Under federal law, Minneapolis, Minn.-based firm would have been required to mitigate threats to the whooping crane and the piping plover, a step that carried “uncertainty in the cost and timing,” the company said in a regulatory filing.
Xcel said it terminated a 2008 agreement with EnXco Development Corp. to construct the 150-MW Merricourt Wind Project, a project that was to have been completed this year.
"We are glad that they made the decision," said Robert Johns, a spokesman for the American Bird Conservancy.
The group contends that about 440,000 birds are killed each year by wind farms.
According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, there are only about 400 whooping crane’s left in the wild. The piping plover is listed as endangered in the Great Lakes area, with just 63 known nesting pairs in 2008.
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