When I was first given this assignment I was terribly unsure of what to write about, I had been given five choices of environmental problems, two of which I was required to write about. All important issues without a doubt, but the one that struck me as most detrimental to the survival of the Hudson valley as a whole was its water sources, and the contamination of them. Though it may seem fairly remedial and "easy" to write about, I have found that it is indeed a worthy subject to write on. Our water being polluted is no joke, as it is our water that feeds us and flows underneath us, it is the root of our nourishments, crops spring from aqueduct and field, most from which are supplied by the Hudson, or one of its estuaries.
When the explorer Henry Hudson found the Hudson River, he thought that he had stumbled upon a great thing, a passage to china, the great Atlantic - pacific gateway that he had been hired to find by his Dutch benefactors. He and his crew of the Half-Moon soon found out that it was no passage, but something of greater value. .
It was an Eden like place of awesome potential - a river valley teeming with prospects and undeveloped potential, which from within the next centuries was to be exploited to the fullest, all at the expense of this beautiful expanse that we call our home, the Hudson Valley.
The Industrial revolution would soon come, and slowly but surely the plants and factories would spring up upon the brooding borders of the river, taking it over, using its precious resource for cooling, power, manufacturing. The river gave everything to its people, it took care of its inhabitants selflessly, and in return they turned it into a sewer, cutting off its natural flow for electricity, blasting away its shores to lay railroad tracks, making way for nineteenth century Tycoons were motivated to snatch up a piece of this proverbial gold mine for themselves, and industrial behemoths such as GE would sprout plants in many major areas of the river.
