The Williamsburg Power Plant: Still Alive?!?

All this time, we thought that proposed power TransGas Energy power plant at the Bushwick Inlet in Williamsburg was dead. It's not.

One could be excused for thinking otherwise, what the city looking to build a park near the site (and on the north shore of the Bushwick Inlet too) and with luxury highrise condos going up or planned all over the waterfront. (Bet nobody's anxious for prospective buyers at Northside Piers or North8 to know that one of their neighbors could still be an 1100 megawatt power plant exhaling toxic gasses.)

So, five years after it was first proposed, and many community protests later, there's another protest planned against the plant on Saturday (11/4) because, as it turns out, an independent state Siting Board has yet to make a decision on the plant. This, from the stopthepowerplant.org website:

While the Siting Board and the Governor waffle, lots of community residents have been asking if the fight against the TGE power plant is over. Many think that since Mayor Bloomberg and city agencies came out against the power plant that the community has been spared this power plant siting. Not so. While our campaign has put TGE on the ropes, the lengthy legal battle against the power plant siting is not over. The final result depends on the Governor's appointed Siting Board. The Greenpoint Williamsburg Waterfront Task Force recently invited candidates running to state their position on the TGE power plant. The community eagerly awaits their reply. The Greenpoint Williamsburg Waterfront Task Force (GWWTF) maintains its strong opposition to this power plant siting despite TGE's recent attempts to lure the community with unenforceable affordable housing offers and tall tales about better community air quality....the Governor and his Siting Board continue to waffle on their decision. The GWWTF along with the rest of the community, now represented without charge by Columbia Law School's Environmental Law Clinic, have questioned whether the Siting Board has jurisdicton over TGE's current proposal.

The rally is from noon-1PM on Saturday at Kent and N. 12th. More info is available here. (Amusingly, there will be a volunteer clean up going on at the East River State Park--which likely won't open to the public until next spring--a few blocks south, starting at 10AM and continuing past the time of the rally.) While we're vaguely amused in an bitterly ironic way about the image of million dollar condos cheek by jowl with what would be the biggest power plant in New York City, we are shockedthat a dagger has not been completely driven through its heart yet. The power plant is a relic of an era (not so long ago) when the waterfront was viewed as a dumping ground for things like trash stations and oil depots.