Read more: https://www.riverdalepress.com/stories/A-road-to-nowhere,49710?page=1&content_source=

Kristin Hart is the President of the Fort Independence Park Neighborhood Association (FIPNA)

Also see:

Aqueduct Trail disconnect

By Karen Argenti on November 21, 2011 | Edit

Aqueduct Trail: how the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail in the North Bronx is a disconnect As you may know, the historic Old Croton Aqueduct trails from Croton Lake in Westchester County through the Bronx exiting at the historic and soon to be opened High Bridge — the oldest bridge in the City. But for one little [...]

A 8069 C is the bill A8069C

A8069C with highlights and shortened A8069C with highlights

A8069C votes or the HONOR ROLL Assembly Vote 8069

2004 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) including Project List as required by Chapter 175
MOU-scanned-Sept-2004

1999 ULURP Resolution and List of Projects
Reso-933-of-1999
Mosholu-Mitigation-Res-993-of-1999

Letter sent to City Council with Excel List of Projects
09.13.04-BronxWaterFiltrationPlant
Updatedlistfor10m091304

New Yorkers will pay price for Croton Water Treatment Plant cost overruns

The price tag of a new Bronx water treatment plant has skyrocketed to $3.4 billion – nearly three times what the Bloomberg administration announced when construction began in 2004, the city’s Independent Budget Office says.

The astounding cost overruns for the Croton Water Treatment Plant mean that every New York City household will end up paying, on average, $44 more in its annual water bill for the next few decades just to pay for the plant.

And although city officials keep coming up with cash for the contractors in charge of this money pit, they have yet to produce all the parks improvements they promised Bronx residents in exchange for erecting the new plant in Van Cortlandt Park.

Mayor Bloomberg promised in a 2004 memorandum of understanding with city and state leaders that the Department of Environmental Protection would earmark $200 million over a five year-period from the Croton project’s budget to pay for boroughwide park improvements.

Only $150 million of that money has been committed, Parks Department spokeswoman Vickie Karp said yesterday.

The Independent Budget Office said the city doesn’t plan to spend the rest of the $50 million until 2019.

Somehow, a five-year promise mysteriously morphed into 15 years.

“I’m so outraged at everything DEP and the city have done here,” said North Bronx neighborhood leader Jane Sokolow. “They keep trampling over a community that didn’t want this project to begin with.”

“All of the Parks [Department] Croton projects have either been built, are in construction, or are in the process of being designed or bid,” Karp insisted.

“The undertaking is a huge success and a huge win for the people of the Bronx.”

Bronx neighborhood leaders see things differently.

They always said the plant, which the city was required to build by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, could be built more cheaply in Westchester County instead of beneath Van Cortlandt Park. But the DEP’s experts insisted the Bronx site would only cost $1.2 billion.

So what went wrong?

“Initially, bidding out the work during a hyper-inflated construction market was the primary reason behind cost increases,” DEP spokesman Farrell Sklerov said yesterday in an email statement.

In 2009, then-city Controller William Thompson audited the project and found it had jumped to $2.1 billion. The original “conceptual cost estimate [by the city] was unreliable,” Thompson concluded.

In other words, the neighborhood people had been right.

Since Thompson’s audit, the plant has swallowed another billion dollars or so.

“More recently, design and construction change orders due to the complexity of the facility, and enhancements to the design and architecture of the above ground facilities all played a role in cost increases,” Sklerov added.

That’s all doublespeak, says Bronx Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz, a longtime critic of the plant.

“If this was Bloomberg’s own company, he would have fired the people who screwed this up,” Dinowitz said. “But the mayor has not said a word. … Someone needs to take responsibility for such huge waste.”

jgonzalez@nydailynews.com

This was passed by the City Council on September 28, 2004 – Communication from the Mayor ….. transmitting the memorandum of
understanding entered into pursuant to chapter 175 of the laws of 2003 in connection with the Croton water filtration facility and the funding of certain eligible projects in the borough of the Bronx.

MOU also references the one and only ULURP on this project passed in 1999.

Here we are in October 2011 and the DEP has admitted that of the $200 million in the MOU and the $43 million in the ULURP has been frozen.

DEC Report to the DEP in 2009 on the Earthen Berm
DECDamSafety_to_DEPAug2009

Site of the 66 trees that have to be removed
Fort Independence Park Trees kadraft 070511

NYS DEC page concerning the rules on Earthen Berms Dam Safety near Reservoirs: http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/4991.html

Notes from the WM11 CWTP Monthly Report 79 from April 2011. Here is 14 pages excerpted and I have two full reports form April 2011 and August 2010.

