Op-Ed
Westchester Tunnel Could Save Bronx From Plant

By ANN MARIE GARTI

Have you heard that the construction of a water filtration plant for the Croton water system in Van Cortlandt Park is a done deal? That may have been true last year, but things have changed. 

In 2003, Mayor Bloomberg and Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) 
Commissioner Christopher Ward announced they would build a new $2.5 billion water tunnel from the Kensico Reservoir in Westchester County to an existing underground chamber in the northwest Bronx. This tunnel may be the key to moving the controversial filtration plant out of the Bronx and into an industrial area of Westchester County.

Croton water travels down the "New" Croton Aqueduct, a 125-year-old brick tunnel that was designed to absorb ground water. This may have been a smart idea in the 19th century, when Westchester County was farmland. But Westchester is now densely developed, and hazardous chemicals are seeping into our water supply. 

To fix this problem, the DEP would have to put a lining in the New Croton Aqueduct, which would cost $800 million. It was that extra cost that used to make a Westchester site for the filter plant too expensive. But it appears the DEP might have to line it even if the plant is built in the Bronx because filter plants are not made to remove hazardous chemicals. 

Now that the mayor has committed to building a new tunnel, the DEP has a new option. Instead of spending a lot of money trying to seal a 19th century aqueduct, they can put the filter plant in Eastview and send filtered Croton water down the 21st century "Kensico City Tunnel."

The new 16-mile-long tunnel will be awesome: 25 to 30 feet in diameter and bored through bedrock hundreds of feet underground. It will be secure and capable of carrying all of the city's water supply. This will enable the DEP to shut down and repair the Delaware Aqueduct, which is leaking a lot of water.

According to the newly released Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, the DEP's engineers have concluded that building the plant in Eastview would be cheaper than building it in Van Cortlandt Park. 

To build the plant in the park, the DEP has to dig, blast, drill and excavate 2.5 million cubic yards of rock in order to make an 80-foot deep, nine-acre hole. In Eastview, they just have to build the plant, like any ordinary building, above ground. 

Instead of destroying 28 acres of parkland, and trying to compensate for that with $250 million in park improvements, which may or may not ever materialize, the DEP could allocate $290 million toward the cost of the Kensico City Tunnel, which they have to build anyway.

Besides, Westchester County needs filtered water, and in return, upstate water users would pay 8.5 to 9 percent of the cost of constructing and operating the filter plant.

If the DEP builds the Croton filter plant in Eastview, then they could potentially use filtered Croton water to dilute turbid (muddy) Catskill or Delaware water. This could extend filtration avoidance for the Catskill and Delaware water systems, which supply 90 percent of the city's water, and save the city $6 billion by not having to build an even bigger filter plant.

The Bronx High School of Science and the Jerome Park community would also benefit from the Eastview site for the Croton filter plant.

If the plant were built in the Bronx, there would be major construction projects around Jerome Park Reservoir in Bedford Park. The intersection of Goulden Avenue and 205th Street, and the section of Harris Park that lies next to the reservoir, would be torn up in order to build a 50-foot shaft, a tunnel 650 feet long, three room-sized concrete flow meter chambers, and the installation of at least seven other pipes, ranging from 48 to 144 inches in diameter. These noisy projects would take four years to complete and impair learning at Bronx Science, which is directly across the street.

If the plant were built in Eastview, none of this would happen. 

And there is an even bigger bonus for the city's park and recreation lovers.

If the filtration plant were built in Eastview, then the Jerome Park Reservoir would be taken off-line and become like the Central Park Reservoir -- an emergency water supply. People would be able to walk by the edge of the water, just as they did before World War II. And the Jerome Park Conservancy could work with the DEP, instead of against it, to educate people about our marvelous water supply. 

By building the Croton filtration plant in an industrial area in Westchester, the Norwood, Woodlawn, Bedford Park, and Van Cortlandt Village communities would be spared years of devastating construction impacts. And Jerome Park could again become a reservoir-park.

Eastview is by far the best site for the filter plant.

Anne Marie Garti, a Van Cortlandt Village resident, is the president of the Jerome Park Conservancy and the past chair of the site / technical committee of the Jerome Park Reservoir Citizens Advisory Committee.

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