WBFO: Let’s jump right into this. You came out with a lawsuit against the New York State Department of Transportation.
Terry Robinson: Well, my wife, Marcia Ladiana and I, are long term residents of Humboldt Parkway. Finally, we were able to review most of the documents associated with the project for the Route 33 tunnel Project. We weren't able to go over the documents until they were released in the draft design report/environmental assessments piece, because it was preliminary design stuff prior to that. It's still very tentative, the design things. But we were able to review those documents. And it was absolutely clear that the four years minimum, four years of construction that they propose, is going to have some very, very serious impacts on those homes directly adjacent to what they call the transit corridor that is right along the lines of the Route 33 but in addition to those areas within what they call the project limits. But being right on the forefront of the proposed tunnel construction, the impacts are imminent, and definitely going to be harmful.
WBFO: This lawsuit, for one is hoping to force the state to conduct an environmental impact statement, they haven't done so yet?
Robinson: Well, what it is, is quite simply asking the state to comply with the law. They don't have to do an environmental impact study, per se, if the environmental assessment that they're performing within the Federal National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. If that meets the standards of what is in the state Environmental Quality Review Act, then, the nomenclature, once the environmental impact study actually is, is to be determined. However, what it does say is they need to comply with that state Environmental Quality Review Act. And what they have done is circumvent their legal requirements in a number of ways. Number one, the project is over 10 acres. Number two, the project requires a substantial amount of energy use both in the construction and the annual maintenance of this tunnel project that they're doing. So, it's a type one action under the state Environmental Quality Review Act, which means for instance, that they would have to do a full environmental assessment form, an EAF, to determine what is the potential environmental impact. How absurd can it be if you can put a transit project involving 70,000 cars a day through the middle of a residential neighborhood without a short term or long-term environmental impact? Then there is no project that will have a short term or long-term environmental impact.
WBFO: What are the next steps for this lawsuit, is there a court date scheduled?
Robinson: Well, I’ve just have been informed. We filed the lawsuit Marcia and I, yesterday with the clerk of the court, we've been advised that the Clerk of the Court has transmitted it to a Supreme Court Justice there. The Justice then scheduled, but it's one of these things where we said the urgency of them responding prior to actually issuing a determination on the environmental assessment, design draft report. Listen, it is possible that that is premature and that they will say that we have decided to perform an environmental impact study until they say that it remains a possibility. But every indication, everything that they have said in the preliminary stages of that including the Section 106, including in the documentation of the draft design report environmental assessment, they have affirmed their intention to issue what they call a finding of no significant impact under the federal NEPA and a negative declaration under the state Environmental Quality Review Act. So, if they're going to be true to their every statement that they said up to this point, then there will be no further environmental review. And that may happen as soon as Saturday December the 16th or early January. Hopefully, because of people like this program, and other folks that have taken up the cause of asking just for a full and transparent review of the situation, they may have pause to reflect and come and decide to do the right thing. I doubt it. The sad part is the continued exploitation of what are the disadvantaged communities that do not have a voice and whose elected officials have not spoken on their behalf in order to avoid this economic and environmental catastrophe. It's also economic development. It's the cohesion of the community, it's social, it's a lot of things.
WBFO: And we will definitely come back around and talk about those things. As the lawsuit progresses, as this issue progresses, because for better or for worse, it's not going away.
Robinson: That's for sure. And the impact will be felt for the next five decades going forward. This is, and without the saying that without the scrutiny of people outside of what I call the immediate victims, without the scrutiny of a free and open press on this issue, we would have been done off and let me mix my metaphors. We caught them right and dirty, but they're riding dirty through my precinct and we're not having it.
