Season 1
7 episodes
0 min. per episode
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A determined activist battles corporate greed to save the Hudson River, igniting a fierce struggle for survival and community identity.
Episodes
The sight of long trains made up of one hundred-plus black, cylindrical cars, rolling slowly through cities and towns across North America - often within yards of office buildings, hospitals and schools - has become commonplace. Few who see them know that these sinister-looking cars carry a highly flammable mixture of gas and oil from the shale fields of North Dakota. At thirty thousand gallons per car, each of these trains carries more than three million gallons of highly flammable and toxic fuel, earning them the nickname "bomb trains."
When a 200-foot high fireball chased by billowing smoke filled the sky above the Indian Point nuclear power plant on a Saturday afternoon in early May 2015 it was an auspicious reminder of a greater tragedy that may one day come. As emergency vehicles rushed to the site from all directions to address what turned out be a transformer fire, loudspeakers near the plant could be heard blasting: "This is not a drill, Please be aware, This is not a drill." The plant's neighbors - twenty million live within a fifty-mile radius - were scarily reminded of the reality of having a nuclear power plant in your backyard. The result of this fire was thousands of gallons of oil and fire-fighting foam seeping into the Hudson River. The result of an accident that exposes spent radioactive fuel rods or a fire in one of the nuclear reactors is so potentially horrific that the residents within the most-at-risk zone simply don't allow themselves to imagine it.
When the original Tappan Zee Bridge was built in the early 1950s, by an ambitious governor named Thomas E. Dewey, it was the largest bridge ever built, partially because it spanned the second widest spot on the Hudson River. Why build where the river is at its widest? Dewey wanted the toll money in order to help finance his brand new New York State Thruway system. If the bridge had been built just two-tenths of a mile further south it would have fallen within 25 miles of the Statue of Liberty thus under the jurisdiction and bank account of the Port Authority, which had a monopoly over all of New York's bridges and tunnels.
When G.E. was finally forced, in 2009, to clean up the toxic mess it had made of the Hudson Valley by dumping PCBs into the river for more than thirty years, it's assignment was to clean-up the country's largest Superfund site. Last December G.E. pulled out, saying it had completed the mission given it by the E.P.A. What did it leave behind? The country's largest Superfund site.
Governor Cuomo's proposed "energy highway" includes new transmission lines running from old power plants in upstate New York to New York City. But studies prove the electricity provided by the $1.2 Billion project are simply not needed.
For many years, the Hudson River, like so many waterways across the U.S., was treated like an infinite waste barrel, a receptacle for poisonous chemicals and hazardous waste. During the past forty years, thanks to a committed group of environmentalists and their agencies, the river has become markedly cleaner, a far more welcoming place for small business and community investment. However, new threats loom on the horizon once again.