By Fay Muir, Lyn Pyle and Gil Maduro

The Norwood News editorial in the last issue (January 13-26, 2005) suggests Bronx Environmental Health and Justice (BEHJ) has acted with “misplaced activism.”

We’d like to defend a sister organization. The mission of BEHJ is to educate, litigate, and mobilize neighbors against environmental threats to the neighborhood. BEHJ has brought a lawsuit that could stop construction of the filtration plant in this neighborhood. The suit, an Article 78 petition charging fraud, seeks a permanent injunction to stop the city’s construction in Van Cortlandt Park. Right now, they have a temporary restraining order (TRO), which means no work can be done by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). They were scheduled to argue their case before the judge on Jan. 25.

The suit charges that the (DEP) failed to comply with the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), because they relied on a factually inaccurate and biased Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that minimizes impacts at VC Park and exaggerates impacts at an industrial site in Eastview. Check the Web site handsoffourparks.org for a fuller explanation, because the inaccuracies and biases are too numerous to detail here. BEHJ claims the environmental review process was fatally flawed and must be redone.

The BEHJ lawsuit then raises the environmental justice implications of choosing to construct the water treatment plant underground in a community park surrounded by a low-income neighborhood, when a less discriminatory alternative exists. Such discriminatory action is illegal.

But is there, as the Norwood News suggests, danger we’ll get the plant and no $200 million for Bronx parks? The Bronx Democratic Committee now has their $200 million deal written into state legislation, and has gotten the City Council to approve a Memorandum of Understanding that lists how much money each park will receive. After all their promises, if we get the plant, will they let that money disappear? We think not.

If our allies rush in for their piece of the parks pie, they join the city, with all its power and media resources, as it tries to create the impression of a “done deal.”

Why else did the DEP last month cut 40 towering oak trees the day before Christmas? The city tells us if they don’t hurry, the federal government will make them pay fines.  That’s untrue. The city’s own EIS schedule set site preparation for April 2005, and the city has a supplemental federal Consent Decree, dated September 2004, that says they don’t have to finish site preparation until July 2007. Their rush to cut trees is not about fines.

Spending the $200 million looks like an end to the deal. And if it’s already “done,” judges are unlikely to rule against the city in the four lawsuits now in court. We ask our allies to wait until the lawsuits are considered on their merits and settled.

As for the editorial’s other suggestions, we agree:

If the city insists on filling our air with dust and particulate matter, our community should pressure the city to pay for care of children (and adults) with asthma. The city is legally required to mitigate (that is to avoid or make less severe and painful). Instead, although they admit in the EIS to at least a 2 percent increase in death and incidents of asthma, the city claims “no significant impact” to our neighborhood, therefore no need to mitigate!

We must organize to monitor what is happening in our corner of Van Cortlandt Park. A committee must form to be vigilantly aware of the legal requirements, and every step of the way hold the DEP to what they are required to do about air quality, traffic, noise, and rats running through our bedrooms and stores.

We ask all who have fought this fight for years: do not fall away now. And those who have until this moment been too busy with your job and family, step forward. Support BEHJ’s effort to stop the plant in court, and support efforts to force the city to pay for and follow the rules for mitigation. Activism in both efforts is well placed!

We do this with firm conviction in the merit of the BEHJ lawsuit, and although we know the opposition is formidable, we look forward to justice.