The city comptroller’s office has decided to audit the nearly $3 billion Croton Water Filtration Plant project.

In the past five years, the price tag for the largest municipal project in the city’s history has risen to $2.8 billion from an estimated initial cost of $992 million.

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz and the Croton Facility Monitoring Committee had both been urging the comptroller to investigate the finances behind the site selection and construction of the project.

The comptroller’s investigation will determine if the construction is being carried out “effectively, and in accordance with all applicable regulations and governmental requirements,” according to a letter City Comptroller William Thompson sent to Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Emily Lloyd on April 1.

But this audit, says Dinowitz, does not go far enough. “It does not get to the bottom of why this monstrosity has unnecessarily destroyed a large section of Van Cortlandt Park… and will ultimately result in an over-priced, outmoded facility that was built in the wrong place,” he wrote in an April 14 letter to Thompson.

Dinowitz also said the investigation should look into “who has gained financially from the DEP’s decision to build an experimental underground project.”

The cost inflation for the filtration plant has been particularly concerning to Dinowitz because out of the three sites considered for the project, the Van Cortlandt site was the least expensive. Now Dinowitz wonders if original cost estimates for the Bronx site were deflated and fraudulent.

The DEP has blamed the inflation on an unprecedented spike in construction, material costs, and labor expenses. The project has recently come under intense public scrutiny, especially after Anthony Delvescovo, the director of tunnel operations at Schiavone Construction, one of the lead contractors of the project, was indicted on corruption charges relating to a federal probe that collared dozens of alleged mobsters and mob associates in February.   

In December, the Croton Monitoring Facility Committee passed a resolution calling on the city comptroller, as well as the Independent Budget Office (IBO) and state comptroller, to conduct audits on the project. While the state comptroller’s office said in February that it had “no plans to conduct an audit at this time,” the IBO took up an investigation of the massive cost overruns of the project.

IBO officials had planned to give an update of their investigation at the facility committee’s April 17 meeting, but the IBO recently informed the committee that an update would not be ready for Thursday night’s meeting because they need more time to complete their analysis.

    —Allison Grande