The fight over a controversial natural-gas power plant proposed for rural Scott County has only just begun.
Despite a unanimous rejection in February of the specific site location of the planned 240-megawatt facility by the Scott County Board of Supervisors, the Iowa Utilities Commission has the power to permit the plant to proceed. An informational meeting on the plan was attended by dozens of concerned local citizens, Monday, April 6, at Rhythm City Casino Event Center, Davenport.
It was hosted by IUC commissioner Joshua Byrnes, of the three-member commission, with presentations by officials of Central Iowa Power Cooperative (CIPCO), which wants to build a peaker power plant on prime farmland east of Maysville, Iowa. IUC attorney Hunter Fors said after Monday’s public meeting that the commission has state authority to supersede the wishes of local authorities for such facilities.
The meeting lasted about three hours and 15 minutes, with many people coming to speak – mainly against and some in favor of the project. On Feb. 12, 2026, the Scott County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to reject an ordinance change that would allow construction of the Hickory Grove Generating Station from CIPCO, to supply reliable energy derived from a diverse and dependable mix of resources, and the plant would sit on 30 acres near Maysville, in rural Scott County.
“This generating facility is critically needed to meet the power demands of members today and for the decades ahead,” according to the CIPCO website. “This facility will bolster CIPCO's ‘all-the-above’ resource portfolio strategy and add to our diverse mix of energy resources and join the existing fleet of Iowa’s dependable, and long-lasting, natural gas-fired power plants.”
CIPCO has operated a dispatch and transmission facility in nearby Wilton for over 35 years, in addition to providing wholesale power to Eastern Iowa Light & Power REC, the local distribution electric cooperative serving large portions of rural Scott County.
At the Feb. 12 supervisors’ meeting, some board members noted the massive public opposition to the new plant, and said even if it was needed, this prime farmland is not the right location for it.
Jean Dickson, vice chair of the Scott County Board of Supervisors, said at the April 6 meeting that state law requires the IUC to “ensure that any proposed facility is consistent with reasonable land use and complies with local zoning requirements and if not, whether the location of the proposed facility at the proposed site is reasonably justified from an economic, technical and social standpoint,” she said. “Today's presentation in my opinion was deficient on both fronts in terms of the reasonableness and the local zoning.
“In 2008, Scott County made a deliberate decision to prioritize agricultural preservation,” Dickson said. “We exercised our legislative power under Iowa Chapter 335 to protect our most productive soils. CIPCO’s presentation today ignores those standards. The needs of a utility cannot supersede the longstanding interest and legal protections and of our citizens. So as a resident and as a supervisor on the Scott County Board of Supervisors, we ask that CIPCO stop the process and proceed no further.”
John Maxwell, chair of the Board of Supervisors, owns a farm about three miles from the proposed location. He understands CIPCO needs the plant but disagrees with the site selection.
“I get it that the whole region may need it and I get all that. But I would like to know if Scott County needs it and does it have to be here? I get that we need more electricity across the United States — that we're using more and more, but I would like to really know is our area needed?” he asked. “Because I'm not too interested in building a church for Easter Sunday. I would like to have it where I know we need it, we need it locally and everything else.”
First step of process
Byrnes of the IUC said the first step in the state certificate process is for the company to request an informational meeting to be scheduled in each county where the facility is proposed to be located. A certificate is a grant of authority issued by the Iowa Utilities Commission.
There was no transcript or minutes kept of Monday’s meeting, so the comments will not be part of the public record.
Anyone who wants to have comments as part of the record must submit them directly to the IUC, at iuc.iowa.gov.
There was no decision at the end of Monday’s meeting, and CIPCO has until May 6 at the earliest to formally submit its proposed project to IUC, and once it does, the commission has 45 days to set another public hearing on the project, that will likely be scheduled within three to five months.
Any affected landowner may file comments for or against the proposed generating project as part of the IUC's review process. Phone calls or verbal communication will not be considered as part of the official record. Only written comments will be considered part of the record. Comments are available for view by the public and are subject to the Iowa Open Records Act.
Anyone submitting comments should use the docket number for the project -- GCU 2026-0001. If you are a new user of the Iowa Utilities Commission's electronic filing system, you will have to create an account prior to being able to view documents or submit filings. If you file a comment through the IUC’s open docket comments form on the IUC website and provide an email address and name, you will be placed on a service list for that docket.
This simply means you will receive notification anytime something is filed within this docket.
“CIPCO came to the conclusion that building a thermal generation facility was of critical need for our membership,” Kevin Condon, director of public affairs for CIPCO, said Monday. “After serious consideration and robust deliberation, it was determined that establishing a natural gas peaking plant at the Hickory Grove site would be the best option to meet the challenges every utility faces today to provide stable, reliable and affordable electricity to consumers.
