Residents: Filter Study Biased By JORDAN MOSS
The residents, organized under a new umbrella group, called the Bronx Health and Environmental Justice Committee, have teamed up with Columbia University's Environmental Law Clinic to press the city's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to rectify in the final study what it sees as an unfair comparison of the two sites.
In a letter to the DEP, the lawyers cite several areas where the study minimizes impacts at Eastview and accentuates them at Van Cortlandt Park. Underlying many of the concerns is the fact that DEP only studied the impacts in a half mile around the park, while it studied impacts for one mile around the Eastview site. The study also examines traffic at 27 intersections around the Eastview site but only nine at Mosholu, despite the fact that Norwood is densely populated and Eastview is not. At Eastview, the study indicates that there will be significant impact on "neighborhood character" whereas at Mosholu there will be no change in neighborhood or land use patterns. The letter from the lawyers takes issue with these claims, pointing out that the Eastview site is already zoned for industrial use, while construction at the park site will mean that some of it, especially the driving range, is unavailable for park use. "Even without a zoning change, the water treatment plant will likely appear as an industrial use on the city's land use maps and may provide a basis for the granting of variances for other industrial uses to come into the area," wrote the clinic's director, Professor Edward Lloyd. "This would have a dramatic impact on the neighborhood character." Neighborhood residents who have traveled to Eastview, which is about 20 miles from the Bronx, say they can't understand how the city could ever decide not to build in such a sparsely populated site, whose main neighbors are a bus depot and Fire Department practice range, in favor of a public park in their crowded neighborhood. "Why is it that we have to fight for something that's so evident?" said Dunica Charles, who also lives across the street from the park. "It's as clear as day that that's the perfect site for a filtration plant." Lloyd said a central question the DEP must answer is, "If you want to reduce the impact on people, which site is a better site to pick?" The DEP's final environmental impact statement, due out by the end of the month, will determine whether Columbia's Law Clinic and the Bronx group press forth with a suit, Lloyd added. "We're representing the group up there and we will certainly help them evaluate the next iteration of this from the city," he said.
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A group of Norwood residents believes that the
city's study of proposed sites for the
Croton water filtration plant is so biased that they may sue. The plant opponents charge
that the study more rigorously examines the impact of the plant at the industrial
Westchester site known as Eastview, while underestimating the plant's effect on
Norwood residents who live across the street from Van Cortlandt Park, the site the city
prefers.
"When you see the disregard of facts brought up by their own studies,
there's just only
one conclusion - this community is disposable in their view," said Gil
Maduro, a resident
who lives across the street from the park.
