Hudson River | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

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Hudson River Summary

Hudson River

Starting at Lake Tear of the Clouds, a two-acre (0.8-ha) pond in New York's Adirondack Mountains, the Hudson River runs 315 miles (507 km) to the Battery on Manhattan Island's southern tip, where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. Although polluted and extensively dammed for hydroelectric power, the river still contains a wealth of aquatic species, including massive sea sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrhynchus) and short-nosed sturgeon (A. brevirostrum). The upper Hudson is fast-flowing trout stream, but below the Adirondack Forest Preserve, pollution from municipal sources, paper companies, and industries degrades the water. Stretches of the upper Hudson contain so-called warm water fish, including northern pike (Esox lucius), chain pickerel (E. niger), smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieui), and largemouth bass (M. salmoides). These latter two fish swam into the Hudson through the Lake Erie and Lake Champlain canals, which were completed in the early nineteenth century.

The Catskill Mountains dominate the mid-Hudson region, which is rich in fish and wildlife, though dairy farming, a source of runoff pollution, is strong in the region. American shad (Alosa sapidissima), historically the Hudson's most important commercial fish, spawn on the river flats between Kingston and Coxsackie. Marshes in this region support snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina) and, in the winter, muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus) and mink (Mustela vison). Water chestnuts (Trapa natans) grow luxuriantly in this section of the river.

Deep and partly bordered by mountains, the lower Hudson resembles a fiord. The unusually deep lower river makes it suitable for navigation by ocean-going vessels for 150 miles (241 km) upriver to Albany. Because the river's surface elevation does not drop between Albany and Manhattan, the tidal effects of the ocean are felt all the way upriver to the Federal Lock and Dam above Albany. These powerful tides make long stretches of the lower Hudson saline or brackish, with saltwater penetrating as high as 60 miles (97 km) upstream from the Battery.

The Hudson contains a great variety of botanical species. Over a dozen oaks thrive along its banks, including red oaks (Quercus rubra), black oaks (Q. velutina), pin oaks (Q. palustris), and rock chestnut (Q. prinus). Numerous other trees also abound, from mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) and red pine (Pinus resinosa) to flowering dogwood (Cornus florida), together with a wide variety of small herbaceous plants.

The Hudson River is comparatively short. More than 80 American rivers are longer than it, but it plays a major role in New York's economy and ecology. Pollution threats to the river have been caused by the discharge of industrial and municipal waste, as well as pesticides washed off the land by rain. From 1930 to 1975, one chemical company on the river manufactured approximately 1.4 billion pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and an estimated 10 million pounds a year entered the environment. In all, a total of 1.3 million pounds of PCB contamination allegedly occurred during the years prior to the ban, with the pollution originating from plants at Ford Edward and Hudson Falls. A ban was put in place for a time prohibiting the possession, removal, and eating of fish from the waters of the upper Hudson River. A proposed cleanup was designated, to proceed by means of a 40-mile dredging and sifting of 2.65 million cubic yards of sediment north of Albany, with an anticipated yield of 75 tons of PCBs.

In February of 2001 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), having invoked the Superfund law, required the chemical company to begin planning the cleanup. The company was given several weeks to present a viable plan of attack, or else face a potential $1.5 billion fine for ignoring the directive in lieu of the cost of cleanup. The cleanup cost, estimated at $500 million was presented as the preferred alternative. The engineering phase of the cleanup project was expected to take three years of planning and was to be scheduled after the offending company filed a response to the EPA. The company responded within the allotted time frame in order to placate the EPA, although the specifics of a drafted work plan remained undetermined, and the company refused to withdraw a lawsuit filed in November of 2000, which challenged the constitutionality of the so-called Superfund law that authorized the EPA to take action. The river meanwhile was ranked by one environmental watchdog group as the fourth most endangered in the United States, specifically because of the PCB contamination. Environmental groups demanded also that attention be paid to the issues of urban sprawl, noise, and other pollution, while proposals for potentially polluting projects were endorsed by industrialists as a means of spurring the area's economy. Among these industrial projects, the construction of a cement plant in Catskill where there is easy access to a limestone quarry, and the development of a power plant along the river in Athens generated controversy, stemming from the industrial asset afforded by development along the river versus the advantages of a less fouled environment. Additionally, the power plant, which threatened to add four new smokestacks to the skyline and to aggravate pollution, was seen as potentially detrimental to tourism in that area. Also in recent decades, chlorinated hydrocarbons, dieldrin, endrin, DDT, and other pollutants have been linked to the decline in populations of the once common Jefferson salamander (Ambystoma jeffersonianum), fish hawk (Pandion haliaetus), and bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus).

Concerns over the condition of the lower river spread anew following a severe September 11 terrorist attack on New York City in 2001. In this coastal tri-state urban area where anti-dumping laws were put in place in the mid twentieth century to protect the river from deterioration due to pollution, new threats of pollution surfaced regarding the potential for assorted types of leakage into the river caused when the integrity of some land-based structures including seawalls and underwater tunnels was compromised by the impact of exploding commercial jetliners involved in the attack.