Burg's Power Plant is Dead, But....

Yesterday, the State Siting Board for power facilities turned down a proposal to build an 1,100 megawatt power plant at N. 12 Street and Kent Avenue in Williamsburg. For those that thought the plant was dead in 2004, it was. At that time, an application for an above-ground facility was turned down. But TransGas, the utility that wanted to build it, came back with a proposal for an underground one. The vote to dismiss the proposal was unanimous. We hate to slosh cold water in the face, but given the astounding history of the plan, we'd be remiss in overlooking the one tiny footnote that does not leave the plant 100 percent dead: the utility can still appeal the decision. "We fully expect that they will be completely unsuccessful," says neighborhood activist Phil DePaolo. Okay, so it's 99.99 percent dead. Still, it's that .01 percent that can come back and get you when you're not looking.