Hudson River Watershed

“A giant oyster has been discovered in the Hudson River. It was found last week living underneath Pier 40. It's not the biggest ever, but at eight inches, it is the largest found in 100 years. Researchers say it could mean the river is cleaner than we think. It is estimated to be 10-15 years old.... The species was thriving in the Hudson until the 1900s when over-fishing and pollution destroyed the stock.”

“Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the completion of the state's largest Adirondack land acquisition in more than 100 years, with the purchase of the 20,758-acre Boreas Ponds Tract. This is the final acquisition in a series of land purchases the state has completed under a 2012 agreement with The Nature Conservancy to conserve 69,000 acres of land previously owned primarily by the former Finch, Pruyn & Company paper company. The Tract is located primarily in the town of North Hudson in Essex County, south of the High Peaks Wilderness Area.”

“In the face of climate change impact and inevitable sea level rise, Cornell and Scenic Hudson scientists studying New York's Hudson River estuary have forecast new intertidal wetlands, comprising perhaps 33 percent more wetland area by the year 2100. ‘In other parts of the world, sea level rise has led to net losses of tidal wetland and to permanent inundation,' said Magdeline Laba, Cornell senior research associate in soil and crop sciences....'it is quite surprising that wetlands have any area at all to expand into,' Laba said. ‘There will be a net increase in total wetlands, instead of a decrease, which is really amazing.' The net predicted wetland increase is due to the upland migration of existing marshes, she said.”

“The sturgeon, one of the Hudson River's most famous, enormous and delicious fish, may be coming back. A new Juvenile Atlantic Sturgeon Survey shows the highest number of Atlantic sturgeon in the Hudson River in the 10-year history of the survey and the trend of the results show an increasing juvenile sturgeon abundance, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Acting Commissioner Basil Seggos announced Wednesday.... ‘The fact that there are more juvenile Atlantic sturgeon is great news,' said John Lipscomb, Riverkeeper Patrol Boat Captain. ‘We've worked closely with DEC Fisheries in the past, and supported some of their research on our patrol boat, and they are a great team. We all hope for a recovery of sturgeon, as well as shad, herring and other species. It's our greatest hope.'”

“Herring are spawning in a tributary to New York's Hudson River for the first time in 85 years after a dam was removed from the tributary's mouth...With the removal of the dam earlier this month, river herring and other ocean-going fish are making their way up the tributary to spawn.”

“For the first time in a century, humpback whales have returned to the waters of New York harbor. And not just occasionally, either. They're coming in enough numbers that a company can reliably trot tourists out to the ocean—within sight distance of Manhattan's skyscrapers—to see them.”

“G.E. has spent the last six years and $1 billion dredging up much but not all of the toxic chemicals it put in the riverbed, and it is now is getting ready to dismantle its cleanup operation... G.E. says, rightly, that it has fulfilled the terms of the settlement it agreed to with the federal government — a job it spent years trying to evade — and that the river is better off now that 300,000 pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, have been removed. But it is refusing to spend a day or a penny more than it has to, and alarms are going off. Two of the three government agencies tasked with guarding the health of the Hudson as the river's ‘natural resource trustees' — the federal Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — wrote the Environmental Protection Agency in late September urging that the dismantling be postponed until the E.P.A. conducts a review. The river and fish are still contaminated, the federal trustees said, echoing the concerns of advocates dismayed that the cleanup won't reach 136 contaminated acres that lie outside the area covered by the dredging agreement.”

“Hundreds of members of the New York State Nurses Association, along with local and state officials and community and environmental advocates, held a rally and die-in at the Saratoga Springs Amtrak station. The typically quiet train station, where two freight trains loaded with oil from fracking pass each day, was transformed by live music, chanting, a die-in and a dozen speakers calling for greater safety precautions when transporting oil by rail.... The state of New York placed a temporary moratorium on hydrofracking, but volatile, explosive oil produced from fracking travels through the state on its way to refineries on the East Coast, passing through cities... and along the Hudson River, skirting New York City.... ‘Oil trains pose a significant public health risk,' said Assembly Health Committee Chair Richard N. Gottfried. ‘Oil train derailments, collisions, leaks, and explosions have killed more than 50 people and spilled more than 3 million gallons of oil in less than a year. Much stronger regulations are needed...'”

“Indian point is an extraordinary ax hanging over the river's head and our head. And it is essential that the plant be closed, for the sake of the human residences of the valley and the sake of the (organisms in the river).”

“The Department of Environmental Conservation's permit for the [Tappan Zee] bridge replacement requires that sturgeon monitoring be done so the Department of Environmental Conservation can acquire new information on the sturgeon's habits — what it eats, where it travels, how long it abides in the river, whether the construction disrupts them and what stretches of water it prefers... As part of the project agreements, the Thruway Authority's contractor is also using devices to muffle the noise its pile-driving machinery produces... Sharp sounds can kill sensitive fish like sturgeon.”

“A NOAA grant of more than $800,000 has helped New York state complete the acquisition of nearly 300 acres of critical habitat located within the Stockport Creek and Flats biologically important area... The acquisition will conserve and permanently protect key spawning and nursery habitat for the Hudson River's migratory fish including blueback herring, alewife, American shad, American eel, striped bass, and the federally endangered short-nosed sturgeon. In addition, 64 acres of globally rare freshwater tidal wetlands will be protected including a segment of land that is part of an important bald eagle habitat corridor.”

“Today, pollution in runoff is the bigger problem. Rain sweeps automotive fluids and trash from parking lots into the nearest storm drains and eventually the river. Fertilizers, pesticides and animal wastes wash off lawns and farm fields. Soil left bare of plants erodes into streams. Controlling this pollution requires diverse and coordinated efforts by government and private citizens. Watershed planning can be a particularly effective means of addressing such problems.”

"...the New York oyster is making something of a comeback. Ever since the Clean Water Act was passed in the 1970s, the harbor's waters have been getting cleaner, and there is now enough dissolved oxygen in our waterways to support oyster life. In the last 10 years, limited sets of natural oyster larvae occurred in several different waterways that make up the Greater New York Bight... Alongside nature's efforts, a consortium of human-run organizations that include the Hudson River Foundation, New York-New Jersey Bay Keeper, the Harbor School and even the Army Corps of Engineers have worked together to put out a handful of test reefs throughout the Bight."

“Fracking constitutes consumptive water use, which is different from what happens to water when underground pipes leak and water re-enters the aquifer, or when irrigation leads to evaporation and cloud formation. When water is entombed in deep geological strata, a mile or more below the water table, it's permanently removed from the water cycle. As in, forever. It will never again ascend into the clouds, freeze into snowflakes, melt into rivulets, cascade over rocks, turn with the tide, soak into soil, rise through roots, or pour from your tap. It will never again become blood, tears, sweat, urine, milk, sap, nectar, yolk, honey, or the juice of a fruit. It will never again float a leaf boat, swell a bud, quench a thirst, fill a swamp, spill over an edge, slosh, dribble, spray, trickle, splash, drip, or glisten. Never again fog, mist, frost, ice, dew, or rain. It's gone. To conclude: fracking turns fresh water into poison and makes the water disappear. That's something we've not done before on a large scale. And by the way, water is life. It's energy that's a resource.”