Reconfirming long-held beliefs by local watchdogs and activists, the city comptroller's office released a report recently saying that, from the beginning, the Croton Water Filtration Plant being built in Van Cortlandt Park has been, and continues to be, a huge, money-eating disaster.

While local activists rev up their arguments for a potential lawsuit to stop the city from blasting at the Jerome Park Reservoir (see main story), they also are considering suing the city for not having a buildings permit to construct the water filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park.

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.

At a meeting two weeks ago, city investigators would not say whether or not there had been any criminal influence involved in the enormous, highly controversial and over-budget Croton Water Filtration Plant project in Van Cortlandt Park. They did say, however, that the investigation into potential mob ties related to the project is ongoing.

Nearly lost amid the sweeping roundup of more than 60 members of the Gambino crime family two weeks ago was the indictment of Anthony Delevescovo, director of tunneling for Schiavone Construction, which has $1.3 billion in contracts with the city's Department of Environmental Protection, including more than $300 million for work at the DEP's Croton Water Filtration Plant in Van Cortlandt Park.

The New York City Independent Budget Office (IBO) has agreed to investigate the massive cost overruns that have plagued the construction of the Croton Water Filtration Plant in Van Cortlandt Park.

Members of the Bronx Assembly delegation which voted in lockstep-save the two feet of Jeffrey Dinowitz-to allow the city to blast a massive hole in Van Cortlandt Park for a water filtration plant, are starting to have second thoughts about the project they championed as a boon for the borough's park system and its workers.

Despite laws requiring large firms to award a percentage of subcontracting jobs to certified minority contractors on large public projects like the Croton Water Treatment Plant in Van Cortlandt Park, small contractors are finding that the certification process, high insurance costs and a lack of political connections make it tough to win bids.

It becomes more and more clear with each passing day that outright lying, half-truths, inefficient engineering, poor planning, and politically-influenced decision-making by the NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) have turned the construction site of the Croton Water Treatment Plant in Van Cortlandt Park into an unmitigated environmental disaster that is costing taxpayers billions of dollars and needlessly wasting precious natural resources.