Roger Hannigan Gilson reports in the Times Union that a little less raw sewage will go into the Hudson River with $2.15 million in state grants and $350,000 from the city of Hudson to update an antiquated sewer system. Parts of Hudson's current sewer system date back nearly two centuries with both raw sewage and precipitation runoff in the same pipes. The grants mean that the combined sewer line constructed in the 1830s out of stone will be replaced. Failures of this sewer line have become "increasingly common," leading to "serious public safety issues," according to a 2014 city engineering report. Updating Hudson's sewer system, though, is not the only source of raw sewage flowing into the Hudson River. Catskill, Athens, Kingston, Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, Troy, and West Point all release sewage into the Hudson River. When it rains in the Hudson Valley, millions of gallons of sewage flow into the river. The Clean Water Act was signed by President Richard Nixon in 1972 to stop these pollution discharges that, 50 years later, continue. Read more about this story in the Times Union.