- See more at: http://blogtimenow.com/blogging/automatically-redirect-blogger-blog-another-blog-website/#sthash.Q6qPkwFC.dpuf More on the Proposal to Blast at Jerome Park Reservoir | Bronx News Networkbronx

Monday, May 4, 2009

More on the Proposal to Blast at Jerome Park Reservoir

Last week we covered the Croton Facility Monitoring Committee Meeting and reported that the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is again proposing the use of blasting at the Jerome Park Reservoir.

We reported that DEP official Angela Licata saying that the DEP did not do a good job of describing hoe-ramming in the original environmental impact statement (EIS).

On her blog, local activist Karen Argenti, who also attended the meeting, pointed out that in the course of answering questions Licata actually admitted that the DEP did not do a good job of explaining the entire construction project at the reservoir. You can check out Argenti's blog and the actual quote here.

This is big news for activists who years ago questioned the construction plans at the reservoir and the accuracy of the information in the original EIS.

As for the allusive "tech memo," which supposedly explains the blasting plan and its effects on the environment, we couldn't find it on the DEP Web site, so we called 311. No luck there, as we got transferred to a DEP staff member who will be on vacation until May 25. Finally, we called the press office and they helped us find the links online. (It's the two "minor modification" links.) However, the links don't work.

If you are interested in reading the tech memo, Argenti has it posted here. The DEP hopes this document will satisfy the public, as they say they are not willing to conduct a supplemental EIS.

2 comments:

  1. This was a bad meeting for the DEP because they found they are fooling no one and the only ones caught in their web of lies and distortions is themselves.

    They have not offered “minor modifications” to the original plans for construction around the Jerome Park Reservoir, but instead a “major redesign”. As a result, it is quite clear – and was obvious to all who attended the meeting – that what they did at the outset was present a fraudulent EIS with but one goal: to gain approval. Once that was achieved, they set about violating their own documents in numerous ways.

    The DEP knew that if the EIS said they were going to blast across the street from the Bronx HS of Science, on the corner near Walton HS, and in the center of the reservoir and send 25-30 trucks a day through two different neighborhoods (across Goulden and down Sedgwick to the Deegan and across Goulden to Kingsbridge Road to Bailey to the Deegan) it would not have been approved.

    So they left it out, in fact stating outright that they weren’t going to blast. And now are trying to do get it done without the proper notification, documentation, nor environmental review that protects the community from out of control intrusions.

    Further proof that Bloomberg is out to lunch on this is that the very same day, he put out some phony survey asking people how the City might improve the environmental review process. Ha!

    You can improve the process ten-fold by having the city’s agencies actually respect it!

    The bottom line for the April 30 meeting: slowly but surely, this filtration scam is unraveling right in front of those who perpetuated it: Michael Bloomberg, Chris Ward, Jose Rivera, a litany of DEP officials and flunkies, and all those contractors and engineers who have fed at its trough.

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  2. Scam?? Really? So why don't we have DEP just stop the whole Croton project and in 2011 the U.S. EPA can start fining NYC on a daily basis for failure to meet their directive. Is that really a better alternative? N.I.M.B.Y's and B.A.N.A.N.A's will eventually put such a strangle hold on the construction industry in NYC that the unions might as well pack it in.

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