Metro

The city lost my what?!

Dude, where’s my excavator?

A Staten Island contractor is suing the city’s Department of Sanitation for allegedly towing his $130,000 John Deere dirt digger — and then losing it.

Jeff Clemente says he had been using the large power excavator on a city contract project in Flushing, Queens, last October, when his company left it parked on Collins Place near 34th Avenue.

“The John Deere 160 LC Hydraulic excavator was lawfully parked,” he claims in his suit.

Sanitation workers decided to haul the piece of construction equipment away for an unknown reason, the suit claims.

After discovering his excavator was missing, Clemente contacted the Sanitation Department. But he says he got the runaround.

“[The DOS] admitted to plaintiff Jeff Clemente that they took possession of the excavator but offered no other information,” says the suit, filed in Queens Supreme Court.

Clemente insists he was never even told that that his machine was taken.

But now the excavator is missing — and Clemente and his lawyers fear it that it may be gone for good.

“[The city] failed to safeguard the excavator once possession was taken,” the suit says. “As a result . . . the John Deere 160 LC Hydraulic excavator was lost, damaged and destroyed.”

He is now suing for the $130,000 value of the machine.

The missing excavator shouldn’t be hard to find.

It’s more than 9 feet tall and weighs nearly 40,000 pounds.

The vehicle is more than 8 feet wide and was parked on a narrow street.

A sales brochure describes it as having more legroom and more glass for visibility.

The excavator also boasts a host of creature comforts and conveniences, including automatic climate control, generous storage and a heated air-suspension seat.

Sanitation workers “failed to keep a proper chain of custody after taking possession of the excavator.”

Clemente said he is not sure if the earth mover was lost, damaged or destroyed.

Clemente declined to comment himself on the lawsuit.

His company, Clemente Brothers Contracting Corp., handles water, sewer, pipeline, and power-line projects.

Clemente filed a notice of claim in January, but the city took no action, so he went forward with the lawsuit.

The city Law Department said it had received the papers and was in the process of reviewing them.

The city has cracked down on construction companies before. In 1989, the Department of Transportation made a dramatic foray against contractors who blocked city streets with vehicles and construction materials.

At the time, the city seized cinder blocks, pipes and trucks to clear lanes, forcing contractors to reimburse it for the cost of taking away their goods.

But even then, there were no reports of lost trucks.