Public Perceptions of the Hudson River

Over the last century or so, the Hudson River has earned itself a reputation of being heavily polluted and unclean across New York State. However, the Hudson River is the cleanest it has been in a hundred years, said Melissa Rex, director of education at the River Project. Our project, “Public Perceptions of the Hudson River: A Story Map of Aesthetics and Values” used Survey123 technology to research perceptions, aesthetics and values of the Hudson River. With the data collected, we analyzed people’s opinions of the river depending on where they are located and which area of the Hudson River they visited.

The 315-mile Hudson River runs from the Adirondack Mountains and empties into New York Harbor. It created economic fortunes in New York and the U.S. as a notable shipping route, especially after the Erie Canal’s construction in 1825 linked it to the Great Lakes. The river was deepened to allow larger ships to travel through, which destroyed much of the shallow-water ecosystems. The river’s health declined after World War II when the river became polluted with “sewage, butcher waste, industrial chemicals and heavy metals,” said Frances Dunwell of New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). John Cronin, a conservationist who has worked on the Hudson for the past forty years, said that in the 1970s, “fisherman in the lower river could tell what color General Motors was painting cars that day by looking at their nets.” What would become General Motors began manufacturing automobiles in 1896 — and the numerous factories that succeeded it continued dumping into the river, which became known as the “industrial sewer,” said Greg Williams, leader of Hudson River Sloop Clearwater.

For thirty years, General Electric discharged 1.3 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBSs) into the Hudson. Even though it stopped in the late 1970s and General Electric was ordered to dredge the river in 2005, PCBs remain in the river sediment to date. Due to the PCBs found in local fish, New York’s DEC prohibited fishing in northern parts of the Hudson and banned most commercial fishing in the entirety of the river in 1976. More than 200 miles of the Hudson River was classified as a Superfund site, meaning it is “some of the nation’s most contaminated land.” But even after the dredging, 2019 PCB levels remained “troublingly high” in some parts of the river.

With the history of the Hudson River rife with pollution, we sought to analyze whether people’s perceptions matched the past environmental health of the Hudson, or whether they have kept up-to-date with Hudson recovery efforts. People swim and kayak in the Hudson, and the survival of the sturgeon fish suggests the river is in recovery. Our survey examines if those who live and engage with the Hudson from the headwaters to the harbor know about the river's current environmental status and if they do, whether that reflects their perceptions of it.

Of the 584 people who took the survey, the majority of the responses are from two locations. Respondents in New York City were the largest single sample group, followed closely by Albany and then Cornwall, with Long Island having a similarly high density due to the project originating at Stony Brook University. We wanted to explore whether Upstate New Yorkers had a more positive view of the Hudson than New York City residents did. We hypothesized that the answer would be yes — city residents would have a more polluted view of the Hudson than survey takers from locations north of New York City. However, the answer is more convoluted than we realized, and it seems that there is a fairly even distribution of opinions without concrete density in one area over the other, except when accounting for population size. Other details collected from the survey suggest fluid perceptions of the Hudson, specifically consumption of fish from the Hudson as well as keywords to describe the river.

At least 47 people along the Hudson stated that they either work near the Hudson or travel across it regularly. Clusters of these individuals were in New York City, Albany and Cornwall, though there was not a sizable difference of dispersal between these points based on location. Hiking was a common response as well, though there were fewer results than work as being the reason for involvement with the river. There were nine mentions of “hike” and three mentions of “hiking.” All of these data points were located in Upstate New York with Newburgh being the closest location to New York City. (This reference includes a minus of one person who was presumably a Stony Brook University student who was from Upstate originally.)

Nearly fifty percent of the survey takers (278 out of 584) described the Hudson as “beautiful.” The response varied from New York City to Albany, but those who exclusively responded with “beautiful” were largely Upstate, which supported our hypothesis that people have a more positive perception of the Hudson if they are located in Upstate New York. In general, there weren’t many other points of density along the Hudson itself, outside of New York City. However, and somewhat surprisingly, even people who described the Hudson as “beautiful” still largely found it to be polluted, according to 101 respondents. There were 90 respondents who were neutral — and 60 respondents viewed the Hudson as “clean.” The concept of a natural scene, specifically the Hudson River, being polluted and beautiful at the same time was supported by approximately 100 respondents.

