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Transparency? Another tussle with the ESDC

In Riverkeeper's response to the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), regarding CSOs (combined sewer overflows), the organization charges that the ESDC thwarted public participation by failing to include a key report in the DEIS.

The charge:
In both the Hudson Yards and Greenpoint-Williamsburg EISs, the lead agency (NYC Planning Department) retained HydroQual to analyze the CSO increases, as ESDC has done here. But in both of those EISs, the lead agency included the HydroQual report as part of the EIS itself or in an appendix thereto.
Here the HydroQual report was not included in the DEIS or an appendix thereto. Riverkeeper’s counsel was able to obtain the HydroQual report from the ESDC, but only after numerous calls and emails, and many weeks after the comment period had begun. Because many other members of the public did not have ready access to the HydroQual report, the ESDC had not made full and proper disclosure of its analysis and has thereby thwarted public participation.

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