When I was growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s, I was fascinated by water. The closest body of water to me was New York Harbor, a hour’s walk if I was motivated. Yet I rarely went. Despite the expanses of water and the huge ships passing to and fro, the bay and Hudson River that fed it was terribly polluted. It was a no-go zone for anybody wanting to do more than wade. During that time my family used to go to Plum Beach, which was in the Jamaica Bay National Park. (Note: Plum Beach is commonly spelled “Plumb”, which is strange. The beach is named after the beach plums that grow there, not plumbing.) We went there to wade in the water and see the wildlife. There were horseshoe crabs crawling at the water’s edge, periwinkle snails leaving their furrows in the damp sand, killifish which darted everywhere, and a tidal pond that drained and filled with the tide. It was a living salt marsh, utterly fascinating. Yet here too, where life thrived, it was still a no-go zone for humans, with the ever-present signs “No Swimming”.
The pollution of the Hudson is well documented. (1) It has been used as a sewer since the New Amsterdam colony (2). My grandfather described how used to swim in the Hudson as a boy (around 1930) and had to use the breast stroke to push away the “brown things”. Pretty gross. Fortunately dumping of raw sewage is over and the brown things are gone. Unfortunately pollution is still an issue. Some sewage and other pollutants still accidentally enter the river, and organizations like Riverkeeper have to constantly monitor its quality. (3)
Industrial pollutants also haunt the Hudson. The General Motors plant in North Tarrytown (now Sleepy Hollow) was famous for its dumping into the river. An activist was famously quoted in the New York Times in 1971 “You can tell what color cars they are painting on a given day by what color the river is.” Other sites in Hastings and Croton-on-Hudson also were major polluters. (4) Farther upriver, General Electric dumped 1.3 millions of pounds of PCBs into the river between 1947–1977, and this pollution still exists in the river sediments and ecosystem. (5) All this industrial pollution came and most of the sewage came to and end as the twentieth century waned thanks to the activism of the Clearwater organization, Riverkeeper, Scenic Hudson, and others. Pete Seeger, one of the founders of Clearwater, composed a song “My Dirty Stream” which inspired these activists to restore the Hudson to its former state. While the pollution is now mostly gone, its taint is longer lasting. Those who were alive when the Hudson truly was a “dirty stream” still regard its waters suspiciously. Who could blame them, really, with this history?
As an active standup paddleboarder, I am frequently asked, “Is the river safe to go in?” And the answer is, despite the historical pollution, yes. I’m not the only person to think so. There have been public Hudson River beaches in Kingston and Croton Point for many years. There are also many competitive and noncompetitive swims in its waters, some sponsored by groups like Riverpool in Beacon. These wouldn’t exist if the Hudson was unsafe. However as a public service, Riverkeeper makes sure to monitor the water continuously though, making public alerts whenever there’s an excess of pollutants or bacterial buildup. Outside of these alerts, you can consider the Hudson safe. If you are swimming in a non-supervised area though, please refer the Riverkeeper website for water quality updates. They also have a good general reference for swimming (6). (Swimming by outside of designated areas should always be done with great caution however and never alone.)
If you are a recreational boater such as a kayaker, jetskier, paddleboarder, or waterskier, have no fears. Unless there are specific alerts for your area, the Hudson water is safe for recreation. (Fishing should be done with great caution though, and NYS has excellent resources for this. In general, seasonal fish such as shad and striped bass are generally fine, but year-round residents and crabs are often tainted with concerning levels of PCBs. Please be cautious about eating any animal from the river.) If you’ve never tried the Hudson for swimming or recreation, consider trying one of its beaches. If you’re an experienced swimmer, there are many excellent swimming events each year.
-Ian Berger
References:
(1) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/28/hudson-river-pollution-cleanup-new-york
(3) https://www.riverkeeper.org/blogs/water-quality-blogs/hudson-river-sewage-overflow-looks-like/
(4) https://westchestermagazine.com/life-style/history/history-of-the-hudson-river/
(5) https://www.riverkeeper.org/campaigns/stop-polluters/pcbs/
(6) https://www.riverkeeper.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Hudson-River-Water-Quality-Poster-2019.pdf