Date: 5/1/26 5:00 am From: Anita Schnee <000003224553d416-dmarc-request...> Subject: My letter opposing LR data center
Thank you Rev. Garner for your outstanding letter. Here is my additional .02 worth:
Little Rock District, Regulatory DivisionU.S. Army Corps of EngineersPO Box 867Little Rock, AR 72203-0867
Re: Public Comment in Opposition to Permit Application – Willowbend Capital LLC ("Project Boar"), Port of Little Rock
Dear Colonel Swenson:
I write to urge the Little Rock District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deny the Clean Water Act Section 404 permit application submitted by Michael Montfort on behalf of Willowbend Capital LLC for the construction of a large-scale data center campus at the Port of Little Rock.
I. IDENTITY AND TRANSPARENCY
The Corps and the public should not lose sight of who the actual applicant is. Willowbend Capital LLC is a Delaware-registered shell company with no independent operations. Michael Montfort, its incorporator and manager, is a professional front man who has organized an interlocking web of similar LLCs — including Forgelight Ventures (Conway), Groot LLC (West Memphis), and Deep Meadow Ventures (Indiana) — all on behalf of the same ultimate developer: Google LLC, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., one of the wealthiest corporations in the world. Google was not publicly identified as the developer until an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette investigation in January 2026, even though city officials had by then already approved land sales, annexations, rezonings, and a 65% property tax abatement lasting 30 years.
This pattern of concealment is not accidental and not new. It is Google's deliberate, repeating strategy for acquiring land, securing public subsidies, and obtaining regulatory permits before the affected public can meaningfully respond. The Corps should weigh this conduct as evidence of bad faith in the public interest review it is required to conduct.
The Indiana record is instructive. In Franklin Township, southeast of Indianapolis, a company calling itself "Deep Meadow Ventures, LLC" — again managed by Michael Montfort — filed rezoning requests in March 2025 for 468 acres of farmland to host a data center campus codenamed "Project Flo." The company's identity was concealed behind non-disclosure agreements that prevented even local elected officials from revealing who wanted to build in their community. A city councilor signed the NDA. Documents obtained by Indianapolis public radio station WFYI in July 2025 revealed Google as the company behind Project Flo — but Google never officially confirmed its involvement even as the controversy intensified. A months-long grassroots campaign led by Andrew Filler, a hobby farmer whose land abutted the site, organized the Protect Franklin Township coalition. On September 22, 2025, minutes before a scheduled City-County Council vote that the company apparently expected to lose, Google abruptly withdrew its rezoning application. Hundreds of supporters packed council chambers and erupted in cheers.
Undeterred, Google moved on — this time identified only as a "Fortune 100 company" — to Fort Wayne, Indiana, where despite widespread local opposition it obtained approval to build a $2 billion data center campus on more than 700 acres, codenamed "Project Zodiac." When the project expanded in Phase 2, the developer (this time operating as Hatchworks LLC) sought and received permission from Indiana's Department of Environmental Management to fill more than two acres of protected wetlands — without holding a single public hearing, despite repeated community requests for one. Residents and environmental groups are now fighting a subsequent application for 143 additional diesel generators.
Now comes "Project Boar" in Little Rock — the same developer, the same shell-company structure, the same code names, and the same ask: let us fill in the wetlands, waive the taxes, and keep the public in the dark until the concrete is poured.
II. ENVIRONMENTAL HARM
The environmental costs of this application are severe and documented in the applicant's own filings. The project would require filling 16.8 acres of wetlands and obliterating more than 6,000 feet of streams in and around Fourche Bayou — impacts on federally regulated waters of the United States that trigger this very permitting process. The application acknowledges potential harm to endangered species, including monarch butterflies. Wetland mitigation credits purchased elsewhere cannot replicate the specific ecological functions of these wetlands: flood attenuation, water filtration, and habitat for species dependent on this particular stretch of the Arkansas River corridor.
The Corps is required under the Clean Water Act's Section 404(b)(1) Guidelines to determine whether the applicant has demonstrated that there is no practicable alternative that would result in less adverse impact to the aquatic ecosystem. Given the scale of Google's resources and its ongoing acquisition of sites across the region — including approximately 780 acres already purchased at the Port of Little Rock for roughly $23 million — the applicant cannot credibly claim that no less-damaging site or layout is available.
III. SCALE OF DEMAND AND PUBLIC COSTS
When operational, this data center is expected to consume more than 100 megawatts of electricity — roughly equivalent to the power consumption of every household in the City of Little Rock combined. That demand will not be absorbed painlessly; it will drive new generation investments by Entergy Arkansas and shift costs onto the ratepayers who can least afford to subsidize a Fortune 500 company's infrastructure. Central Arkansas Water and the Little Rock Water Reclamation Authority will bear the burden of serving the facility's industrial water needs.
The promised public benefit — approximately 50 permanent jobs — is disproportionate to these costs. As Fort Wayne's experience with Project Zodiac has shown, the job figures attached to these projects are often their most flattering attribute, and they rarely materialize at the promised scale.
IV. THE PUBLIC INTEREST REQUIRES DENIAL — OR AT MINIMUM A PUBLIC HEARING
The Corps' public interest review must weigh environmental, economic, and social factors. Here, the balance is not close. The project destroys irreplaceable wetland habitat, imposes enormous power and water demands on the public, delivers negligible permanent employment, and was advanced through a deliberate campaign of secrecy that denied affected communities a meaningful voice.
I urge the Corps at a minimum to require a full public hearing before any further action is taken on this application, and to rigorously apply the Section 404(b)(1) alternatives analysis. On the merits, the application should be denied.
Respectfully submitted,
Anita SchneeFayetteville, AR
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On Thursday, April 30, 2026 at 09:55:42 PM CDT, Kevin Krajcir <kjkrajcir...> wrote:
