Clearwater Receives $50,000 Grant to Nurture Hudson River Watershed Alliance   Contact: Kitty McCullough 845-454-7673 x118 Poughkeepsie, NY—July 19, 2005. Hudson River Sloop Clearwater has received a $50,000 grant to continue the work of organizing a Hudson River Watershed Alliance over the next two years. Over 160 local organizations currently participate in the Alliance, whose mission is to protect, conserve and restore the water resources of the Hudson River basin.   The grant will be used to create a central online clearinghouse of information and resources for citizen groups and professionals working to protect the region’s water resources. It will also fund the development of a training series about sustainable watershed management practices. The grant will also enable Clearwater to convene the organizing committee to develop a governance structure for the project. A special focus will be to address community concerns, such as suburban sprawl, that have a significant impact on regional water quality and biodiversity.   The River’s watershed is home to about 12 million people (about 4 percent of the population of the U.S.) and drains 13,400 square miles of land in five states—New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont. The watershed is also the major source of drinking water for New York City. The Hudson River flows 315 miles from its source at Lake Tear of the Clouds in the Adirondacks to New York Harbor. Throughout its course, the Hudson flows through 19 counties. The lower Hudson is the nation’s longest Superfund site, and the watershed contains hundreds of hazardous waste disposal sites, of which 21 in New York and 70 in New Jersey have been placed by EPA on the National Priorities List (NPL) as Superfund sites.   Clearwater took the initiative to launch a coalition for Hudson River watershed protection in 2002 by hosting a meeting at its Poughkeepsie office for several dozen citizen groups and non-profit organizations from throughout the region. Over the next two years, a series of bi-monthly meetings and a regional conference co-organized by Clearwater and Mohonk Consultations followed, aided by the use of an online survey to determine the most pressing regional water quality issues and needs. Today, more than 160 non-profit organizations, citizen groups, businesses, and public agencies that work to protect the water supply participate in the Alliance.   Over the past two decades, most major waterways across the country have organized region-wide watershed protection efforts and enacted regulations to protect their water supply. “While other regions were taking steps to protect water quality, the Hudson Valley has focused on the struggle to have PCBs removed from the River,” said Clearwater Environmental Director Manna Jo Greene. “Now we find ourselves decades behind other regions in securing our water resources and playing a hard game of catch-up in the face of unprecedented threats from population growth and sprawl development.”   Clearwater’s Environmental Department continues to promote watershed awareness and track pressing threats to the regional water supply. Sewer diversion driven by sprawl development, substandard sewer treatment, contamination from gasoline additives, run-off from impervious surfaces, erosion, industrial and agricultural chemicals, thermal spikes from power plants, turbidity from so-called HudsonMax shipping practices, invasive species, acid rain, algae blooms caused by phosphorous loading, and pharmaceuticals not captured by sewer treatment all pose threats to water quality that are growing increasingly urgent. “We are really grateful to Park Foundation for this opportunity to help the Hudson River catch up with national efforts to protect water resources,” adds Greene.   “We can’t continue the pace of residential and commercial development without considering better ways to guard against depletion of the water table and better ways to protect water quality, both in the ground and in the river,” said Orange County Commissioner of Planning David Church, who also serves on Clearwater’s Board of Directors. “Collaborative watershed associations like this exciting new Alliance here in the Hudson Valley are a proven means of bringing public, private, and citizen interests together to address the modern realities of water resource protection.“   Clearwater Board Member Ann Davis, founding Director of the Marist College Bureau of Economic Research, agrees. “The future of our economy hinges on the region being able to continue to ensure adequate drinking water supply and the beautiful river and landscapes that draw people to live here. If we kill the river again, we’ll diminish both. It will take strong planning, a focused water protection agenda that addresses the interests of all stakeholders and widespread technical training,” said Dr. Davis.   “The Alliance concept is, in essence, a successful extension of the key, fundamental principles of the Hudson River Estuary Program’s watershed initiative,” said Scott Cuppett, Watershed Program Coordinator for the NY Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Estuary Program. “We have been an interested and key partner in the development of the Hudson River Watershed Alliance, and pledge our continued partnership with it. Developing partnerships between government, nonprofits, academia, citizens and private entities is the only sustainable path to future water resource protection.”   “We very much need a regional clearinghouse to connect the resources and technical assistance of the many diverse groups and agencies that share the common goal of watershed protection,” said Katie Dolan, Executive Director of the Eastern New York Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. “Clearwater and others recognize the importance of promoting information sharing and advancing collaborative efforts to improve conservation in the Hudson River Valley. We appreciate and commend Clearwater for facilitating an inclusive process to address this need from a grass roots conservation level.”   Through more than three decades, Clearwater members have initiated or joined virtually every significant battle to protect the Hudson River, marshalling grass roots community participation, training local environmental leaders and building effective coalitions. The Clean Water Act began to take shape in 1970 when founder Pete Seeger sailed the Clearwater to Washington and set up an impromptu concert in the House of Representatives office building. Clearwater’s ability to train and organize at the community level makes it a critical partner in campaigns to ensure environmental quality in the Hudson Valley.   In 2004, the Clearwater was named to the National Register of Historic places for its nationally significant role in the history of American environmentalism. Over 430,000 young people and hundreds of thousands of adults have participated in Clearwater’s education programs and events.