PUBLISHED BY MOSHOLU PRESERVATION CORPORATION

Pataki Paves Way For Filter Plant
Permits Building in Park

By JORDAN MOSS

Ending a three-month political drama in Albany, Governor George Pataki signed legislation allowing New York City to build a $1.3 billion water filtration plant at Mosholu Golf Course in Van Cortlandt Park. 

Predictably, opponents were profoundly disappointed in the governor's decision.

"I think that he had no consideration for the neighborhood and to sign a bill like that is not thinking about the impact it would have on the community [and the] illnesses of the people . . . who are asthmatic," said Ora Holloway, a DeKalb Avenue resident who has long fought to improve and protect the southeast corner of the park. "I think it was environmental injustice." 

The governor made the decision at almost the last possible moment, in the late evening on July 22, apparently after negotiating with Mayor Bloomberg about his role in divvying up $243 million that the city promised in return for disrupting 40 acres of parkland. 

In a letter the mayor sent Pataki the same day the governor signed the legislation, 
Bloomberg promised: "I commit to work with you to identify eligible projects subject to the bill and assure you that the City will not execute the MOU [memorandum of understanding] until you and I are in full agreement on eligible projects."

It was because of this agreement that Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, the lawmaker whose district includes the site, said Pataki was acting out of narrow self interest rather than his stated concerns about the environment and the community 

"Once again, the governor lived down to my worst expectations," Dinowitz said. "It's pretty clear that he was most interested in getting a piece of the pie. He was more concerned with pork than park, and once he was able to cut himself into the $200 million [that the city promised for Bronx park improvement] he signed the bill."

The governor's office did not return a call seeking comment.

Dinowitz was also angry at his Democratic colleagues from the Bronx, all of whom voted for the legislation 

"Some of these elected officials in the Bronx that supported the plant are some of the same ones who have leveled charges of environmental racism in regards to projects [in their districts]," he said. "Perhaps some of them are guilty of the very same charges with regard to the filtration plant." 

Though opponents seem to have been dealt their most serious setback yet in a battle that stretches back more than a decade, when the city first set its sites on the Jerome Park Reservoir for the facility, they still some opportunities to emerge victorious in the end.

The Friends of Van Cortlandt Park, the nonprofit that successfully sued the city a few years ago for failing to seek the legislature's approval to build in the park, may well sue again. 

"When the process is complete, if they've broken the law, we'll be in court," said Elizabeth Cooke, president of the Friends, referring to the supplemental environmental impact statement the city promised to do for the golf course site as it pushed to secure passage of the legislation. 

Cooke and other park advocates are also seizing on the city vow, also delineated in the Bloomberg letter, to compare the park site to two other sites it had been considering in Westchester and along the Harlem River in the Bronx before officially picking a "preferred site."

"Many people are skeptical about whether DEP [Department of Environmental Protection] will really do a fair-and-square site selection, and we want to make them do it the best we can," Cooke said in a telephone interview as she drove up with other activists to take a look at the Eastview site. 

And finally, there is the factor that has proven to be the activist's best friend in a fight that began at the Jerome Park Reservoir more than a decade ago Ñ time. Being that the work on the plant won't begin until at least 2005, opponents still think there's time to derail the bulldozers.

"Until there's a shovel in the ground, I always have hope," Dinowitz said.