Responding to increasing pressure to create more jobs in the northwest Bronx during the construction of the Croton Filtration Plant in Van Cortlandt Park, the head of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said the agency would fulfill promises it made to the community and find ways to place more local residents in construction unions.

Though it was her predecessor, Chris Ward, who made those job promises when selling the project to the community, Emily Lloyd, the current DEP commissioner, said it was an “institutional promise” and that she intended to follow through on it.

The bulk of the construction on the controversial filtration plant is set to begin next summer, creating more than 600 jobs, most of them going to union workers.

 The Croton Facility Monitoring Committee (CFMC), a group of local residents and leaders, and community activists have been increasingly vocal over the past year about putting local job seekers into unions so they can fill a good portion of those 600 slots. Specifically, they want the DEP to put residents into pre-apprenticeship programs to make them more appealing candidates for union apprenticeships.

 At a recent meeting of the CFMC on Dec. 21, Lloyd was met by a handful of protesters from the surrounding community, as well as local activists from the Northwest Community and Clergy Coalition, the COVE and Good Jobs New York. They held signs, saying they wanted the DEP to ramp up its pre-apprenticeship programs. Later, several local residents in attendance gave passionate testimony about the lack of job opportunities in the northwest Bronx and how they expected more help from the filtration plant project.

 Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz insisted the plant will not produce a significant amount of well paying jobs. Instead, the local lawmaker, who represents the area including the plant site, underscored how the filtration cost overruns would cost taxpayers and renters in the long-run due to rent hikes stemming from increased water rates.

 “Our children’s children will be paying for this project,” Dinowitz said.

 The filtration plant is running $1 billion over the original estimate made in the 2003 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the project. The DEP blames the overruns on unanticipated cost of construction inflation and facility design changes. The Monitoring Committee didn’t sound convinced.

 “We are losing our faith in this administration,” said Father Richard Gorman, a Committee member and the chair of Community Board 12.