Controversial plans to build an incinerator in the Co Antrim village of Glenavy are to be challenged in the High Court in Belfast.
The Communities Against the Lough Neagh Incinerator (CALNI) group lodged judicial review papers on Friday after environment minister Edwin Poots announced the plant should proceed.
Earlier this week, Mr Poots said he considered CALNI's arguments but approved the plant on balance as it will "further stimulate the local economy", creating up to 400 construction jobs as well as investment opportunities.
The planned £40m power plant will incinerate 260,000 tonnes of poultry bedding and meat and bone meal a year to produce 30 mega-watts of electricity.
Around 30 permanent jobs will be created.
But residents say the facility will blight Glenavy's rural landscape and the natural beauty of the Lough Neagh area.
They believe other sites in industrial areas would better suit the development and have complained that no details of how the biomass power plant would be connected to the electricity grid have been published.
CALNI president Danny Moore said: "The minister's decision to approve Rose Energy's £100m burnhouse on the shores of Lough Neagh at Glenavy does not mark the end of this process, but only the end of the beginning."
Mr Moore claimed there were failings in the planning process.
"CALNI has consistently warned Minister Poots and Planning Service that if they refused to afford the communities opposed to this planning application the opportunity to access information on the Planning Service file, access to Planning Service consultees and to hold a public inquiry, we would challenge them in the courts," he said.
The planning application was submitted in June 2008 by Rose Energy Ltd.
The Environment Department received 6,342 letters and four petitions in support of the development and 6,733 letters and one petition opposed to it.
Rose Energy say there are significant environmental benefits from the biomass incinerator, including dealing with the difficult issue of processing animal waste, meeting nitrates targets and generating renewable energy.
Rose Energy Chairman Tony O'Neill says the facility will make a significant contribution to the economy of Northern Ireland in the future.
"This is a very strong and positive message for the Northern Irish economy," Mr O'Neill told UTV.
"The agri-food industry is the engine for development in the local economy and the poultry sector is a very large part of that.
"I think this is a major sign of confidence in the future."
The Department of the Environment says a study from a group of experts on manure disposal found that combustion is the only proven technology for disposing of chicken litter.
© UTV News