MDN brought you the exciting news that last week a New York “Supreme Court” judge (Supreme Court in NY is a lower court, one step up from county court) overruled a last-minute dirty trick by the Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to block a Marcellus-fired electric plant from starting operations (see NY Judge Overrules DEC, Allows Gas-Fired Plant to Start Up). Competitive Power Ventures built and is days away from starting up the Valley Energy Center, a $900 million, 680-megawatt natural gas-fired electric generating plant in Orange County, NY. In a last minute, desperate attempt to block the plant (to boost his gubernatorial reelection campaign), Gov. Andrew Cuomo directed the DEC to deny renewing an air permit previously granted by the DEC. The DEC says the plant will need a different (federal) air permit before it can start up, effectively blocking the project. The judge stepped in and overruled the DEC, allowing Valley Energy to restart its tests and begin operations. Testing restarted Sunday morning. According to CPV, these final round of tests will take “two to three weeks” before the plant is fully operational and online…
