SIOUX CITY (KTIV) - For several years, MidAmerican Energy has tried to bring wind turbines to Woodbury County. But, Tuesday night, the energy company told the Woodbury County Board of Supervisors that its proposed wind farm has been cancelled.
MidAmerican Energy first announced their Siouxland project to potential landowners in December 2021 but didn’t start trying to acquire easements and start site studies until early 2022.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Board Chair Dan Bittinger said MidAmerican Energy informed the county it will terminate its wind turbine easements for the company’s proposed project.
County Supervisors Matthew Ung and Mark Nelson commended the citizens of Woodbury County for their involvement, and their willingness to voice their opinions on wind energy at meetings.
“When you have attendance of 100 plus people at these meetings, it’s really quite something. You saw folks that started a fund and were buying billboards, and yard signs, and they were setting up booths at the fair,” said Nelson. “They were actively engaging with people and going out and talking with people; and it was all on their own time and their own dime. I’ve never seen a movement like that in the county, and it brought people together.”
Geoff Greenwood, a spokesperson for MidAmerican Energy, said regarding easements already paid to landowners in Woodbury County, "We paid an annual payment to landowners who chose to sign an easement. Those landowners do not have to pay that money back and keep their easement payments."
KTIV also reached out to MidAmerican Energy, and they responded with the following statement:
MidAmerican owns and operates more wind energy than any other investor-owned utility in the nation. Each year, we explore and develop several generation projects to support the growing energy needs of our customers.
For the past few years, MidAmerican has explored developing the Siouxland wind farm, which was still in the early stages of evaluation.
Evaluation process Through our multi-year development process, MidAmerican continuously evaluates the viability of each project to ensure it’s a proper fit for the community and will serve the needs of our customers.
As part of our ongoing project evaluation process, certain projects can be deemed not to be viable for various reasons, such as not gaining the acceptance of the community or county representatives, changes in law or policy, or increases in projects costs, to name a few.
Reevaluating this project For some of those reasons and others, MidAmerican has determined not to proceed with Siouxland but continues to pursue many other generation projects across the state to ensure affordable, reliable and sustainable energy is always available to our customers. We have informed our partner landowners about the company’s decision.
We know decisions like this matter to the communities involved, and we’re grateful for the conversations and partnerships built throughout the evaluation process. While not every project will move ahead, our commitment to delivering affordable, reliable and sustainable energy for our customers remains unchanged. We’ll continue working closely with landowners and local leaders as we pursue projects that make sense and create long-term value.
