The future home of the first phase Bushwick Inlet Park sits behind this chain-link fence. TransGas Energy has been fighting to build a power plant on adjacent land which is currently zoned to become part of the future park.

BROOKLYN—Behind a tall, chain link fence topped with barbed wire along the Brooklyn waterfront sits several piles of rock and dirt, a backhoe, and a small construction office. This is the future home of Bushwick Inlet Park.

Right next door, one group of developers has their own plans—building a massive, 1,100-megawatt underground power plant with a 325-foot tall smokestack.

Since TransGas Energy first proposed the plant in 2002, community leaders and the mayor’s office have come out in opposition.

In the latest episode, the two sides landed in a Brooklyn appellate court last month. The court denied TransGas’s appeal to reverse a state regulatory board’s decision to block the plant.

But even with the ruling, the company may appeal again. Plans for the plant along Kent Avenue have clashed with the community, the need for more and new sources of energy and the city’s desire to redevelop the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront.

The controversy looms like a smokestack over the park.

“This plant would decimate an entire rezoning plan, a waterfront plan that the community developed,” said Assemblyman Joe Lentol (D-Brooklyn), who has led the fight against the plant.

In 2005, the city re-zoned the land the company wanted to build on to become part of a massive, 28-acre waterfront park. The city broke ground on the first phase of that park this summer.

The community organized in opposition, declaring victory after the New York State Board on Electric Generation, Siting and the Environment (known as the Siting Board) denied the proposal in March 2008.

John Dax, an attorney for TransGas, said that the community met the plans with “irrational, panicy anger”. He called it a classic case of “not in my backyard.”

Adam Perlmutter, another attorney who fought the plant, said it was quite the opposite—building a power plant on Brooklyn’s riverfront would be building “in my front yard.”

In 2008, the state Independent System Operator (ISO), which controls the power grid, said in its report that the state, and New York City in particular, will need new power resources.

PlaNYC, the mayor’s green initiative, includes plans for constructing new clean plants, modifying old ones and building more transmission lines to meet the city’s energy demands.

Dax said this is exactly the kind of plant the city needs.

“The city has very aggressive goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing dependence on foreign oil,” he said. This plant “takes huge steps in meeting those goals.”

This year, the ISO reversed its stance and said “the resources needed to meet the electricity needs of New York State are expected to continue to exceed demand.”

Samara Swanston, counsel to the City Council’s Environmental Protection Committee, said she hasn’t seen an overwhelming need to build new plants.

“It hasn’t been established to me that [the city’s energy] needs can’t be supplied by the existing infrastructure,” she said. “The answer can’t just be to build more power plants.”

Lentol agreed, saying that building new plants isn’t the way to get more energy. He said improving transmission lines and teaching conservation are the best way to start.

Dax said his client is still considering appealing the court’s decision to the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court.

They may have a hard time doing so, said Lentol, who is also an attorney. He said the high court generally only accepts cases that have controversy or present a novel legal argument.

In this case, TransGas simply disagrees with the Siting Board’s decision, he said.

Dax said they have thirty days to appeal.