hudson river
The Hudson River and PCB Pollution The Hudson River is a body of water that stretches for 315 miles from the Adirondack Mountains to the Battery in Manhattan, reaching its deepest point of 216 feet in the Highlands near Constitution Island and West Point and reaches its widest point of 3 miles across at Havestraw. This river is one of the most beautiful and scenic of the Tri-State area. Unfortunately, it happens to be New York's most polluted river. The river has been influenced upon since the early 1600's, when Englishman Henry Hudson commanded the Dutch ship Half Moon on an exploration of the river, certain that he had discovered a trade route to China. It soon dawned that this was no Atlantic-to-Pacific passage but an Edenlike place of awesome potential-a river valley teeming with prospect and spirit that was worth fighting for. In the centuries that followed, the fight for the river and its commerce never stopped, and still continues to the present. Then during the Industrial Revolution, with the advent of hulking manufacturing plants on the riverbanks, everything changed. The river became a sewer, cut off from the people around it by the electrification of the railroads. The 1825 complet
Reputable chemists have since concluded, "it was probably a mistake ever to make or use PCBs. I am part of some of the organizations listed in the bibliography and continue to do my fair share of letter writing to save the most serene place in my life, my home-- the river!. In 1900, New York and New Jersey established the Palisades Interstate Park Commission to preserve the cliffs from further quarrying. Among the most dangerous of these, and of particular concern to residents of the Hudson Valley, are the forty "hot spots" in the Hudson River resulting from the dumping and leakage from General Electric plants at Fort Edward and Hudson Falls. There are numerous known contaminated sites around the U. Small amounts of PCBs are taken up by microscopic organisms in the riverbed and passed up through the food chain. Pure PCBs are oozing out of the bedrock to this day, constantly recontaminating the river and over 300,000 pounds remain concentrated in bottom sediments of the river today. We can help by writing to the state legislatures or senators, EPA, or, NYS DEC urging them to: Order prompt and comprehensive cleanup of PCBs from the riverbed Use safe, effective and commercially available technologies to permanently destroy PCBs once they are dredged Require GE (the company responsible for the contamination) to pay for a full cleanup. This has been successfully demonstrated in cleanups around the country. The culmination of this process will result in a Record of Decision, which may recommend dredging contaminated sediments for treatment and destruction. This will limit the resuspention of contaminated sediments within the water column by combining the action of a rotating cutter with hydraulic suction. Exposure has also been linked to behavioral damage. By doing so can irrevocably alter and damage the development of the organism. Once bottom-dwelling organisms absorb the material, PCBs are not readily excreted and remain, in ever-increasing concentration, lodged in the fatty body tissues of fish as they grow, as for humans they persist at elevated levels within the bloodstream, allowing for continuous internal exposure. This is less than one percent of GE's annual revenues! PCBs will not be removed from the Hudson River without two things: political will and money.
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Acceptance Essays
