Local residents and politicians are locking horns as the city’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) pushes ahead on a controversial and widely disparaged new plan to use explosives for a looming construction project at the Jerome Park Reservoir.

At a public hearing last week, community members and elected officials railed against the plan (part of the DEP’s troubled water filtration plant project in Van Cortlandt Park) to blast rock near the reservoir, as well as the plan to truck debris directly from the site, which is directly across the street from Bronx High School of Science. It is also near several other schools and a densely-populated community.

The DEP is building a connector shaft at the reservoir that will re-direct water to the filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park. The original environmental impact statement (EIS) said there would be no blasting at the reservoir site and that debris would be trucked through the water tunnel, which would exit at the Van Cortlandt Park site.

Many at the meeting said they felt duped by the DEP, which sold the project partly on the basis that there would be no blasting and no debris removal through neighborhoods near the reservoir.

“This is a sneak attack,” said Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz.

The DEP said it only recently adjusted the plan because it would mean less inconvenience — blasting would take less time (three weeks, instead of six) and be less noisy for local residents — though it didn’t back up that claim with evidence. Just last month, however, the DEP said blasting would shave 10 total weeks off the job.

Several speakers at the hearing said the DEP simply could not be trusted. “If the DEP says it’s sunny outside, I’m going to grab my coat and umbrella,” said Ed Yaker, a resident and former president of the nearby Amalgamated Houses.

Without an official study of the environmental impact of the blasting and removal plan, residents and politicians said they would move to stop the project. Blasting would not begin until September, according to project manager Bernard Daly.

State Senator Efrain Gonzalez and his challenger in the upcoming Democratic primary, former councilman Pedro Espada, Jr., both denounced the plan at the meeting. Espada, Jr., who runs a string of Bronx health centers, said it was disgraceful that with all borough’s asthma problems, “[The DEP] is inviting our children to a blasting party” without telling the community how it will be affected.

Activist Karen Argenti said community leaders would need to see some kind of environmental impact statement, or a plan for it, in the next 15 days or she would push for legal action. All the elected officials, including Councilman Oliver Koppell and Dinowitz said they would support legal action.

The removal plan also drew jeers from residents when DEP deputy commissioner Anne Canty said trucks leaving the site would travel down Bedford Park Boulevard to Jerome Avenue and then turn onto Fordham Road to reach the Major Deegan in an effort to avoid the Amalgamated Houses. (The Amalgamated Housing Corporation submitted a letter supporting the blasting plan.)

“Why is it that the poorer neighborhoods have to absorb all the impact?” said Community Board 7 Chair Greg Faulkner.

Canty said the DEP  believes it doesn’t need to do a supplemental EIS, but said she would take the community’s concerns to the agency’s commissioner, Emily Lloyd, who would make a final decision.