Riverkeeper is back on patrol (Happy Earth Day!)
Riverkeeper patrol boat docked on the Rondout Creek on Earth Day 2016. (Photo by Dan Shapley / Riverkeeper)
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Riverkeeper patrol boat docked on the Rondout Creek on Earth Day 2016. (Photo by Dan Shapley / Riverkeeper)
Riverkeeper is conducting our first upriver patrol of 2016, marking Earth Day as we spend every day – advocating for clean water, abundant wildlife, and sustainable public enjoyment of our awe-inspiring river.
Riverkeeper on patrol near Kingston Point Beach, with the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge visible in the distance. Debris on the river is likely a result of an exceptionally high tide caused by the full moon, which dislodged logs and other floating debris from the shoreline. (Photo by Dan Shapley / Riverkeeper)
Our morning task was to visit Kingston Point Beach and the Rondout Creek, to show a Chad Gomes, an exceptional volunteer who has been a member for several years, where to take water samples by boat to assist with the community science projects that monitor water quality in the Rondout Creek and Wallkill River.
Chad Gomes and Capt. John Lipscomb identify Riverkeeper’s sampling location near Kingston Point Beach. (Photo by Dan Shapley / Riverkeeper)
Since 2012, Riverkeeper and our partners have gathered hundreds of water samples in this, the largest tributary watershed in the tidal reach of the Hudson. This year, we’re excited to be opening a new lab and satellite office space in the Hudson River Maritime Museum‘s East Gallery, at the Hudson Riverport in Kingston. Capt. John Lipscomb will no longer process the samples gathered by community scientists in our lab aboard the patrol boat, and Chad will join our community science team, gathering the two monthly samples John had previously gathered by boat. (John will continue working with Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory and CUNY Queens College to gather the 74 samples drawn monthly from the Hudson River Estuary, continuing the project launched in 2008.)
The Hudson River Maritime Museum, the brick building visible here, is part of the Hudson Riverport on Kingston’s Rondout Creek waterfront. It’s now also home to a satellite Riverkeeper office and lab, as well as a wooden boat building school, the winter home port of the Sloop Clearwater, and host to many passing ships, such as the Onrust, visible here. (Photo by Dan Shapley / Riverkeeper)
Shifting the community science lab work from the boat to our Riverport lab will allow Capt. John Lipscomb more flexibility to patrol the Hudson, while providing our water quality program with greater capacity for processing samples from community partners in the region. This sampling season, we expect to gather additional fecal contamination samples in support of pollution source-tracking projects in the Wallkill River and Rondout Creek; to gather additional samples to measure tracers of wastewater effluent, and compounds associated with pharmaceuticals, personal care products and pesticides; and to work with the Wallkill River Watershed Alliance to use our community science model to gather information about algae, nutrients or other relevant water quality parameters.
Funding for aspects of this effort come from the Hudson River Estuary Program, the Hudson River Improvement Fund of the Hudson River Foundation, the Leon Lowenstein Foundation, Philipp Family Foundation, IDEXX, and many individual Riverkeeper members and donors. The gift from the Hudson River Improvement Fund is particularly poignant, coming in the fund’s last round of gifts, 30 years after being established as a result of a case the Hudson River Fishermen’s Association brought against Exxon for the polluting practices of its tankers near Port Ewen. It was the same case that established the Riverkeeper program, inaugurating our patrol boat presence on the water.
Look for the boat on patrol, and look for the Water Quality Program team and other Riverkeeper staff at the Hudson Riverport in Kingston. See you on the water!
Scout joined us for the morning to provide an extra set of eyes on the water. He had eyes for the rowers, and even more so for the ducks. (But most of all for the treats we stashed in our pockets.) (Photo by Dan Shapley / Riverkeeper)
Catch of the Day:
