Power on the Hudson: Storm King Mountain and the Emergence of Modern American Environmentalism

8. The Expansion of Environmentalism in the Hudson River Valley

130 The Expansion of Environmentalism in the Hudson River Valley Among the legacies of the struggle over Storm King were the myriad ways in which this fight began influencing land-use decisions throughout the Hudson River valley. For example, the creation of the Hudson Highlands State Park was an attempt by Governor Rockefeller to deflect criticism of his environmental record. As this struggle persisted through the late 1960s, Scenic Hudson became only one of many new environmental organizations concerned with the region’s environment. These organizations included the Hudson River Fishermen’s Association , which would later change its name to Riverkeeper; Clearwater, a group most associated with the singer-songwriter Pete Seeger; the Hudson River Valley Commission, a state body tasked with coordinating land-use planning and development in the Hudson River valley; and the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental public-interest law firm. HUDSON RIVER FISHERMEN’S ASSOCIATION Bob Boyle was outraged by what Con Ed was doing to the Hudson River. Friends and associates often described him as funny, intense, and committed to the protection of the river. Detractors considered him “fanatical.” But to Boyle, his activism was not emotional. Companies were polluting the river (including 8 THE EXPANSION OF ENVIRONMENTALISM IN THE HUDSON RIVER VALLEY ■ 131 Con Ed with its fish kills); it was scientifically verifiable, and it was against the law. It was just that simple.1 The company’s proposed plant at Storm King was only one threat the river faced. Fishermen regularly encountered oil slicks on the river’s surface, and it was commonly known up and down the river and throughout New York that it was being polluted; any cursory examination in these years provided all the evidence one needed. While Scenic Hudson was becoming a real force in the fight with Con Ed, it showed little inclination to broaden its interests beyond the Storm King plant. In early 1966, Bob Boyle sat down and wrote a letter to Dominick Pirone, arguing for the creation of a new group to be called the Hudson River Fishermen’s Association. Pirone was a biology graduate student at Fordham University whom Boyle had met while researching the Indian Point fish kill story. The letter was circulated among a few people, and, in early February 1966, the Hudson River Fishermen’s Association (HRFA) had its first meeting in Boyle’s living room in Croton.2 That first meeting consisted of a group of persons Boyle had met in the previous few years. Boyle came to know most of them through the research he had done on his Hudson River stories for Sports Illustrated or they were neighbors in Croton whom he knew to be concerned about the Hudson. Boyle decided that the association would meet irregularly, whenever it needed to, and that there would be no recruitment of new members; if people wanted to join, they could join.3 The participants at that first meeting shared a great deal of anger over what was happening to the river. Somebody suggested floating a raft of dynamite beneath the Con Ed piers, somebody else suggested that the discharge pipe of the New York Central Railroad, which was discharging large amounts of oil into the river, be plugged with a mattress or ignited with a match. But Boyle suggested a different strategy. As a result of his stories on the fish kill, he had come across two obscure statutes that, as lawyers for Time, Inc., had reported to him, were still on the books. They were the Federal Refuse Act of 1899 and the New York Rivers and Harbors Act of 1888.4 Armed with a legal strategy (of taking polluters to court) and the prospect of doing something, the HRFA held its first public meeting in mid-March. One source describes the atmosphere of that first emotional meeting, led by Ritchie Garrett, the association’s first president, which lasted long into the night: The day after St. Patrick’s Day 1966, Ritchie, an ex-marine with four nephews in Vietnam, opened the first public meeting of the Hudson River Fishermen’s Association at Crotonville’s Parker-Bale American Legion Hall. The meeting drew a standing-room-only crowd, with people seated on folding wooden chairs, leaning against rifle racks, and hanging from rafters. At least fifty of the new members 132 ■ THE EXPANSION OF ENVIRONMENTALISM IN THE HUDSON RIVER VALLEY were Ritchie’s Crotonville neighbors—the...