As a part of my senior research project, I analyzed how the PCB pollution in the Hudson River affects the different communities that live around it. I specifically looked at communities in the Lower Hudson Valley, and worked/am working towards rallying people together to all for another cleanup from GE and the EPA.
Final Project Outcome
Final project presented at SRCA Conference (full picture of poster provided)
What I did
For this project I reached out to contacts I have at Riverkeeper – an organization dedicated to cleaning the Hudson River, as well as the Cornell Cooperative Extension Rockland County. I set up meetings with them to get some more information on the communities that they work with – the communities I was focused on. I also wanted to know what they could need from me for the projects they already had going on regarding the Hudson as well as what I could ask of the local residents, for my project. Beyond gathering information for this project, I started my work for this summer- creating fact sheets to spread awareness about the pollution in the Hudson and the dangers of consuming the water directly or through food.
What I learned
The Hudson River has been a point of interest for me for a long time as I grew up near the river and feel particularly connected to it. Through class projects and research assignments, I started reading about the mass dumping of PCBs that occurred in the 70's that has yet to be properly cleaned up. This became an important project to me, and I learned a lot more about it through this project, particularly about the people living around it. I learned there was a significant immigrant population that relies on the fish from the river as food, despite the fact that the government has deemed the fish hazardous to eat. I think this experience will help me a lot in the future because I plan on working with the Hudson River in the future as well as the groups I reached out to for this project.
