Currents Summer 2024 (1) - Flipbook - Page 63
People Power
Few people noticed when the power company Consolidated Edison initially announced their
plans in 1962 for a new hydroelectric plant at Storm King Mountain, about 55 miles upstream
from Manhattan. But when a rendering was released of what the plant would look like, with
the mountain hollowed out and the plant tucked inside of it, the public was shocked. Those
who had felt helpless about the state of the river suddenly had something to rally around.
Conservationists and lawyers formed a group called Scenic Hudson and tried to stop the
plant in court on the grounds that Storm King, as a focal point for the Hudson River School of
painters and a cultural landmark, was too significant to be destroyed. Anglers, led by the
journalist Robert Boyle, formed a group called the Hudson River Fishermen's Association later to be renamed Riverkeeper - and argued that the plant would destroy the river’s fish.
Between the two groups, there was a good cross section of the wealthy, the well-connected,
and the fishermen who knew the river inside and out. But what about everyone else?
That’s where folk icon Pete Seeger, who lived right across from Storm King on the slopes of
Mount Beacon, came in. Seeger had been reading about the historic Dutch sloops that sailed
the river in colonial times and thought that if a modern replica could be built, it would give
people a way to get out on the river and fall in love with it. The captains of industry had
ruined the river for everyone. Seeger would captain a ship of everyday people to reclaim it.
This was the Clearwater, which began sailing in May of 1969 from a shipyard in South Bristol,
Maine, where it had been built. Thirty-five days later, with a full crew and a band of musicians
— some of whom had never been on a boat before — the Clearwater pulled into New York
City and received a hero’s welcome from the mayor and throngs of admirers.
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