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Developing a Common Approach to Resource Analysis
and the Prediction of Environmental Impacts on the Hudson River
New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation
During the 1970s, a proposal to permit electrical
generating stations on the Hudson River to withdraw water for once-through
cooling led to a prolonged litigation aimed at resolving the controversy
about effects on Hudson River fisheries. The Hudson River Settlement
Agreement permitted operation of the stations but required significant
monitoring to provide the basis from which to resolve the scientific
uncertainty about potential station effects. Following a decade
of intensive monitoring, the utilities applied for modification
of the terms of station operation.
In an attempt to avoid a second round of contentious
litigation, ESSA was engaged by NYSDEC and the utilities to conduct
facilitated discussions to help them develop defensible predictions
of station impacts on fish communities that would be understood
and accepted by all concerned parties. The project team used adaptive
management techniques to guide stakeholders through complex resource
analyses via a series of iterative technical workshops.
The outcome of these discussions was a
revised EIS in which the earlier methodological problems with the
analyses were corrected.
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