“Many of our member distribution cooperatives like Eastern, were formed in the 1930s. After a few years, the need arose for co-ops to band together to form a generation and transmission entity that would pool resources of the individual cooperatives together and focus on the production of energy and the long-range transmission of that power to the distribution co-ops throughout Iowa,” he said.
CIPCO serves 58 counties in Iowa, providing power to over 300,000 consumers including over 3,000 member accounts in Scott County, Condon said.
“This region of CIPCO's footprint has and will continue to drive an increased demand for energy as we stand here today. Energy generation resources in the greater Scott County region are scarce, which makes the area substantial importers of the power that is being consumed by its residents,” he said. “We have a responsibility to our members to continue to deliver power in a cost-effective and thoughtful manner where it is needed the most.
"Following an extensive planning process, CIPCO approached Scott County officials last June to begin discussions about how best to locate a new generation facility in the community.
“Initially, we were encouraged by the dialogue with the county and based on information provided to us, CIPCO applied to local officials to create a special use permit following a long-established process that the county government had utilized for unique projects like the Hickory Grove Generating Station,” Condon said. “Following robust public comment, the Planning and Zoning commission voted 6 to 0 to advance the creation of a special use permit to the Board of Supervisors.”
Condon noted the Board of Supervisors rejected the proposed special-use permit (4-0 on Feb. 12) based “largely on the perceived opinion that there is a lack of need for new generation in Scott County. While CIPCO respects home rule and the role of local government, our members believe the appropriate authority to legally determine the need for power generation lies, as it always has, with the Iowa Utilities Commission,” Condon said.
Not operational all the time
CIPCO's CEO and General Manager Andrew St. John said the peaker plant will be operational typically 20% of the time, with a maximum of 40% of the time, and only develop 30 acres of land.
“Peaking generation not only provides reliability but also serves as a local source of generation that provides cost stability and buffers consumers from supply and demand imbalances,” he said. “CIPCO must maintain always available resources to meet the needs of our members day and night, no matter what the weather or what the season. Having generation that is on call is critical to delivering the dependable power that Iowans deserve. The Hickory Grove Generating Station will do just that.”
Sam Honold, manager of generation engineering for CIPCO, said the site was chosen partly in proximity to existing CIPCO transmission lines.
The zoning for ag preservation “has a longstanding partnership with public utilities for allowing electric transmission lines, pipelines, substations, associated structures and equipment as principal permitted uses within the ag preservation zone,” Honold said.
The company has an option to acquire 90 acres, but the plant will have roughly 30 acres of fenced site, he said. Plant construction is anticipated to begin in the spring of 2027, mechanical completion in the summer of 2029 with commissioning commercial operation in the winter of 2029.
While many people have expressed concerns about plant emissions, Honold minimized those Monday.
“Unlike coal or heavy petrochemicals, pipeline grade natural gas does not contain meaningful quantities of mercury or halogens like chlorine and fluorine,” he said. “Those elements are scrubbed out as part of the natural gas refining process. Those elements are virtually absent in the exhaust of the turbine, just like they're virtually absent in the exhaust from your home appliances. That said, real world combustion conditions are never perfect.
“So there will be small quantities of emissions other than CO2 and water vapor,” Honold said. “Primarily we're talking about nitrogen oxides or NOx. And NOx is created anytime fuels burned, whether it's in a power plant, your furnace, your fireplace or in your truck. Other than scale, what is different about the turbine Hickory Grove is that it will be directly monitored in real time and optimized, specifically tuned to minimize those NOx emissions.”
The Hickory Grove plant should not emit hazardous pollutants, he noted, calling them “vanishingly small quantities of these types of pollutants. Generally speaking, these emissions usually come from uncontrolled coal fired plants or certain kinds of industrial processes,” Honold said. “Having spent my fair share of time at the top of coal plant stacks observing emissions test teams, I can assure you the Hickory Grove hazardous air pollutant emissions will not be anything like that.”
“More importantly, dispersion modeling done by our engineering consultant shows that even in the most severe scenarios, Hickory Grove will not cause local air quality to degrade beyond those ambient air quality standards,” he said. “It’s fair to say Hickory Grove Generating Station will not significantly impact Scott County's airflow. To be clear, it is not our intent to be dismissive of people's understandable fears or be cavalier about our compliance responsibilities.
“The point I'm trying to make is that the effect of the project, the effect that the project will have on local air quality will be so small that it will be swamped by other local emissions trends,” Honold said. “It should be clear that Hickory Grove Generating Station by itself is not going to change the air quality of Scott County…It's true that Hickory Grove will emit greenhouse gases.”
