DUNKIRK, N.Y. — It has sat idle on the Dunkirk lakefront for ten years now after a failed follow-up natural gas conversion plan for the former Dunkirk coal burning power plant. The 2016 facility shutdown caused a devastating loss of tax revenue and employment for a financially struggling city in Chautauqua County.
Government leaders like Chautauqua Co. Executive Paul Wendel Jr. cannot understand a decade of inaction by Albany officials: ” We’ve produced so many – we’ve had studies and approaches to it. Let’s get this operational. Let’s re-purpose it. Let’s re-power it. But there’s been ‘Crickets.’ Again the frustration you know is kind of selling out. The Governor doesn’t want natural gas.”
So now there is the reported acquisition of the 70 plus acre site from former owner NRG by the Texas – based Genover Corporation which has a reputation for turning around former brownfield generating facilities…