LATEST FILTRATION NEWS! Mt. Pleasant Open to Plant By Jordan Moss The
supervisor of the Westchester town of Mount Pleasant, Robert Meehan, is
still open to the idea of hosting the Croton water filtration plant. “We would entertain them siting it here and go
through the normal [environmental] review,” Meehan said in a telephone
interview on Monday For the last couple of months, northwest Bronx
residents have come together to argue that the far better site for the plant
— which the city prefers to build at Mosholu Golf Course in Van Cortlandt
Park — is at the Mt. Pleasant site known as Eastview. They argue that it
is an industrial site far from peoples’ homes and is more suitable than
the densely populated Norwood and Van Cortlandt Village communities.
Opponents of the Van Cortlandt Park site also point to the city’s latest
environmental study which indicates that, under one construction scenario,
the Eastview site is cheaper than the Van Cortlandt site, thus undercutting
one of the city’s main arguments for building the plant in the Bronx. Meehan, a Republican in office since 1990, said nothing
has really changed since 1998 when the city first considered the Mt.
Pleasant site as an alternative to the Jerome Park Reservoir. Meehan’s stance on the plant was reinforced by his
constituents last week, when not a single town resident showed up at a
Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) hearing at Mount Pleasant Town
Hall. Residents from other Westchester towns, such as Hawthorne, Rye,
Hastings and Yorktown Heights attended, mostly to oppose the building of a
filtration plant altogether. They believe the facility will only encourage
further development and pollution in the watershed. Meehan himself said he couldn’t attend the hearing
because he had another meeting. Only about 40 people attended the hearing, including several from the Bronx. Asked about the lack of interest of his town in the
hearing, Meehan said, “It [the proposed plant] is not located near any
residences in Mt. Pleasant.” Meehan said his town could possibly expect up to $2 million or more in yearly tax revenues were the city to build the plant in his town.
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