Condition of Hudson River Focus of Irvington Forum

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February 8, 2025

By Jeff Wilson—

The educated audience came to the Irvington Library to inquire about the health of Mother Nature’s beautiful but abused child: the Hudson River.

That was the focus of a February 5 forum by Tracy Brown, president of the not-for-profit organization Riverkeeper. Brown discussed conditions and their long-term implications for the river in a talk titled “Drought or Deluge: What the future of water looks like for southern New York.”

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The big takeaway from this event was that the future of water – especially Hudson River water – depends in large part on how much “We the People” pitch in to preserve it, as Riverkeeper has sought to do since its formation in 1983.

Brown, who provided a slide show, opened by declaring Riverkeeper’s current goals for the 315-mile-long river: improving water quality and public access; safeguarding drinking water; mitigating or adapting to climate change; and restoring habitats and wildlife.

Emblazoned on one of the earlier slides was the claim that “Water is the primary medium through which we will feel the effects of climate change.” This pronouncement, by no less an authority than the United Nations, achieved maximum effect being superimposed over a birds’-eye view of a stretch of downtown Kingston heavily flooded by Rondout Creek, one of the Hudson’s tributaries. Water rules – we get it.

Chemical changes are taking place under the surface too, with dire consequences for flora and fauna. Higher water temperatures have led to increased eutrophication or low levels of oxygen in the water, harming fish. Algae blooms, which thrive in the warmer water, also suck up oxygen and block sunlight, and “ocean” acidification prevents shellfish from growing strong shells. The result? Dwindling populations of fish and plants that rely on fish waste for nutrients.

Another cause of river pollution is stormwater, rain that mixes with garbage and pollutes when it soaks into the ground. Harmful effects can be mitigated with techniques like curb plantings. Or, for waterfront dwellers, extend plantings right down to the water’s edge. This strategy is about “having a buffer clean the water naturally before it returns to a river or a stream,” Brown explained.

Then there’s high-tech stormwater management, “grey infrastructure” using pumps, paving stones or contoured roads leading to overflow drains. “There’s a tremendous need in New York to upgrade our wastewater treatment plants and our drinking water plants,” Brown stated.

The Coalition for a Clean Water, an emerging organization in Westchester, is focused specifically on upgrading the county’s aging sewage infrastructure.

To help wildlife, restore the rivers. There are annual cleanups in different localities. (Irvington’s is on May 3.) Brown also suggested stopping developers from developing by getting proactive in preventing them from acquiring abandoned land.

She cited two other killers of fish and plants. One is the abundance of old, abandoned dams built for industries in bygone days. These rotting structures block fish from migrating to the cold-water streams where they spawn. The fish die off; with them go the plants. Riverkeeper is working on removing dams, but it’s very expensive contending with the contaminated sediment behind them.

“The other big killer of fish was Indian Point, which every day pulled the water in to cool its nuclear towers,” Brown said. “It was a major destroyer of green life.”

A third culprit? Just plain old pollution, she added.

The 100,000 or so people who get their drinking water from the Hudson (in the Poughkeepsie-Kingston area) may soon be drinking saltier water as the estuary salt wedge – where seawater meets fresh water – moves north. That means “a whole new level of energy and technology for de-salinization,” Brown announced. Luckily, Irvington and its neighbors drink New York City water, from reservoirs unaffected by salt intrusion.

Riverkeeper is working on a “drinking water literacy” initiative to inform everyone of the source of their drinking water and its contents. “We’ve been taking drinking water for granted,” said Brown, in assuming the government is keeping our water pure. “It’s just not.”

Brown ended the talk with the kind of story no one wants to hear. Responding to a question, she explained the difficulty of protecting the river from frequent dumping of raw sewage. Most of the rivertowns’ wastewater flows to the Yonkers wastewater/sewage treatment plant. During rainstorms, however, rainwater inundates the system and overwhelms the treatment operation, which discharges all the water, raw sewage included, into the Hudson.

In 2023, Westchester County admitted the Yonkers plant has dumped 831 million gallons of untreated wastewater into the river due to this antiquated combined treatment system.

The meeting ended with audience members, many of them members of environmental organizations, broke up into groups for related discussions.

For more information, go to www.riverkeeper.org.

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