The work on the Croton filtration plant has begun. The city has started clearing trees at the site, building access roads, etc. Visitors will no longer recognize the vast area they once knew as the Mosholu Golf Course and Driving Range.

Opponents of the project still hope that the three lawsuits now being heard in Bronx Supreme Court slow the project down or stop it altogether. The fate of the plant has moved from the political arena to the legal arena.

This does not mean there is no longer any place for community activism. To the contrary, we need an army of vigilant community residents to make sure that the massive construction project does as little harm as possible to the surrounding area.

But we are more than a little perplexed by the actions taken by some activists in recent days. A revived political organization, 100 Bronx Democrats, and Bronx Environmental Health and Justice, a local organization that formed over the last year to fight the plant in court, showed up at a Community Board 7 Parks Committee hearing to tell Bronx Parks chief Hector Aponte not to spend any of the $240 million the city agreed to spend on parks in return for siting the project in the Bronx.

The meeting was cancelled at the last minute, but if they get their way, and they obviously won’t, we could have the worst of both worlds – a filtration plant and no money for park improvements.

Here are a couple of concrete ways these groups could actually have an impact. Why don’t they visit the DEP’s new community office on Jerome Avenue, introduce themselves to the people working there, and put them on notice that they will relentlessly monitor their work? Or how about petitioning the city to track and provide medical care to local children with asthma and make sure they are not harmed by the project?

As anyone who has read this paper over the last decade knows, we vigorously opposed the construction of the plant in the Bronx. But the bulldozers are now at work. We should retool for the task at hand.