WISHING WELL

The latest tool now in the possession of politicians is none other then . . . a magic wand. No really, at her last Task Force meeting, the Borough President announced, a large plume of toxic waste under the proposed Sports Authority building in Forest Hills was gone. Engineers - men of science - have drawn maps of the saturated soil extending 80 feet down, and poisoning the ground water, but somehow, it has disappeared -at least politically.

They must stash this wondrous device at Gracie Mansion, for wasn't it the mayor who said, standing a few blocks from the site at the Forest Hills American Legion Hall, no construction would go forward until the proper clean up plan was in place; and that, he wouldn't let anyone harm this community? And now, the problematic toxic waste has vanished, wished away - at least politically.

Perhaps, they keep the good fairy amused and pacified somewhere in Albany. Wasn't it the Governor's gang, armed with $50,000 in taxpayer money, out on Woodhaven Blvd., digging around in all the wrong places looking for this elusive waste? Sure it was. I remember writing a letter to the Gov offering to arrange a meeting between his Environmental Agency boys and the community - we know exactly where that stuff is, how it got there, who put it there, and why. Never got an answer. The good fairy beat me to the punch - at least politically.

Or maybe, they keep a banshee locked up in the tank at the New York State Supreme Court building. The judges there refused to hear the community's argument. Something about an ad in some obscure newspaper, and this gives all the rights to the big builders; the court's ruling was to let the community be damned, the environment be damned, and the law itself be damned. But now that the wand has been waved, now that there is no environmental threat, the judges seem off the hook - at least politically.

Could I, like a drunken sailor, be reading the stars all wrong? And the Anderson fairy tale more closely relates to the Queen of Queens' new clothes then the Governor's Goblin and Huckster? Is that powerful stench coming from the wishing well? Or, the political sewer that stretches from Washington right up to everyman's front door? Dare I believe that a half century of environmental progress will be swept away by a fistful of megastore greenbacks tossed into a stinking manhole? When the truth boils down to magic wands and wishing wells, or corruption so prevalent it permeates the courts and reaches the Governor's chair - shakes the very foundations of the republic for which it stands - which truth would you believe in? Think I'm mad? Well come to Woodhaven Blvd., just south of Metropolitan Avenue, and watch the Sports Authority building going up on poisoned Earth.

But don't stand too close. It could be hazardous to your illusions.

March 18, 1998