Ridgewood Reservoir will lose $29 million in redevelopment funding, according to the Parks Department, which announced its revised capital budget.

The budget includes a cut in reservoir funds from $44.8 million to $19.8 million. In published reports the parks department has said the cuts would take effect unless an alternative funding stream is secured. Parks said the cut could result in a change in plans for the reservoir, which lies on the border between Brooklyn and Queens.

Plans will move forward to finish implementing the project’s phase one, to improve lighting and fencing around the reservoir. The work, paid for by $7.7 million in already-allocated funding, began in April.

But the budget cuts call into question Parks’ ability to go ahead with the next part of the project, phase two, which consists of plans to fill in the reservoir’s three basins. Two would be turned into ball fields, while a third would be preserved as a natural habitat.

Critics of the plan, led by Comptroller and mayoral candidate William Thompson, say it would harm one of New York City’s most unique natural areas.

“This plan flies in the face of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s widely hailed environmental blueprint, which bemoans the loss of the city’s natural areas,” Thompson has written in protest of the Parks’ plans for the reservoir. “The Parks Department’s own scientific consultants have warned against disturbing the reservoir, an area they call ‘highly significant for the biodiversity of New York City and the region.”

Others have urged Parks to leave the reservoir area intact and focus instead on repairing the ball fields in adjoining Highland Park.

The Parks department is holding a fourth community meeting to address concerns over its Ridgewood Reservoir PlaNYC Project. The meeting will be held June 30, at 7:00 p.m., at Oak Ridge in Forest Park. For directions or more information, call (718) 235-0815. (Daniel Bush).