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11.20.12 ::

Last upriver patrol of 2012 – Monday 11/19

By John Lipscomb on November 20, 2012
Catskill at dawn. Sea smoke on the River because air is so cold. Deck covered with frost.
Mike Aguiar, owner of Riverview marine. Left hand is where water reached during Sandy, considerably higher than during Irene, right hand. All his shops and offices were flooded again.
US Army Corps dredge headed south to dredge West Germantown Reach. The River doesn’t really want to be 30 + feet deep – which is what is needed to accommodate the Port of Albany. The natural depth was much shallower before Europeans arrived.
Southbound light fuel barge

The dredge will come back to this temp dock at Houghtaling Island (not really an island anymore because of the Army Corps) and discharge its load of water and sediment onto the peninsula. Remember that the whole river is a Superfund site thanks to General Electric so this dredge spoil isn’t clean.
A photo of the dump on Houghtaling “Island” taken from a book I have aboard – ”Up River.” The land to the north of the dump is a state park. This once beautiful habitat shouldn’t be a dump for contaminated sediment. Notice the tree buffer around the shoreline. It reminds me of the clear-cuts in the Pacific Northwest.
We checked out the active dredging discharge at this dump a few years ago. The interior of Houghtaling “island” is a wasteland.
Duck hunting season. Some blinds are fixed structures and others are built on boats.
Saw this dead Wood Duck near Coxsackie. Could be that it got wounded and was able to fly some distance from the hunter before it fell. There are duck blinds in many of the marshes and on the shallow “flats” – where migrating waterfowl stop to feed and rest. In the pre-dawn twilight I often hear the gunshots – like today. Wood Ducks are beautifully colored, ornamental. Personally, I don’t get the appeal of killing for fun. I’d rather have more live ducks – it’s not like there are so many left in the first place.
A deer skin with head still attached. The fall is beautiful in the Hudson Valley, just not for everyone.
Approach to Port of Albany
Beautiful “strip marshes” below the Port, behind the “degraded” dikes that the Army Corps built years ago to channelize the River.
Port of Albany. A light double hull fuel barge.
Southbound again. The old ice house at Nutten Hook
Goodbye till spring.

Approaching Catskill, only southbound tonight.
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About the Author

John Lipscomb

John Lipscomb

John Lipscomb became Riverkeeper’s boat captain in 2000. From March through December each year, he travels approximately 6000 nautical miles between New York Harbor and Troy or Fort Edward, searching out and deterring polluters, monitoring tributaries and waterfront facilities, providing support for scientific studies, and taking regional decision makers out on the river so that “the river has a chance to advocate for itself.”

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