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.

Former DEP Commissioner Christopher Ward openly advocated for building this monstrosity in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, citing relatively low construction costs compared to the viable alternative site in Westchester, and used wanton expenditures of public funds ($200 million) as incentives for Bronx elected officials to approve the project. Ward and his advisors cleverly manipulated public officials to circumvent the “home rule” tradition in the state legislature, whereby the elected official in whose district a project was being built would determine the outcome in cases where “park alienation” legislation was necessary. They also overturned generations of public policy that protected parkland from industrial construction. As one might have expected, this highly irregular and inappropriate deal was struck in the back room of a political party headquarters, rather than in an official office.

This is further proof that although he ought to have been an impartial decision-maker, the former commissioner was driven to choose the Bronx for this plant. In a televised interview in March 2004, he promised to address high unemployment in the borough by linking Bronx jobs to the project, knowing full well that because of existing regulations this was not possible. He knew that the jobs he dangled in front of Bronx elected officials would never materialize.

Ward’s DEP embarked on a taxpayer-financed campaign to convince others that a Bronx location for the project would be markedly cheaper than the Westchester alternative. In fact, DEP documents were falsified, artificially inflating the cost of building in Westchester. DEP officials have confirmed these “mistakes.” Despite a massive public outcry, by disguising real impacts they were able to convince the City Planning Commission, the City Council, the State Senate and a bare majority of the Assembly.

Experts estimate that the $992 million predicted cost of construction documented in DEP filings has now ballooned to nearly $3 billion – and it is climbing. There seems to be no budget oversight or constraints. But however high the price goes, taxpayers will have to foot the entire bill for the largest construction project in the city’s history through higher water rates.

Knowing what we know now about the astronomical costs and the fact that Mr. Ward was to eventually take a job as the head of the New York State General Contractors Association, the lead group that openly advocated for building the plant in the park, it is revealing to review his contention about building the project in Westchester: “It would be more expensive than the alternatives in the Bronx,” he said, “considerably more expensive; maybe upwards of $300 to $500 million depending on the other additional work that needs to be done up there.”

This was another distortion. There was significant additional work to be done not at a Westchester plant, which would have been built above grade on a city-owned industrial site, but at the Bronx location in order to submerge a huge industrial project nine stories below ground. Along with hundreds of trucks rumbling through the Bronx each day to cart out tons of rock, community advocates have discovered that the DEP is dumping millions of gallons of precious water each and every day into the city’s sewer system at a dual cost borne by taxpayers who are paying to dig up the water and then process it in the wastewater disposal system.

In fact, according to a report issued in the spring, the DEP is dumping well over 1.2 million gallons, (and, I believe, over 2 million gallons), of groundwater down the drain each and every day, and this will continue forever, even after the project is completed. Ironically, the DEP’s own Web site asks New Yorkers to “save hundreds of gallons a week by following these water saving tips” while they themselves are wasting millions!

Had the DEP followed through with a carefully managed, tightly budgeted, environmentally sound plan and project, I suppose I and other advocates who have opposed this from the start would be silent. But with an unfathomable and thus far unexplained through-the-roof rise in cost and unconscionable waste of natural resources by the very agency charged with conservation, there is no choice but to insist on a full and complete investigation of every aspect of this enormous boondoggle.

Jeffrey Dinowitz represents the 81st Assembly District in the New York State Assembly.