Even though people found the Hudson to be polluted, only 28 respondents described the Hudson as “ugly.” That included four survey takers in New York City and the only Upstate responder in Cornwall. This was surprising because we hypothesized that because the Hudson was referred to as a sewer for so long, more people would perceive the Hudson as ugly and dirty, but only 28 people referred to the river as “dirty.” Outside of Long Island, the highest number of people responding with that description were in New York City, which included four people total, and three of them did not have daily interactions with the river. There was also one person in Cornwall and one person in Albany, who did not have daily interactions with the river. This piece of information points to our question on whether interactions with the river affects people’s perception. Broadly, it seems that it does. 

Based on our findings, more people perceive the Hudson as beautiful than ugly or dirty, which implies that recovery and river rebound efforts have potentially helped shape people’s current views of the river. However, it seems that perception does not affect comfortability of eating fish from the Hudson. Only 57 people out of the 584 survey respondents said they felt comfortable eating fish from the river. Of those 57 people, only one of them was located in Albany, four of them in New York City and most of them on Long Island. No one located between Albany and Ancram responded that they felt comfortable eating fish from the Hudson. Whether this shows an increase in pollution in the area, or whether it is due to a lack of respondents in the area was unclear.

These findings differed from our hypothesis and were partially contradicted by the fact that nearly half of the survey takers described the Hudson as “beautiful” and at least 60 respondents considered it “clean.” We presumed that those who thought the Hudson was beautiful would feel comfortable eating fish from the Hudson; and those who thought it was ugly would not feel comfortable eating fish from the Hudson. However, data suggests that perceptions are fluid. Perhaps the difference is that the people who think the Hudson is beautiful are simply looking at it from a cliff or from their car, but when it comes to ingesting something that lives in it, that is when people become uncomfortable with the idea.

Some respondents in New York City were less in the “maybe” camp when it came to eating fish and instead firmly against the idea. That trend could have been based on the vicinity of the river itself, but it did not seem to be unique to New York City; a majority of the responses northward were the same. There was an overwhelming negative response in Albany regarding consumption of fish from the Hudson. Cornwall was the most split for a high density area with four people saying they would eat fish from the Hudson and about five people unsure of their stance, but the “no” responses still outweighed them. It is unclear why Cornwall specifically had such mixed opinions on the Hudson River compared to other areas, including Albany and New York City. Across the river from Cornwall is Beacon, which showed four respondents from that location and two stated they would eat fish from the Hudson. Data suggests there seems to be a sharp change between respondents’ perceptions from city to city. Based on our research, there is no evidence suggesting that the area from Beacon to Cornwall is cleaner than the rest of the river. If we were to continue similar research, we may focus on Cornwall specifically to better understand why the area perceives the Hudson as clean more than other areas do.

Our hypothesis was proven wrong in that Upstate New Yorkers had far less disparity between its views of the Hudson when compared to New York City, which had a slightly more polluted perception of the Hudson. The opinion was not uncommon as we moved farther north that the Hudson was polluted. Location and perception of the Hudson River with details of interaction did not correlate to the extent that we originally assumed.

Naming a natural scene "beautiful," specifically the Hudson River, does not mean it cannot be polluted as well, data suggests. The survey provided more information regarding whether people viewed the Hudson as polluted or clean, and whether or not that would impact their desire to eat fish from the Hudson.

Data suggests that a difference existed between aesthetics and perception; even though people described the Hudson River as beautiful and would include trees, water and boats in their drawing of the river, they still believe it is polluted and would not be comfortable eating fish from it. Even though half of the survey takers said the Hudson was beautiful, there was an inclination to not want to eat fish from the river. Based on our research findings, people have pre-existing perceptions of the Hudson River.

Acknowledgements:

Research advisor: David Taylor, Ph.D. of Sustainability Studies, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University

Funding: Undergraduate Research & Creative Activities (URECA) Summer Research Program at Stony Brook University

Stony Brook University | Stony Brook, New York