Hudson Hypocrisy
By Adam Brodsky, Columnist
New York Post
May 2, 2004

“TODAY, the Hudson River is an international model of ecosystem protection . . . It's the richest water body in the North Atlantic. It produces more pounds of fish per acre, more biomass per gallon than any waterway in the Atlantic, north of the Equator."

Indeed, the Hudson is "the last major river system left in the Atlantic Ocean that still. . . has strong spawning stock of all the historical species of migratory fish. It's Noah's ark."

Such a ringing endorsement must be propaganda from some Hudson River industrial polluter - the Indian Point nuclear-power plant, perhaps.

Well, propaganda, maybe - but the propagandist would be none other than America's top cop on the water-pollution beat: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

The legend-augmenting Kennedy scion has been stumping to earn environ- mentalists credit for their good work. In the '60s, you see, the Hudson was a "sewer," a "national joke," "dead water"; groups like Kennedy's River- keeper turned it around.

The more that message gets out, it seems, the better for business: "The miraculous resurrection of the Hudson has inspired the creation of Riverkeepers all over North America," Kennedy boasts. "We're the fastest growing environmental group" - now with 117 licensed franchises.

McDonald's, watch out: Kennedy projects a Riverkeeper branch "on every major waterway across North America probably within five or six years."

RFK's recent adjectival outburst came before a college audience in March. But wait: What's that on his Web site, riverkeeper.org?

"During times of peak use, power plants withdraw 5 billion gallons per day from the biologically rich tidal Hudson River . . . The facilities kill virtually all aquatic life in this massive volume, many billions of organisms each year . . . In most years the plants cumulatively entrain more than 40 percent of young striped bass."

Environmental horror stories, you see, also sell well.

So which is it?

Is the river cleaner these days and teeming with life?

Or are power plants like Indian Point ruthlessly engaged in a form of biological ethnic-cleansing in the Hudson?

Kennedy had it right the first time: The river is cleaner.

So clean, in fact, it's getting high marks from nearly everyone. Last week, a report by the Hudson River Foundation suggested that conditions "have improved as much as tenfold in the past 30 years," at least south of the Tappan Zee Bridge.

The state, meanwhile, is moving ahead with Gov. Pataki's plan to make the entire river "swimmable" by 2009.

The impact from power plants, apparently, is nil.

So Riverkeeper can claim success and close up shop, right? Not quite: Remember, Kennedy & Co. are building an empire.

Rather than quit while ahead, they've now decided to target "evil" industries that still have the nerve to try to make a go of it in the Hudson valley, despite stiff environmental demands. A favorite whipping boy: power plants, especially Indian Point.

So what if the plant provides the region with $800 million in economic activity and 1,500 jobs, plus more than a quarter of its electricity. It's a "nuclear" plant - a sitting duck for environmentalists' cross-hairs.

Just think: If striped bass cost New York City $8 billion worth of Westway funds back in the '80s, what could Kennedy's "billions" of dead aquatic organisms - combined with his hysteria about nuclear fallout - do?

Not to worry: New Yorkers may be out of work and besieged by blackouts, but the Hudson's water will be purer than pure.

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