A local official is vowing to fight the construction of a new gas-fueled generating plant in Queens.

“Even though our youth already breathe the poison spewing from five power plants, which provide 80% of New York City’s power, the callous bureaucrats at the NPA have decided to stick another dagger in the lungs of the children in northwest Queens,” Council Member Peter Vallone Jr., who represents Astoria, where the plant is to be built, said in a statement. “It is an indefensible decision, and I demand a state investigation of the awarding of this contract.”

The New York Power Authority announced yesterday that Astoria Energy had won a 20-year contract to build a new plant to replace the Charles Poletti Power Project, which is scheduled to close in 2010. The new facility will have 500 megawatts of generating capacity and will supply power to New York City schools, hospitals, subways, commuter trains, and public housing, the authority said.

Plans for the plant will require the approval of a number of agencies, including the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and the New York City Housing Authority.

Some environmentalists are applauding the proposed new facility, which will use combined-cycle technology to consume 30% less fuel per unit of electricity than a conventional power plant.

“This will result in the displacement of a third-generation power plant, and whenever we can replace an old plant with a new one it is good thing environmentally,” the director of the National Resources Defense Council’s air and energy program, Ashok Gupta, said.

The creation of the new plant will fulfill a 2001 mandate from the New York State Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment, which approved the construction of 1,000 megawatts of generating capacity in Astoria. The first phase of the project was completed in May 2006, when another 500-megawatt combined-cycle facility opened to provide power to Consolidated Edison.