• Comments WM11 CWTP Mo Rept 79 April 2011 comments
• Monthly Report (excerpted) - WM11 CWTP Monthly Report 79 April 2011 excpts
• 2004 Council MOU info - Updatedlistfor10m091304 from 09.13.04-BronxWaterFiltrationPlant
• 1999 Resolution:  Reso 933 of 1999
• 1999 List of funded projects:  Mosholu Mitigation Res 993 of 1999

Finally the report was provided in April, and discussion will follow in May at the FMC meeting on the 20th.  Report is on the CB 8 web page under the Croton Water Treatment Plant, Van Cortlandt Park, Pedestrian Bridge Feasibility Study
Van Cortlandt Park Pedestrian Bridge Feasibility Study Part 1
Van Cortlandt Park Pedestrian Bridge Feasibility Study Part 2

Letters of support are being sent to the Community Board 8.  Here are a few:

FIPNA Support Pedestrian Bridge 05182010

BCEQpedestrian_bridge_support05182010

Pedestrian Bridge Support Letter FVCP 051710

Below is the article.  Here is the PDF for the article: Harris Park $14 M Jan 2010

————————

New York Post – Updated: Thu., Jan. 28, 2010, 1:16 PM

Bronx field now city’s $14M

blunder land

By RICH CALDER, Posted: 2:31 AM, January 19, 2010

A city plan to rebuild one of The Bronx’s biggest sports fields has morphed into a money pit for taxpayers.

Workers renovating Harris Field in Bedford Park recently uncovered contaminated soil under the playing surfaces, helping push the anticipated cost to nearly $14 million, city officials told The Post.

The price tag for the renovation had already gone from the $6.6 million announced in 2007 to $8.7 million, records show.

Now the Parks Department is confirming that it has to add another $5.2 million for cleanup because of the high levels of lead unearthed while workers were preparing to install drainage-system tanks needed to restore the popular park’s six playing fields.

Harris Field used to be part of a reservoir before the city acquired the 15-acre site in 1917.

Department spokeswoman Vickie Karp said it is believed that the park was created with “the use of incinerator ash as fill, which would explain the presence of lead.”

The original playing fields at the park were grass, but the city plans to cover two with synthetic turf.

A Parks Department official wishing to remain anonymous said that contamination wouldn’t be an issue if all the fields were going to be grass but that replacing two with turf requires digging deeper to install the drainage tanks. Karp says this is untrue.

A fiscal 2008 mayoral report showed the Parks Department topped city agencies in cost overruns with projects costing an average of 50 percent more than the original contract price. The city average was 17 percent.

Harris Field is in line to rise by more than 110 percent.

“The project shows just how poorly the city does its due diligence on parks projects,” said Geoffrey Croft, of the nonprofit group New York City Park Advocates, when told of the costs.

The project’s long delays are crippling a popular Little League that plays there.

“The Parks Department only cares about construction, not children,” said Don Bluestone, executive director of the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center.

Bluestone said the nonprofit group’s youth baseball league has gone from 1,000 players to 500 since construction began. He ripped the department for closing the entire park and relocating the league miles away to parks filled with drug dealers and plagued by flooding.

The city’s Web site says construction will be complete by the spring, but Bluestone was preparing to have his league play elsewhere this season.

rich.calder@nypost.com

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In 1999, the New York City Council passed the ULURP resolution approving the site selection to build a filter plant in Van Cortlandt Park.  The resolution promising certain things, including the Facility Monitoring Committee.

The pedestrian bridge is mentioned in the resolution and on the list of projects.    If the project is feasible, and for some reason, too expensive, then we should be given the opportunity to raise the money elsewhere.  Parks should do the report, then it has to go to the CITY COUNCIL.

HERE ARE THE DOCUMENTS:

• RESOLUTION: Reso 933 of 1999
  
• LIST OF MITIGATION PROJECTS:Mosholu Mitigation Res 993 of 1999

Among the many other items included is this one:

9.) DPR shall undertake a study and impact analysis (the study) to determine whether or not a pedestrian footbridge, crossing the Major Deegan Expressway linking the heretofore and connected east and west portions of Van Cortlandt Park is technically, legally and financially feasible. Said study shall be completed by September 2002 and the results of such study shall be filed with the Speaker of the City Council and the Director of the Land Use Division of the City Council within the ten (10) days of completion. In the event that said study determines that the construction of such a pedestrian footbridge is technically, legally and financially feasible, a Budget Modification, transferring from DEP to DPR funds sufficient to design and build it shall be introduced in the Council by the Mayor within sixty (60) days of the completion of the study;