springs, CECC started allowing people to opt out of herbicide spraying on their property. The second one was the huge public outcry that stopped the proposed AEP/SWEPCO high voltage transmission lines. Two others were the Legacy Mining operation proposed near the King’s River, which has not gone forward, and the successful effort to close a hog factory near the Buffalo River.
“This is the fifth one, and I am confident that it will be defeated, as well,” Rogers said.