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Audio Feature: Hudson River stories
Nov 04, 2017 1:01 am
Here are some stories from the Hudson River this week. Click here to hear an audio version of this report. (4:12)
• The Stevens Institute reports temperatures this week in the Hudson River at Schodack Island have been between 53 and 58 degrees, five degrees cooler than last week's high.
• Kelsey Kennedy is reporting for Atlas Obscura is reporting about efforts to bring back carbon-neutral sail freight on the Hudson River. The city of Hudson is recalled in the story, “as a city that was interacting with the river, but then there certainly was a period of time when that was forgotten,” says Sam Merrett. Merrett is captain of the schooner Apollonia, the new sail freight project. “There used to be a bay south of town where all the big sailboats would dock, and that bay literally got cut off when they put in the train track. It’s now completely sedimented and silted in. You wouldn’t even recognize it as part of the river, it just looks like a kind of wetland-y marsh zone.” Merrett and his crew are working on The Apollonia, a 64-foot-long, 15-foot-wide, steel-hulled schooner built in Baltimore in 1946. It has a diesel engine that works on used vegetable oil and can carry 20,000 pounds of cargo. They hope to carry freight on the Hudson River next spring. The Apollonia isn't quick enough to move perishable goods, but it will move beer, wine, and cider. And a sea salt producer in Germantown is asking them to return with saltwater in a bladder, “like a Camelbak,” says Merrett. “If we’re ever down in New York [City] and don’t have a load to bring back up, we can just go off shore a little bit, pump some clean salt water in, and that can be our load coming north.” Read the full story in Atlas Obscura.
Kirk Moore reports for Work Boat about the Port of Coeymans Marine Terminal. The port started in the ice harvesting business, sending big blocks of ice down the river to New York City. In 1896, A.T. Powell and Thomas Minnock, got into the ice harvesting business just before refrigeration, then opened the Powell & Minnock Brick Yard. “Its closure in 2001 brought an end to more than three centuries of brick making on the Hudson,” authors Thomas E. Rinaldi and Robert J. Yasinsac wrote in their 2006 book “Hudson Valley Ruins: Forgotten Landmarks of an American Landscape.” Carver Laraway and a partner purchased the old P&M property in 2002, starting a restoration and redevelopment project and today Coeymans Marine Transportation transports bulk construction materials down the Hudson River to building sites. This past August, they, "transported the tallest, heaviest barge load in Hudson history, floating the 130’ tall, 4,000-short-ton heat recovery steam generator, built on site at Coeymans, 170 miles south to a new power plant in Woodbridge, N.J. More massive steel parts are coming in for the next generator to be built," Moore reports. Read the full story in Work Boat.
The Village of Coxsackie Wastewater Treatment Facility released 32,110 gallons of combined sewer overflow into the Hudson River Oct. 28 due to heavy rain. The Village of Catskill Wastewater Treatment Plant also had a five-hour release, with 50 gallons a minute sent into the river Oct. 29. The City of Hudson released 1,000 gallons per minute over 12.4 hours Oct. 29.
• The Stevens Institute reports temperatures this week in the Hudson River at Schodack Island have been between 53 and 58 degrees, five degrees cooler than last week's high.
• Kelsey Kennedy is reporting for Atlas Obscura is reporting about efforts to bring back carbon-neutral sail freight on the Hudson River. The city of Hudson is recalled in the story, “as a city that was interacting with the river, but then there certainly was a period of time when that was forgotten,” says Sam Merrett. Merrett is captain of the schooner Apollonia, the new sail freight project. “There used to be a bay south of town where all the big sailboats would dock, and that bay literally got cut off when they put in the train track. It’s now completely sedimented and silted in. You wouldn’t even recognize it as part of the river, it just looks like a kind of wetland-y marsh zone.” Merrett and his crew are working on The Apollonia, a 64-foot-long, 15-foot-wide, steel-hulled schooner built in Baltimore in 1946. It has a diesel engine that works on used vegetable oil and can carry 20,000 pounds of cargo. They hope to carry freight on the Hudson River next spring. The Apollonia isn't quick enough to move perishable goods, but it will move beer, wine, and cider. And a sea salt producer in Germantown is asking them to return with saltwater in a bladder, “like a Camelbak,” says Merrett. “If we’re ever down in New York [City] and don’t have a load to bring back up, we can just go off shore a little bit, pump some clean salt water in, and that can be our load coming north.” Read the full story in Atlas Obscura.
Kirk Moore reports for Work Boat about the Port of Coeymans Marine Terminal. The port started in the ice harvesting business, sending big blocks of ice down the river to New York City. In 1896, A.T. Powell and Thomas Minnock, got into the ice harvesting business just before refrigeration, then opened the Powell & Minnock Brick Yard. “Its closure in 2001 brought an end to more than three centuries of brick making on the Hudson,” authors Thomas E. Rinaldi and Robert J. Yasinsac wrote in their 2006 book “Hudson Valley Ruins: Forgotten Landmarks of an American Landscape.” Carver Laraway and a partner purchased the old P&M property in 2002, starting a restoration and redevelopment project and today Coeymans Marine Transportation transports bulk construction materials down the Hudson River to building sites. This past August, they, "transported the tallest, heaviest barge load in Hudson history, floating the 130’ tall, 4,000-short-ton heat recovery steam generator, built on site at Coeymans, 170 miles south to a new power plant in Woodbridge, N.J. More massive steel parts are coming in for the next generator to be built," Moore reports. Read the full story in Work Boat.
The Village of Coxsackie Wastewater Treatment Facility released 32,110 gallons of combined sewer overflow into the Hudson River Oct. 28 due to heavy rain. The Village of Catskill Wastewater Treatment Plant also had a five-hour release, with 50 gallons a minute sent into the river Oct. 29. The City of Hudson released 1,000 gallons per minute over 12.4 hours Oct. 29.