Following the discovery of trolley tracks beneath the surface of Webster Avenue, the Department of Environmental Protection is exploring new options for routing a waste water pipe from the Croton Water Filtration Plant in Van Cortlandt Park to the South Bronx.

Critics say it’s another case of the DEP mismanaging the massive and bloated filtration plant project, which has tripled in cost to nearly $3 billion, a portion of which is footed by hikes in water rates. DEP officials say re-routing the waste water pipe, or “force main,” will actually save time and money.

DEP spokesman Michael Saucier said they had hoped to have the force main completed by this spring, but are now aiming for the fall of 2012. “The changing of the route of the force main project is exactly why we do testing in the first place—to make sure the project gets done in the most efficient and cost effective way possible,” Saucier said.

The original plan was to weave the force main down Bainbridge Avenue to Webster Avenue, where it would travel south all the way to the Hunts Point Wastewater Treatment plant. The distance would have totaled seven miles.

Though the new route has yet to be determined, the DEP says the new plan is to connect the force main to the Wards Island Wastewater Treatment Plant, which would only require three miles of piping.

At a recent meeting of the Croton Facilities Monitor Committee, a community-based group that oversees the project, DEP officials floated the idea of routing the force main underneath Sedgwick Avenue, a windy, hilly two-lane road that travels north-south through mostly residential neighborhoods. Bronx borough historian Lloyd Ultan told the Riverdale Press that Sedgwick Avenue might also contain hidden trolley tracks.

Gary Axelbank, who attended the monitoring committee and has been outspokenly critical of the filtration plant project, from the siting of it on public parkland to its massive cost overruns, said this latest misstep “says there was a bad plan in place and now they’re stuck. They have no plan.”