DEP Environmental Protection Invoices, 1999-2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

below the finished construction, which was estimated to take 30 months. The storage tanks would be

surface, but, as with the Mosholu Golf Course project, the grade would be changed to incorporate a

"well designed building" built into the elope and "virtually hidden by the surrounding landscaping."

The roof of the building would be made into a patio with benches for the public. occasioned Wigand rejected the argument that the temporary disruption ofparkland necessarily out by the construction project violated the park alienation doctrine or barred the City from carrying implicated this vital project. The court also rejected the argument that the underground use of the land the the prohibition against "encroachment upon the use of park lands and diminution of the use of a

Supply said lands." The court further pointed out that the Parks Department and the Board of Water

had cooperated "in the installation of numerous tunnels and shafts in the various parks for a period of

more thar. 50 years."

The court specifically framed the issue it decided as whether the project was "compatible with

public park purposes," and found that it was. As in the present ease, the project was approved by the

appropriate City agencies and its legislative body (the Board of Estimate at the time), not by the State the Legislature. The AG's attempt to distinguish IVignnd by claiming that it rested on the approval of provides Silver Lake Park project by the State Water Resources Commission (which the AG claims since the opinion does not an exception to the requirement of legislative approval) is misplaced, its indicate that the State agency considered the parkland alienation issue or that the court relied upon

concurrence for anything other than, as the opinion stases, evidence that the project "is a matter of state executive branch concern." In this case, too, the AG has informed the court that the State (i.e., its

r The requirement of formal state agency approval of a water project in N.Y.C. Admin. Code § 5-426, relied upon by the AG, which requirement is triggered when condemnation procedures are needed for water supply projects, does not apply to the WTP. Because the City already owns the land, no acquisition of land is required. 13

NYC-WTC 000137844