Large opposition to plant
Mike Meloy, an attorney representing Concerned Citizens of Scott County, said Monday there’s a large number of citizens, farm owners, and landowners in Scott County who oppose this location of the power plant.
“They are very concerned about the negative effects the power plant will have on their land, on their life, on their children's lives, on their grandchildren's lives,” he said, noting the county Board of Supervisors voted unanimously against a special use permit, allowing a zoning change for the plant construction.
“CIPCO could have appealed that to Scott County District Court if they so choose. If they believe that the board had issued their ruling in error, they did not do so,” Meloy said. “Therefore, that decision by the board is a final decision. CIPCO now again seeks to locate the plant on basically the same high-grade land in Scott County that the board voted against. A 240-megawatt natural gas peaking plant is incompatible with AP zoning farmland. We have the best farmland in the world here.
“These farmers grow corn and beans to feed the world. This farmland ought to stay AP farmland and should not be used as an industrial use,” he said of ag preservation. “My question to CIPCO is this. Why don't you respect the decision made by the Scott County Board of Supervisors after the February meeting and locate your plant in some other county in Iowa?”
Kelly Johnson, a retired Davenport firefighter, expressed concerns for the volunteer firefighters in Maysville to respond to any incident at the CIPCO plant. He also asked if any company officials lived in southeast Iowa. No one responded yes.
“So if you guys are so passionate about this, why don't you build it where you live?” Johnson said. “Because we don't want it here.”
Dana LaFrenz, who lives on Maysville Road about 1.25 miles from the proposed facility, asked that the plant be built on a brownfield or industrial site, with access to roads, utilities and would be a far more suitable location.
“Placing industrial infrastructure on preserved agricultural land permanently removes extremely productive farmland, and undermines the purpose of preservation programs,” she said. “Locating a plant on an existing industrial site makes efficient use of land that has already been disturbed. This would protect agricultural resources.”
Rebecca Kronovich, a new homeowner in Donahue, raised the concern of higher cancer rates in Iowa and Scott County (compared to the nation overall), and potential health impacts of the plant.
“Right now it feels like this community is holding its breath, waiting to see whether our decision makers will stop, listen and recognize that this is simply the wrong place for this kind of facility,” she said. “This isn't about being anti-progress or anti-power. It is about being pro-people, pro-children and pro-community. I urge you to listen to the families who live here. Listen to the parents and grandparents who want safe backyards, clean air and the freedom for our kids to run outside without fear.
“I am asking you to stop this project at this location. Pause this approval process, reconsider the sighting and require that any peak power facility be placed away from where our children live, learn and play,” Kronovich said. “Progress should not come at the expense of our youngest residents or their health. This is not the right place for the plant.”
Another local homeowner, Linda Titus, opposed to the plant said it would decrease property values.
“We love the fact it's peaceful, it's quiet, we're close to our neighbors, we love them,” she said. “I'm thinking, do I have to sell my house after this huge investment? And I don't like the fact that you're plopping it right in our neighborhood. Do you want to look at that every day when you get up in the morning, sit on your front porch with your cup of coffee? I don't think you would. So I think a lot of people here in this room feel the same way I do.
“And we have several new homes, people just coming into our neighborhood, and I'm sure they're concerned about it too. So answer me that question,” Titus said. “There are other places you could go. I heard, well, X marks the spot. There's a gas line there and the transmission lines are there. So what? So what? There's a lady that lives right across the street from where you're building. And then I'm looking at how close that is to her house. And my neighbor, her grandchildren are going to be across the street.
“I just don't see that you need to take this rich soil and plop this, like I said, albatross right here in the middle of our neighborhood. Move it somewhere else. And have some respect for us. Our Scott County Board of Supervisors voted it down because they listened to us, to our voices. And I don't see that happening here. I don't see you or anyone else that has been up here in favor of this listening to us and what we want.”
Joel Christenson, a board member for the Eastern Iowa cooperative that’s part of CIPCO, spoke in favor of the project.
“Because CIPCO has demonstrated that not only do we as a cooperative and state need more power generation in order to serve existing consumers’ needs, but they have also proposed a project that provides new resources in a thoughtful and responsible manner that provides maximum electricity output using minimal land to do so,” he said.
“As a farmer and landowner, I respect concerns of some about taking prime farmland out of production in order to achieve the type of energy density that CIPCO has proposed,” Christenson said. “But as a consumer of that power and a realist, in order to continue to receive reliable, affordable electricity, new generation needs to go somewhere, as detailed by CIPCO.
