Lawsuit over road-use agreement for Nimbus Project returned to circuit court

Ten of the 12 claims in a lawsuit filed by a group of property owners challenging a roaduse agreement between Carroll County and a subsidiary of Scout Clean Energy have been returned to circuit court by a United States district judge.

In an order filed Monday, July 28, U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks granted in part a motion filed by the plaintiffs who asked to have the case remanded to circuit court. Brooks denied part of the motion, leaving two of the claims in federal court.

Defendants in the lawsuit, which was originally filed in Carroll County Circuit Court in October 2024 by Fayetteville attorney Matt Bishop, are the county, County Judge David Writer in his official capacity and Nimbus Wind Farm LLC, a subsidiary of Scout.

The complaint names more than 20 plaintiffs, which it describes as property owners in the county’s eastern district. Among those plaintiffs is former county judge Richard Williams, who has been an outspoken critic of the Nimbus Project. Caroline Rogers, who was elected to the District 11 seat on the Carroll County Quorum Court less than a month after the complaint was filed and took office in January 2025, was among the original plaintiffs but recently withdrew from the lawsuit.

The complaint was filed less than a week after Writer signed a road use and maintenance agreement relating to Scout’s Nimbus Project, an industrial wind energy project currently under construction near Green Forest.

Scout, based in Boulder, Colo., plans for the Nimbus project to expand over approximately 9,000 acres — about 14 square miles — in Carroll County, much of it along County Road 905. The project will include 30 wind turbines — four of which the company says will be 591 feet tall and the other 26 that the company says will be 644 feet tall. The turbines will be placed on private property, the owners of which have signed lease agreements with Scout.

Among the concerns cited repeatedly by critics of the project is the potential impact on county roads. Opponents of the project say it also will be harmful to wildlife, have adverse health effects and pose a potential safety risk for humans, along with disturbing the natural beauty of the area. Opponents of the project also say Scout’s ownership can be traced to Chinese interests.

The complaint alleges that the road use and maintenance agreement amounts to an unconstitutional taking of the property of the plaintiffs and other private citizens, that the agreement’s grant of utility easements in the property of the plaintiffs and other private citizens constitutes an attempted exercise of the power of eminent domain by the county without just compensation; that the county has failed to follow state law with regard to the alteration of county roads; that the agreement grants Nimbus the right to tow vehicles on public roads in contradiction with state law; that the county is prohibited by state law from contracting with a private entity to perform road maintenance outside of a schedule set forth in state law; that the road use and maintenance agreement is “an illegal sale of an interest in Carroll County real property,” that neither the county nor the county judge has authority to convey any interest in public roads to Nimbus or any third party; that the agreement grants Nimbus the right to terminate the agreement with 15 days’ notice but contains no ability for the county to terminate the agreement, that the receipt by Nimbus of any funds or assets of Carroll County illegally delivered or required constitute an illegal exaction and that the agreement violates the plaintiffs’ right to due process.

Bishop’s complaint seeks a temporary and permanent injunction prohibiting the defendants from acting according to the terms of the agreement. It also asks the agreement be declared void, that the defendants be ordered to refund to the county any money illegally exacted pursuant to the agreement and that the plaintiffs’ fees and costs be paid by the defendants.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are “those county citizens most immediately affected,” the complaint says, by what it describes as a “policy change” by the county.

The complaint cites a county land use ordinance that was adopted in 1988 and last amended in 2011.

The county has adopted “a policy of regulating private parties that use the natural resources in Carroll County with ‘major consideration given to protecting the environment while providing a decent home and satisfying the living, community environment for all the people of Carroll County,” the complaint says, quoting from the land use ordinance.

Now, the complaint says, the county “seeks to convey the County’s own power, authority, and interest in the natural resources of Carroll County as well as the private property rights of its own citizens via unconstitutional takings or eminent domain for the sole benefit of this foreign entity.”

The complaint describes Scout as a subsidiary of Brookfield Renewable Partners, which it says is “a publicly traded Bahamian limited partnership headquartered in Toronto, Canada.”

The lawsuit was removed to federal court at the request of an attorney for Nimbus Wind Farm.

Writer hired Conway attorney Jason Owens to defend the county in the lawsuit after an attorney with the Arkansas Association of Counties notified Writer that the AAC would not provide a legal defense for the county.