Warda Battery
The group of neighbors fighting against a battery energy storage system (BESS) in Warda may finally get their day in court.
Fayette County landowners Jim Clements, Guadalupe Gutierrez, Cynthia Gutierrez, and Carolyn Lehmann sued Pct. 1 Commissioner Jason McBroom and his family in 2024 over a proposed BESS facility on the McBroom family property in Warda. The plaintiffs want to stop the facility from being built. They’re worried about the potential for industrial disaster such as lithium battery fires and claim the facility poses a nuisance to the enjoyment of their property.
The local District Judge, Jeff Steinhauser, recused himself from the case. Todd A. Blomerth, Senior Judge of the 421st Judicial District, was assigned to preside over the lawsuit. He dismissed the suit last year, siding with the defendants’ argument that an emotional reaction to a proposed facility cannot be the basis for a nuisance claim.
The plaintiffs appealed to the Texas Third Court of Appeals in Austin, which ruled that the lawsuit can proceed in district court. Plaintiffs say that after the ruling, construction began on the BESS facility. The McBroom family appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of Texas. On Oct. 2, the Supreme Court of Texas denied the defendants’ petition for review.
“The order leaves intact the victory secured by landowners in the Third Court of Appeals at Austin, confirming that the landowners can proceed with their lawsuit seeking an injunction and damages against the Warda Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) facility before a Fayette County jury,” said the plaintiffs’ attorney, Alex Ross Hernandez, in a press release issued last week.
“The Texas Supreme Court’s denial of the Defendants’ petition for review, allowing the ruling of the Third Court of Appeals to remain the law, stands as a definitive confirmation that Texas landowners maintain with the cognizable right to sue to protect their homesteads, rural investments, and/or farm land when a substantial and unreasonable interference, such as a Battery Energy Storage System under the pleaded facts of this case, is built or proposed to be built at the fence line or in their community,” Hernandez said. “We look forward to trying this matter to a Fayette County jury and remain thankful for a judiciary that remains open to the adjudication of truth, justice, and fairness for all Texans. ‘We the people’ remains with teeth, as shown by the Texas Supreme Court’s denial of the Defendants’ petition for review.”
So far, no trial date has been set.
Northern Fayette County has become a breeding ground for dispute between rural property owners and land-hungry technology projects.
Over in Winchester, just a few miles from Warda, property owners hope to stop construction of a data center on FM 448. A community meeting concerning the Winchester data center will take place Nov. 2 at the St. Michael’s Park in Winchester starting at 7 p.m.