"Over the past year, they have brought forward a proposal that respects the preservation of agricultural land by proposing the project be located as close to existing infrastructure as possible while responsibly distancing the site from as many residents as possible so as to negate the need to unnecessarily disturb more of that prime farmland. The need for power is real and Hickory Grove proposal will help meet those needs in a minimally invasive but meaningful way.”
Chaz Allen, executive director of the Iowa Utility Association, also supports the plan.
“IUA's membership utilities are seeing unprecedented growth as a result. We are all experiencing the need to generate more power reliably, safely and cost-effectively for the customers we serve,” he said. “The IUA is here today to support CIPCO’s efforts to locate their proposed facility in Scott County as a critically important generation project for a well-reasoned location for electric generating station.
“Like CIPCO, IUA members thoughtfully and strategically perform careful planning processes and lead to projects like Hickory Grove Generating Station,” Allen said. “It is imperative that the state of Iowa proceed with efforts to site new generation resources so that utilities can continue to serve and meet the energy demands of our homes, schools, hospitals and businesses, not just today, but for the generations to come. The power consumed today is possible because the decisions were made decades ago to achieve it.”
What is next?
Linda Golinghorst of Maysville, a leader of the Concerned Citizens group, hosted an April 1 meeting in Eldridge on the plant status and attended the Rhythm City meeting.
“Our goal was to let people know that this isn't over. That the decision made by the supervisors wasn't being respected by CIPCO and they were going to continue to pursue permits to override the supervisors at the state level,” Golinghorst said Tuesday.
“So we wanted to make sure people knew that because everyone thought it was over. And that was the purpose of our meeting last Wednesday is we just wanted to make sure it's not over. CIPCO is disregarding the zoning decision and they're trying to get this overridden. And the next step is to apply for the IUC permit.”
They had the April 1 meeting also to let people know to formally enter their comments on the IUC website, so they know the public’s thoughts.
“And we showed them how to do that. So we demonstrated the process that was our goal was to just let them know that CIPCO
was still trying to get this overturned and that this IUC process was the one that's right now that we need to respond to and how to engage,” Golinghorst said Tuesday. “According to the code, they have this informational meeting and like I said, there's no record other than CIPCO’s presentation slides and the public notice. And you can apply if you have an account on the EFS for the docket number, you can see everything that happens from here on out. Everything. Because it will be in there 30 days from yesterday, no sooner CIPCO can formally apply for.”
“Every day I will be staring at this power plant because I can see it right out all of my windows and it's within a half-mile drive from our house, which is nothing when you're out in the country,” she said. “There's nothing in between us and that plant. It's maddening. It feels like we have no voice that we don't, we're not involved in the process, even though we're allowed to oppose it, that we really don't. Do we really have a chance? I have no idea.
“I've done a lot of just looking things up in the amount of time that I have because I'm retired. And it seems like the IUC rarely says no,” Golinghorst added. “But will the IUC hold them accountable to meet the zoning requirements? I think that's the question, and I'm not sure they will.”
Many residents are frustrated that the county is not allowed to control its own land use.
“We really need to be concerned about land use and local. We should have local controls of land use,” she said. “I know a lot of people talk about concerns about the environment and other things, and those are valid concerns to have. But we're concerned about making sure that, we don't think this is reasonable land use. It doesn't require really good soil. And we think that local control on zoning needs to prevail. So that's kind of the arguments that we're trying to make.”
Golinghorst is personally very frustrated because “it's going to affect every day of my life to have that power plant out there,” she said. “I do worry about my personal health, especially at my age and given other respiratory conditions that I have. But. But most of it is just like, come on, you guys. We understand that you want to build a peaker plant, but it's a big question I learned from yesterday is if you're going to shut down part of Creston, why don't you just put this there?
“You already have a plant there,” she said of the CIPCO plant 230 miles west of Maysville. “I don't know that we have a good answer to that question. Because it has gas lines, it has distribution lines. They've been operating there since like the seventies.”
On the Concerned Citizens of Scott County Facebook page, Golinghorst Tuesday gave instructions on how to post a comment online –
- Go to the Electronic Filing System homepage, at efs.iowa.gov, and set up a free account.
- Click on the ‘SIGN UP’ button.
- Complete the form with your email and password.
- Click the ‘Register’ button.
- Login to the EFS, by clicking ‘LOGIN’ and enter your email and password.
- Go to the ‘Search’ area and click on ‘Dockets, Filings, and Document Tariffs’.
- Click on ‘Docket Search’, then enter the docket number for CIPCO Hickory Grove: GCU-2026-0001.
- Click on the docket number (first column) to open the docket.
- Click ‘Subscribe’ to get email notifications when there is a new filing (comment, document, etc).
- Submit an objection or comment on the docket by clicking on the top menu item ‘Submit’.
- Complete the form.
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