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Casino magnate Donald Trump has no problem cleaning up at the gaming tables. But his efforts to clean up a mountain of dark, suspicious-looking dirt and a lake of spilled oil already are nagging his latest development scheme, a gleaming new high-rise neighborhood for 13,000 people on Manhattan's West Side he's calling Trump City.
The New York City Department of Investigation is probing Trump's removal of the soil - 1,727 truckloads, which the city bought to cover garbage at Fresh Kills.
The investigation, agency spokesman Ron Davis said, "is to determine whether any changes need to be made in the process whereby people are allowed to dump." A determination is expected shortly, he said.
Trump also remains under state orders and a $400,000 bond to mop up a stubborn oil spill, which at one time seeped into the Hudson River and now languishes underground in an aquifer. Three years ago Trump sank 17 wells to draw the oil out, yet the wildcatting continues: No one knows how much oil is there to recover.
Neither oil nor soil is likely to do more than pester Trump. No laws appear to have been broken, said city officials familiar with the case. If anything, the DOI probe is likely to result in recommendations for tightening city environmental rules.
But it's an inauspicious start for Trump's dream city, the latest in a series of embattled plans to develop 57 weed-choked acres just south of Riverside Park.
Any day now Trump is expected to begin seeking city approvals by submitting a 2,000-page report on his plans to erect a 150-story commercial tower and a battery of 13 apartment towers, each ranging up to 60 floors. Set in motion then will be nothing short of the biggest land use brawl since Westway.
On one side is the Trump Organization, likely to be joined by labor. On the other: environmentalists, neighborhood groups, the local community boards, and - for now - the mayor and a good many politicians.
"Trump City is the most intrusive and environmentally dangerous development project ever proposed," said Steve Robinson, an architect and chairman of Westpride, a 3-year-old activist planning group set up to fight Trump City that in recent months has escalated its fund-raising with river...