John Cronin

The Improving Hudson?

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 know well the terms "open sewer" and "environmental success story" when applied to the Hudson River.  I spent years helping to make them popular.  Many years.  So many years that by 2009 those phrases have become worn and dated.   The Hudson may no longer be an open sewer,  but neither is it the river most of us thought it would be. 

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. 

Who Declares a Water Crisis?

Copyright 2009, John Cronin

It was said often, at a recent conference on New York State Water Resources, held at Pace University, that  comprehensive protection and management of New York's waters would finally come when a crisis forced the issue.  The daylong event was sponsored by Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies, Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries, and the Center for Environmental Legal Studies at Pace Law School.

During the last afternoon panel, an audience member asked, "Who is in charge of declaring a crisis?"  No one had a satisfactory answer.  And when the question was turned on the audience -- "Who here is willing to declare a crisis?" -- there was a scant show of hands, even after a full day of talks about grim predictions and policy shortfalls in health, supply, infrastructure, ecological management and environmental protection. 

The path to a crisis is a  greater mystery than a crisis that has already been proclaimed.  Hindsight is like that.  Drought, decaying infrastructure, declining fish populations, and shortages in future water supply are slow-motion crises.  Their eventual, official recognition, usually comes in the form of a declaration of emergency or, worse, a court order.  It is spurred by some formula of public opinion, media attention, dire circumstances and government findings -- a long process that nonetheless leaves policymakers playing a panicky game of catch-up.

But the conference proceedings begged a question familiar to all those who deal in national security and preparedness -- aren't we already in a crisis if we are unprepared for an impending emergency?  The OED tells us that a crisis is "a time of intense difficulty or danger."  The word finds its origins in the Greek keinein, which means to separate or decide, and which  is also the source of the word "critic," or kritikos -- able to make judgments.  Noah's crisis, for example, came when he was charged with building an ark and gathering his passengers  . . .  before the flood arrived. 

The Water It Takes 2: Alternative Energy

A Very Inconvenient Truth

Copyright 2009, John Cronin

Producing energy without causing negative impacts to water has been a thorny environmental issue for decades.  In the 1970s, fish killed by the cooling water intakes of power plants, and heated water from the plants' discharge pipes were icons of American environmental degradation. 

The effects of cooling water use by conventional and nuclear plants are not due to the consumption of water but the cycling of water through the plants and its heated return to the originating water body.  But the impacts of this very large water flow though a power plant's machinery can be devastating.  In a paper for the Harvard Environmental Law Review in 1992, Karl Rabago made a conservative estimate that the number of fish that die in these "once-through" cooling systems nationally is a half-trillion per year, based on government and industry data.

Recent stories on the growing controversy over the proposed use of water by alternative energy developers, reminds us that the laws of physics and thermodynamics don't take a rest just because harnessing the sun is a good idea. 

The Water It Takes . . .

 

Image: IBM Smarter Planet

Imagine No Pollution

The Future, and the Failed Clean Water Act

Copyright 2009, John Cronin

The Clean Water Act has failed.  It is time for a new law.

There is a mistaken, popular belief that the central purpose of the 1972 Clean Water Act is to bring to justice the bad guys who are polluting the nation’s waters.

The Clean Water Act was written to create a global market place based on American innovation that would end pollution in our lifetime, and “restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the nation’s waters.” 

But a list of the Clean Water Act's failed policies reads like an indictment of the law itself.

The first policy goal on the first page of the Clean Water Act is the elimination of the discharge of pollutants by 1985.

The law also sets a goal of making the nation’s waters fit for sports and recreation, and for fish and wildlife by July 1983.

It calls for management plans to end pollution from runoff, protect watersheds, and enhance water resources, in keeping with the 1983 and 1985 goals.

It requires the cessation of toxic discharges in toxic amounts.

It establishes a sweeping domestic and foreign policy on water designed to protect life and health here and abroad.

Indeed, the enormity of the Clean Water Act’s failure can be measured in lives.  The law directs the Secretary of State to assist other nations in eradicating their water problems to “at least the same extent as the United States does under its laws.”  But since the Clean Water Act was enacted, an estimated 70 - 100 million people, mostly children in the developing world, have died from diseases related to water pollution.  The Pacific Institute estimates that between 36 million and 70 million will die by 2020.

Crabbing with Bob

From INSIDEOUT, Sep-Oct '09. Copyright 2009, John Cronin

(NOTE: You can view a short video of Bob Gabrielson here.)

