The city can’t blast at the Jerome Park Reservoir until a Sept. 3 court hearing, a state Supreme Court justice ordered.
Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, Councilman Oliver Koppell and the Bronx Council on Environmental Quality brought suit against the Department of Environmental Protection, which was planning to blast near Goulden Avenue in order to build a connector shaft at the reservoir, which will re-direct water to the filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park.
The original Environmental Impact Statement said there would be no blasting at the reservoir site and that debris would be trucked through the water tunnel and would exit at the Van Cortlandt Park site.
Those bringing the suit want the DEP to undertake a proper environmental review. They are concerned about dust and debris from blasting, as well as the 90 trucks a week that would be hauling debris from the reservoir.
The trucking route — from Goulden Avenue to Bedford Park Boulevard, to Jerome Avenue, then to Fordham Road and onto the Major Deegan — has also elicited criticism from residents and elected officials.
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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.