Copyright 2009, John Cronin
I was recently contacted by a reporter writing a story about "How the Hudson has improved."
"What is your premise?" I asked.
"That the Hudson was once called an open sewer and now it is an environmental success story."
I have been involved in Hudson River issues since I was 23. I am 59. In good conscience I can no longer boast of the river's comeback to a 30 year-old, or a 20 year-old, or my 14 year-old son. After all, what has happened in their lifetime?
There is no evidence of which I am aware that the Hudson has improved in the last decade. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that the river is in decline, despite official and unofficial attempts to manage its restoration and protection. Major fish species, such as American shad, Atlantic sturgeon, and smelt, have been in trouble for over a decade. Twenty years ago, they were not. The Hudson's once proud commercial fishery is just about over. There is more human population and therefore more pollutants being discharged into the river, directly and indirectly. Invasive species are more prevalent.The major issues that have stumped agencies and environmentalists for decades are still with us. Some examples: toxic contamination of fish, crustaceans, amphibians, and mammals; fish kills by power plants; sewage treatment plant overflows; non-point source pollution -- the overland runoff that is mobilized mostly by precipitation in the watershed. Discharge permits are not getting stricter, as the 1972 Clean Water Act once anticipated. And, against all logic and former expectations, some municipalities are still discharging sewage wastes into the very section of river from which they get their drinking water, in a tidal estuary.
Secondary treatment is still the accepted standard for sewage treatment on the river after more than 30 years. It does not remove industrial and toxic chemicals or pharmaceuticals, and often produces its own chlorinated hydrocarbons. Most treatment plants dump untreated or poorly treated sewage when there has been sufficient rain. In its excellent investigative series, Toxic Waters, The New York Times estimated that 19.5 million Americans are made ill by drinking water annually. But experts know that this is an under-investigated phenomenon. As the documentary film Flow asks, have you ever had an unexplained "stomach bug?"
It is time to come clean about clean water, and about the Hudson River. The bold visionaries that imagined a restored Hudson in the 1960s were called names, excoriated in advertising and threatened. But still they demanded, and imagined, a clean and healthy river, despite the attacks. What are we willing to demand and imagine?Let's begin with the Clean Water Act's goal of eliminating the discharge of pollutants. The Federal target date of 1985 is long past. But why not set a new date, right here on the Hudson? It is time for a new era of innovation, as the Clean Water Act originally envisioned, that will end pollution in our children's lifetime.
We have enough expertise resident in New York State's technology companies, and colleges and universities to accomplish that one goal. We can build a new industry around it. Make the Hudson River Valley its capital.
Every bit of genius and skill should be brought to the table to determine a new timeline for ending polluiton and the means to get there. The economic, health, environmental and social benefits, and the continuing innovations that would accrue, would be an example to our and other nations, just as the world is becoming embroiled in a planet-wide water crisis.
But we have to be bold. And we have to tell a new story. The Hudson's challenges are more daunting than ever. The river's past successes are past but they also point the way to a new future -- if we are bold enough to demand, and imagine, it.
