The city is miffed over a website -- created by the fort’s executive director -- which takes potshots at the airport and Osama.

Like thousands of other tourists and weekenders, you and the family would like to spend a little time in Philadelphia taking in the historic sites. One of the most historic, and a must-see for war buffs, is city-owned Fort Mifflin, on the Delaware River just east of Philadelphia International Airport. So you check out the fort’s website, www.fortmifflin.org, to get directions, admission prices, tour times and such. Just a few mouse clicks, and… hey! What the heck is this?

The website gives no information about the fort, its historic significance, and its vital role in winning the Revolutionary War. No times and prices either, although there is a small, very vague map on how to get there. What you'll find instead (as of Sept. 10) is a blistering diatribe against al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden along with a listing of each and every victim of the terror attack last year. The passengers and crew of the planes, the civilians and military personnel killed at the Pentagon, and everyone at the World Trade Center including fallen police, fire and rescue personnel are memorialized, along with short biographies on some of them. Interspersed in the margins and along the top and bottom are images and cartoons of Bin Laden, some graphic and some vulgar, and few suitable for family viewing. There's a doctored photo of bin Laden on a motorcycle, riding with a large sheep in his lap. The caption reads, ŒBin Laden Escapes With His Wife.' There are several of the terror leader with targets superimposed on his face, chest and groin. A real goodie is an animated cartoon of a guy walking up to a photo of bin Laden, pulling down his pants and urinating on the photo. And that's just this week's update.

Last week the website didn't mention terrorism, but was just as provocative. Under the heading "The Forgotten Landmark: The Devastation of Fort Mifflin" was a long, scathing denunciation of the Philadelphia International Airport. According to the information given on the website, the airport is responsible for irreparable damage to the fort and its 50 acres of wetlands. Excessive noise and vibration from low-flying planes have rocked the 230-year-old stones of the fort to its foundation, the site said, putting the structure in danger. The jet exhaust results in higher concentrations of acid rain over the fort, and the noise levels are intolerable -- so loud that the engine roar is being blamed for the deafness of Prince, the fort's former guard dog.

"Philadelphia International Airport refuses to accept responsibility for the deteriorated condition, which Fort Mifflin has experienced these past two decades because of the airport's development plans," the site claimed.

The mayor's office says that this is a secondary website, put together without the city's knowledge. The fort doesn't have a city-sponsored website, but the official Fort Mifflin Internet page, according to mayoral spokesperson Frank Keel, can only be accessed through the city's site, www.phila.gov., and contains information on tours and admission prices. Keel adds that the city is not pleased with fortmifflin.org.

Fort Mifflin Executive Director Eileen Young-Vignola is responsible for the content of www.fortmifflin.org, and in fact admits that she does the whole thing herself. Young-Vignola says that the fort doesn't have Internet access, so she puts together the site from home.

"I made sure to cross my Ts and dot my Is on that," Young-Vignola says. "I can document every word. I have documents from the airport dating back to 1990 where they promise to fix the Fort Mifflin's sluice gate and crumbling seawall. They never fixed either. It's always just more broken promises or more denials. Last summer the airport hired contractors to cut down trees on Fort Mifflin because of the possibility the trees would impair the pilot's vision. That's all well and good, but they did such a poor job that some of the trees they cut fell onto the fort and damaged the property."

Young-Vignola says that the city and Army Corps of Engineers volunteered to fix the seawall, but the broken sluice gate is damaging to the animals and plants native to the swampy marshes surrounding the fort. She also says that when planes fly over, windows at the fort fall out, shingles fly off the roof and you can feel the vibrations through your feet.

"They would love for me to just shut up and go away, but I won't," Young-Vignola says.

There is at least partial validity for some of those claims to be found in the results of a noise compatibility study conducted by the airport over the past two years. The Federal Aviation Regulation Part 150 Noise Compatibility Study has been sent to the Federal Aviation Administration for review, but its findings are posted on the Philadelphia International Airport website (www.phl.org). The study says "two separate measurements were taken at Fort Mifflin. As expected, because of its proximity to the airport, the noise levels were higher than at any of the other measurement sites. These ... levels ranged from 70 to 99 decibels."

"Proximity" in this case means really, really close. Fort Mifflin is situated just beyond the end of Runway 27R, and jumbo jets regularly rumble overhead. Despite the admission of the excessive noise, the airport's official reply, noted in the report, is that "The airport does not believe it is in violation of any existing local, state, or federal law, regulation, or agreement pertaining to noise levels."

Philadelphia International Airport spokesperson Phyllis Van Istendal declined to comment on the airport's level of responsibility as it pertains to problems at Fort Mifflin, but did say that Fort Mifflin was represented on the study's advisory committee.

"In both our noise study and our master plan, Eileen Young-Vignola acted as representative for Fort Mifflin and its interests," Van Istendal says.

On this week's bin Laden update to the site, Young-Vignola says she accepts full responsibility, and apologizes for any offense the site may have caused.

"I certainly didn't mean to offend anyone by it, believe me, and I'm sorry about that part," she says. "I'm still learning and I don't really know how to put together a website well. But I'll get better."

That explanation probably won't be good enough for the city government. Frank Keel was surprised to learn of the website's existence, and promises swift action.

"I'll tell you flat out that we have issues with the website," Keel says. "No one here was aware of this. We find this to be odd, to say the least, but until we speak to Mrs. Vignola, I can't speak to her motives. But we'll request that they modify the website."

Young-Vignola admits her motivation for the bin Laden rant was personal. Her sister, brother-in-law and their children live directly across from the World Trade Center and were literally a few steps away when the planes hit. But she also admits that some of the cartoons are a bit vulgar and over the top, and promises to remove them.

That can't happen soon enough for city officials. Frank Keel says policy changes will be made, and soon.

"There have to be standards for city agencies," Keel says. "And this does not represent Fort Mifflin particularly well."