Short on Staff, Equipment: Reservoir Cops: Security Leaky

Short on Staff, Equipment
Reservoir Cops: Security Leaky

By REUVEN BLAU

The newly created union representing the city's watershed cops last week charged that the Bloomberg administration has created security risks by understaffing sensitive areas, failing to equip officers protecting key locations, and hiring less-skilled private guards.

EMILY LLOYD: Denies system's at risk. "We are stretched so thin you can't even see us," said Steve Whittick, a DEP Police Officer and delegate for the Law Enforcement Employees Benevolent Association (LEEBA). "People have no clue how unsafe the water is."

From Catskills to Bronx

The 156 DEP Police Officers protect the city's water supply, which includes an area of 1,972 square miles in the Catskill Mountains and the Hudson Valley and large reservoirs in Yonkers and The Bronx.

"Why aren't they hiring more officers?" asked LEEBA President Kenneth Wynder. Mr. Wynder, a retired State Trooper, created the labor organization and won the right to represent DEP cops two year ago. The watershed officers voted unanimously to leave their former union, Local 300 of the Service Employees' International Union.

The Chief-Leader/Ginger Adams Otis SAFETY CONCERNS: Steve Whittick (right) a DEP Police Officer and delegate for the Law Enforcement Employees Benevolent Association, charged that the Bloomberg administration has created security risks by understaffing key water reservoirs and aqueducts. Looking on is LEEBA President Kenneth Wynder. According to Mr. Wynder, DEP is supplanting its regular staff by employing 256 private officers, working for FJC Security Services Inc. "They are not held to any standards," he contended. "They are taking jobs from DEP Police."

A spokesman for DEP Commissioner Emily Lloyd last week defended its staffing levels, asserting that the agency has more than quadrupled the watershed cop division since 2002 and has added several new specialized units. In 2004, DEP said that the size of the police force had increased during the previous two years from 75 to 219.

Claims High Turnover

But many of the new officers have since left in search of better pay, Mr. Whittick said. More than 20 of the 43 officers who were part of his academy class three years ago have since resigned, he noted.

That retention problem has left staffing levels dangerously low, LEEBA said. "We don't have enough manpower," Mr. Wynder asserted. "Guys are pulling almost double shifts during the week just to maintain some type of presence."

Mr. Wynder noted that most small police forces in the region increased their manpower and updated their equipment since Sept. 11, 2001. "DEP since 9/11 has decreased," he contended. "They had 210 members as of 9/11; they are now down to 156 officers."

The starting salary for DEP cops is $25,631 for their first 26 weeks in training, at which point it goes to $29,405. The pay rises to $30,355 after one year, but the maximum salary is $44,742 for officers after six years on the job.

Feels Disparaged

The union is currently seeking similar benefits and wages that the city's other law-enforcement unions have negotiated this round of bargaining. "They say we do 'police-like' work," Mr. Wynder remarked. "Does that mean we shoot police-like bullets? Wear police-like vests? And carry police-like guns?"

The contract talks appear to be tied to two major pending grievances concerning overtime payments and the use of the private security officers.

Currently, DEP cops work 171 hours within a 28-day cycle. Officers who work beyond that minimum receive time-and-a-half overtime wages. But the department has recently restarted the cycle every time an officer takes a day off, a sick day, or misses time due to an injury. "We want them to change the policy," Mr. Wynder said.

The union has also filed a complaint with the Board of Collective Bargaining arguing that DEP has violated the group's collective bargaining agreement by hiring private security officers to do DEP Police work. "You are taking my job away from me," Mr. Whittick contended.

'No Standards for Them'

According to Mr. Wynder, the FJC officers are likely not subjected to random drug tests or background screenings. "They are not held to any standards," he charged. "These are the people DEP wants to leave in security of the watershed? I don't think so."

The private security company, which was founded in 1988 by retired NYPD Officer Frank Califano, maintains on its Web site that FJC officers are properly trained and checked. "Our hiring guidelines meet or exceed all government licensing requirements, and all candidates undergo the industry's most exhaustive screening procedures," the site states.

In contrast, DEP recruits take the same physical, written and psychological tests and undergo the same background check as NYPD officers. DEP cops also must complete 1,000 hours of training, including classes in environmental law, the study of the water supply's infrastructure and counter-terrorism measures.

To accommodate that training, DEP has created the Environmental Police Academy, which has classrooms, a practical training field, and staging areas, as well as off-road emergency courses and police firing ranges.

Less-Secure Clunkers

But Mr. Whittick, who works upstate at the Shokan Reservoir, questioned how useful the training is when officers are supplied with old and faulty cars and radios.

Their Crown Victoria police cars, he said, all have more than 150,000 miles and do not have partitions separating officers from criminals in the back. "DEP doesn't care," he remarked. "I was just spit on by someone in the back seat. She could have had Hepatitis C."

The department declined to discuss the union's specific allegations, but has maintained that it plans to expand the use of new gear, such as closed-circuit and infrared video cameras and intrusion detection systems.

"The force has been outfitted with new state-of-the-art equipment and we have built five new police precincts in the New York City watershed and will open a sixth one this spring," DEP spokesman Charles Sturcken said in a statement.

Static Over Radios

Mr. Whittick, however, charged that their new radios rarely work, so cops often use their own Nextel phones to communicate. The radios were purchased from Goostown Communications, named for the upstate village of Upper Nyack, where the company was started in 1990.

Mr. Wynder questioned why the department switched companies and failed to review other offers before signing the new contract. "They weren't tested," he contended, speaking about the new radios. "Where were the other three bids?"

Mr. Sturcken defended the purchase. "Cell phones and BlackBerries don't work so well in mountain areas," he remarked. He noted the DEP has also added new units and instruction courses, including anti-terrorist training, a detective division, and strategic patrol, as well as canine and scuba teams.

But Mr. Whittick blasted the department's new aviation unit, which he said doesn't include a pilot. "We rent a helicopter. We rent a pilot," he added. "It's a joke."

'Can't Fix It Afterwards'

The city needs to do more to defend its immense water supply from a potential attack, Mr. Wynder argued. "In order to protect the reservoir, we need prevention," he contended. "Because once they do something to the water, you could send 100,000 people, you ain't going to change what's happened."

Recent expert assessments of the system have concluded that the watershed is so vast - nearly 2,000 square miles of reservoirs, aqueducts, rivers, streams, and wetlands - that due to dilution, it would be hard to contaminate. Despite that evaluation, the Army Corps of Engineers has encouraged DEP to take additional safety measures, which the union contends have never been implemented.

After Sept. 11, vulnerable points in the system were identified. Those areas included giant intake valves in the North Bronx and North Brooklyn for their main network of water flow and the Jerome Park Reservoir in The Bronx and the Hillview Reservoir in Yonkers.

Inadequate Precautions

Nonetheless, some of those areas still do not have round-the-clock patrols or basic fences and motion sensors, surveillance cameras, or lights, union officials said. "They refuse to do anything to secure the watershed because they feel there is no problem," Mr. Wynder argued.

He noted the recent article in the New York Times which showed that more than 21,000 water customers were two years or more late in paying their water bills, adding up to more than $230 million in uncollected fees. The DEP has failed to collect the money because of its error-filled records. As a result, water rates have risen greatly over the past several years, City Council Members have pointed out.

Mr. Wynder cited that report as an example of the department's overall mismanagement. "DEP makes over $20 billion a year," he added. "They should use some of that money to pay for more officers."