Bob Gabrielson handed me William Warner’s Beautiful Swimmers and told me to memorize it.  “It’s the bible,” he said. It was dog-eared and fragrantly stained with Baltimore spice; Bob had logged many hours studying it over plates of steamed and seasoned blue crab.

The book’s title is a translation of the scientific name for blue crab, callinectes sapidus.  In Greek, “calli” means beautiful and “nectes” means swimmer. “Sapidus” is Latin for savory or delicious.  The cover told me that Warner had won the Pulitzer Prize for his book about the lives of crab and watermen on Chesapeake Bay.  Bob told me, “To catch crab you have to think like a crab.” 

Taking Questions on PCBs - Pt. 3

From June 17 - 19  I was the guest blogger on The New York Times' "Taking Questions" feature of its City Room blog.  The topic was "General Electric's project to remove PCBs from the Hudson River."   The Times asked that I respond to 5 reader-submitted questions daily.   Part 3 of the selected questions and my answers follows,  just as it appeared on the The New York Times site:

Because so many inquiries about swimming have been posted, I feel obligated to clarify and expand on the quick summary I presented in a previous post:

— John Cronin

Kristen Skopeck, the Hudson River community involvement coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency, tells me that swimming also tops the list of questions she receives at her Hudson River field office at 421 Lower Main Street in Hudson Falls, N.Y. This is a measure of the public attention accorded the dredging project, as well as the widespread eagerness to enjoy the river.

The New York State Department of Health, lead agency for swimming and health issues, expects that during the dredging, PCB levels in the Hudson River will remain below the E.P.A.’s drinking water standard of 500 parts per trillion. It has issued no dredging-related health warnings for the river.

Taking Questions on PCBs - Pt. 2

From June 17 - 19  I was the guest blogger on The New York Times' "Taking Questions" feature of its City Room blog.  The topic was "General Electric's project to remove PCBs from the Hudson River."   The Times asked that I respond to 5 reader-submitted questions daily.   Part 2 of the selected questions and my answers follows,  just as it appeared on the The New York Times site:

Where will the dredge material be disposed once it is removed from the river?

— Posted by Dan

A number of posts have asked about the amount and destination of dredged material from the Hudson. Dan’s is the simplest (and he asked first). But I will try to cover all the questions here, so pardon the lengthy answer.

First, the full operation of coordinating, staging and executing the dredging and material processing is impressive. G.E. is mobilizing 17 tugboats, 35 barges and 12 dredges working 24 hours per day, six days a week to remove and process the 400,000 tons of sediment that Environmental Protection Agency is focusing on for Phase 1, which ends in November when weather closes the Champlain Canal.

Despite the world-class collection of heavy equipment, one of the most striking aspects of the operation is its relative quiet. Attention to details, such as “hospital-grade generators,” was an essential part of the project design agreed to by the E.P.A. and G.E. If you visit the dredging project, and I recommend it, don’t expect a cacophonous construction site. (Carpool, and visit Jim’s Broadway Café, or one of the many local establishments.)

Taking Questions on PCBs - Pt. 1

From June 17 - 19  I was the guest blogger on The New York Times' "Taking Questions" feature of its City Room blog.  The topic was "General Electric's project to remove PCBs from the Hudson River."   The Times asked that I respond to 5 reader-submitted questions daily.   Part 1 of the selected questions and my answers follows,  just as it appeared on the The New York Times site:

It seems I’ve known about this PCB problem forever, but I don’t really know the details. I recall that you were quite involved at the beginning of this process, so I’m hoping you will be able to answer my questions: when did the PCB contamination start, how was it discovered, and what have been the steps leading up to this final cleanup?

— Posted by Morna Crites-Moore

The best primer on PCBs and the Hudson can be gleaned from visiting the dedicated PCB web pages of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the General Electric Company. These are not necessarily dueling sites, though they may disagree on some points. You can put together a good regulatory time line as well as the current status of the cleanup from the information they present.

The PCB controversy has a long history. The issue first came to public attention in August 1975 in an article in The New York Times in which Richard Severo reported that the New York State environmental conservation commissioner, Ogden R. Reid, and the health commissioner, Dr. Robert P. Whalen, had issued a public warning to avoid eating striped bass from the Hudson River because of PCB contamination. Mr. Reid cited two General Electric plants in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls as a likely cause.

Bobby Gabrielson 1929-2009

"There's no other place that anybody should ever want to be than right here on the Hudson River.

From The Last Rivermen, Robert Nixon, Producer and Director; John Cronin, Producer and Writer.  Produced by The Last Rivermen Production Company.  Copyright 1991, Riverkeeper, Inc.

To view a longer film clip, click the link below: