We were glad to see Father Richard Gorman back after a brief health issue that sidelined the now 40 pounds lighter Community Board # 12 Chairman, but that may have been the only good news at the March Croton Filtration Monitoring Committee meeting.
The DEP went over the updated costs of the Croton water filtration plant being built in Van Cortlandt Park, which showed that consultants Metcalf & Eddy/Hazen and Sawyer, JV current contract amount to be at $257,957,640 million dollars, an increase of 463% over the original contract price of $44, 226,000 million dollars. This as the completed costs to finish building the water filtration plant approach the 3 billion dollar level for completion in 2013, almost 20 years after first being proposed at an estimated cost of 600 million dollars by the Giuliani administration. There were also continued questions of the way the water is to be filtered as newer cheaper methods have come about in the past 20 years.
As for the report on the percentage of Bronx workers at the plant, DEP said that it is now at 16%. (a 2 1/2 year low), and Councilman G. Oliver Koppell upon hearing such a low percentage said that was not good enough, and wanted to know why the number was so low. Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (who was in the audience) then said that our community was lied to by DEP Commissioner Ward and that DEP has lied throughout the entire process. There was also a question of how many workers were taking mass transit to the site, as that was a selling point for this site being at the end of the # 4 subway, and along several bus routes including some from Westchester Count.
When it came to the update of siting an alternate route for the force main for waste water to flow to the treatment plant in the South Bronx, it was said that the report was not ready as there was not enough information yet to make that determination.
The "Dumb Deaf and Silent" act by Mark Lanaghan of DEP came when the subject of public access to the Jerome Park Reservoir then came up. Mr. Lanaghan stated that there was a report sent to the Bronx Borough President about the subject, and that he nor any one else from DEP was not going to take part in, listen, or even speak any more. As Mr. Lanaghan sat in his chair he then pulled out his Blacberry phone (as most city agency heads do in meetings), trying to ignore what was going on. For the rest of the meeting no one from DEP uttered a word, and it seemed as though Mr. Lanaghan turned into a figure that one would see in a wax museum.
After lengthy a discussion about the access to the reservoir (without DEP input) Father Gorman asked for a meeting to be run by the Bronx Borough President along with all the stakeholders in the community on the issue of access, since DEP had answered his query on the subject. A question arose from the audience on the subject of playing golf on top of the completed plant (as proposed that the previous golf course would be replaced above the plant) when there was such a great deal of importance for security reasons to keep people away from the Jerome Park Reservoir, which did not get answered.
The next meeting of the Croton Water Filtration Committee was the n scheduled for Wednesday April 27th.
