Closing in on $700,000. That's what New York State has spent in legal fees on an unsuccessful effort to obtain half a billion dollars in federal Clean Water Act loans to pay for the new Tappan Zee Bridge. For its efforts, involving a multi-pronged legal assault encompassing three state authorities, the Cuomo administration was able to salvage a $1.3 million loan from the federal Environmental Protection Agency to build an oyster bed and a falcon box near the bridge.

WNYC calculated the figure of $690,538.21 from information provided by the Public Authorities Control Board, board minutes of the New York State Thruway Authority, and records of the state Environmental Facilities Corporation obtained under the state Freedom of Information Law. 

"They didn’t have to spend close to three quarters of a million in tax dollars to know what the answer was going to be," Judith Enck, regional administrator of EPA Region 2, told WNYC. "All they had to do was read our letter, which laid it out in detail.”

But Thruway Authority spokesman Dan Weiller defended the process, maintaining the administration is pleased with the outcome.  "New York State worked with EPA to reach an agreement to finance important projects for the Hudson River estuary," Weiller said.

Here's the back story:

The new Tappan Zee Bridge has long been a signature project for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. He calls it "The New NY Bridge."

”This is a bridge that symbolizes what was and what can be,” he said last year at a ceremonial ribbon cutting with President Obama. “This is a bridge from gridlock to bipartisanship. This is a bridge from paralysis to progress. And this is a bridge from yesterday to tomorrow.”

That other bridge, the old one, and the long-stalled process to replace it? “It was a metaphor for what had happened to our state," the governor said. "Political gridlock, government paralysis, fear and indecision had taken control."

But to cobble together the money for the New NY Bridge, while avoiding a major toll hike, Cuomo has relied on one-shots and what he calls "innovative" financing. At the same time, the financial plan to build the nearly $4 billion bridge remains undisclosed.

Enter an obscure state authority called the Environmental Facilities Corporation. Last summer, Cuomo announced that the EFC would make available $511 million in funds drawn down from federal Clean Water Act money to construct the bridge. The press release announcing the loan came even before the EFC board — the majority of whom are Cuomo appointees — voted to approve the loan.  

But the EFC is only a pass-through for federal funds, and the ultimate authority on whether they can be used lies not with the state authority, but with Region 2 of the federal EPA — headed by Enck. 

And before the vote Enck did everything but stand on her head to signal she disapproved.  "I wish to clarify at the outset that the EPA has not approved" the loan, Enck wrote in a four-page letter. She said the loan would deviate from precedent. But the board voted to approve the loan request anyway.

In September, Enck's office formally denied the request for the loan. Cuomo said he would appeal. In the meantime, a coalition of environmental groups, including Riverkeeper and Environmental Advocates of New York, sued the Thruway Authority, the EFC and the Public Authorities Control Board for deciding to approve the request in executive session, in secret meetings, and without a public process.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who would normally handle the state's litigation, declined to represent the Cuomo administration in any of this. Two sources familiar with the litigation say Schneiderman concluded Cuomo was wrong on the law, and advised the Governor not to proceed with his appeal.  

In November, the Authorities Budget Office — a normally sleepy public watchdog — issued a scathing report saying the EFC had failed to exercise "judgment" and "necessary diligence," and that it had violated procedures on disclosure and transparency. (An EFC spokesman, Jon Sorenson, called the report "inaccurate.")

Opponents of the plan, including some of the state's sharpest advocates, said it should have been clear that the state had a losing case.

"Why go after these clean water funds to build the Tappan Zee Bridge when they knew at the outset it was the wrong thing to do?" said Peter Iwanowicz, executive director of Environmental Advocates of New York.

Despite these warnings, the Cuomo administration pressed on with an appeal. In December, the PACB authorized $49,900 for the law firm McNamee, Lochner, Titus & Williams. In March, the Thruway Authority authorized hiring the firm Holland & Knight  to handle what general counsel Gordon Cuffy called "very complex litigation,

"Because of the nature of that, involving numerous parties, we think that this is what’s going to be necessary to get this, move this thing along, get it out of there," he said. 

And the EFC signed up a third firm, Squire Patton Boggs, which assigned the matter to an attorney with experience representing industry clients against the EPA. But that attorney did not succeed in getting the EPA to reverse its decision to deny the $511 million loan. Instead, in May, the state and the EPA announced a settlement whereby the EPA would allow $1.3 million in federal funds to be loaned for oyster bed restoration and a falcon nest box (valued at $100,000).

Nearly $700,000 spent on private lawyers to obtain a $1.3 million loan for an oyster bed and a falcon box.