Help Preserve Our Drinking Water
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The Hudson River, which provides drinking water to many of us in our region, is currently planned to be "jet plowed", unless you express your concern about the project, right now.
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What is "jet plowing"?
"Jet plowing" involves machinery using high powered water jets to blast away sediment, in the case of our river, to create a trench in the riverbed. This is currently planned to happen in a significant length of the bed of the Hudson River. Where this may pose a potential danger to us, as identified by Riverkeeper, is "the mobilization of legacy industrial contaminants like the PCBs that were dumped by General Electric and remain in river sediment and contaminate fish. The New York State Department of Health cautions women under 50 and children not to eat fish from the Hudson, due primarily to PCBs as well as other contaminants."
"Churning up contaminants could pose additional risk of PCB exposure – and not just through fish. The Hudson is used as a drinking water source for seven communities in the mid-Hudson region. These 'Hudson 7' communities wrote to the state Public Service Commission about its concern that sediments contaminated by PCBs and other pollutants would be churned up near their drinking water intakes, and urged that the cable be routed away from the area, on land instead of in the river. Bill Carlos, chairman of the Poughkeepsie Joint Water Board, said running the cable in the Hudson through the Hudson 7 area 'represents a direct threat to every one of the 106,000 people who get their drinking water from the river'."
Why would this happen?
The Champlain Hudson Power Express is a planned multi-billion dollar energy project plan that involves running power transmission lines 339 miles routing Canadian electricity to New York City, with the lines currently planned to be laid 200 miles in Lake Champlain and in a jet-plowed trench in the bed of the Hudson River.
The transmission lines do not need to be placed in our river, potentially interfering with the source of where so many of us get our water and further imperiling our river's ecosystem.
This is a project that organizations such as Riverkeeper and the Sierra Club have both expressed serious concerns about. Unfortunately, much of the public is still largely unaware of what is currently being planned. Unless you voice your objection, this plan may go forward. Act now, before it's too late. The Champlain Hudson Power Express cable was moved out of its original permitted path in the upper Hudson River and onto land using right-of-ways to avoid the PCB clean-up site. Currently, the transmission cable is planned to re-enter the river in the Town of Catskill.
What can I do to help?
Objections and concerns from the public must be made immediately to the Governor.
Call Governor Hochul at 1-518-474-8390 between 9am and 5pm and demand that New York State protect our drinking water, and get the Champlain Hudson Power Express and Clean Path transmission cables out of the Hudson River and onto existing land-based right-of-ways such as rail (CSX) or highway routes (NYS Thruway).
"Jet plowing" involves machinery using high powered water jets to blast away sediment, in the case of our river, to create a trench in the riverbed. This is currently planned to happen in a significant length of the bed of the Hudson River. Where this may pose a potential danger to us, as identified by Riverkeeper, is "the mobilization of legacy industrial contaminants like the PCBs that were dumped by General Electric and remain in river sediment and contaminate fish. The New York State Department of Health cautions women under 50 and children not to eat fish from the Hudson, due primarily to PCBs as well as other contaminants."
"Churning up contaminants could pose additional risk of PCB exposure – and not just through fish. The Hudson is used as a drinking water source for seven communities in the mid-Hudson region. These 'Hudson 7' communities wrote to the state Public Service Commission about its concern that sediments contaminated by PCBs and other pollutants would be churned up near their drinking water intakes, and urged that the cable be routed away from the area, on land instead of in the river. Bill Carlos, chairman of the Poughkeepsie Joint Water Board, said running the cable in the Hudson through the Hudson 7 area 'represents a direct threat to every one of the 106,000 people who get their drinking water from the river'."
Why would this happen?
The Champlain Hudson Power Express is a planned multi-billion dollar energy project plan that involves running power transmission lines 339 miles routing Canadian electricity to New York City, with the lines currently planned to be laid 200 miles in Lake Champlain and in a jet-plowed trench in the bed of the Hudson River.
The transmission lines do not need to be placed in our river, potentially interfering with the source of where so many of us get our water and further imperiling our river's ecosystem.
This is a project that organizations such as Riverkeeper and the Sierra Club have both expressed serious concerns about. Unfortunately, much of the public is still largely unaware of what is currently being planned. Unless you voice your objection, this plan may go forward. Act now, before it's too late. The Champlain Hudson Power Express cable was moved out of its original permitted path in the upper Hudson River and onto land using right-of-ways to avoid the PCB clean-up site. Currently, the transmission cable is planned to re-enter the river in the Town of Catskill.
What can I do to help?
Objections and concerns from the public must be made immediately to the Governor.
Call Governor Hochul at 1-518-474-8390 between 9am and 5pm and demand that New York State protect our drinking water, and get the Champlain Hudson Power Express and Clean Path transmission cables out of the Hudson River and onto existing land-based right-of-ways such as rail (CSX) or highway routes (NYS Thruway).
After you submit your concern, be sure to share this page with anyone that you think may be interested in knowing about it. You can learn more about this matter, at the links at the bottom of this page. There has been insufficient public outreach conducted about this project, and the public still largely remains uninformed and unaware about what is being planned, and how it may affect them!
Learn more about this matter:
Riverkeeper | Champlain Hudson Power Express: What's at Stake
Sierra Club | No Need to Import Canadian Electricity From 1,200 Miles Away
Poughkeepsie Journal | Should $4.5B power project receive a Dutchess tax break? Company Plans to Resubmit Request
Daily Freeman | Ulster County Agency Says Power Line Developers Not Engaged
Riverkeeper | Does a $261 Billion Company Need Hundreds of Millions in Local Property Tax Subsidies – On Top of NYS Clean Energy Credits Worth Billions?
Daily Freeman | Hudson River Power Line Developers to Conduct Tests to Determine Impacts on Water Systems
Wikipedia | Champlain Hudson Power Express
Riverkeeper | Champlain Hudson Power Express: What's at Stake
Sierra Club | No Need to Import Canadian Electricity From 1,200 Miles Away
Poughkeepsie Journal | Should $4.5B power project receive a Dutchess tax break? Company Plans to Resubmit Request
Daily Freeman | Ulster County Agency Says Power Line Developers Not Engaged
Riverkeeper | Does a $261 Billion Company Need Hundreds of Millions in Local Property Tax Subsidies – On Top of NYS Clean Energy Credits Worth Billions?
Daily Freeman | Hudson River Power Line Developers to Conduct Tests to Determine Impacts on Water Systems
Wikipedia | Champlain Hudson Power Express