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(door creaking)

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(birds chirping)

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(soft music)

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(sirens blaring)

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-: I remember a New York Times writer

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that once wrote that for him growing up in New York City,

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the Hudson River was where the streets end.

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The river and the harbor

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were just the blue parts of the subway map.

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Except for the people in the Bronx,

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everybody in New York is an islander.

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It's a city of water and a city of islands.

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The city owes its existence and its wealth

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to the fact that it's on this river and part of this harbor.

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It is not something that I think the general New Yorker

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is conscious of on a day by day basis.

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(soft music)

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I grew up on the Hudson River.

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My mother took me down to a beach in Irvington

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when I was four, when we moved up from the Bronx

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and it took until working for Riverkeeper in 2000,

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for me to start to really appreciate the volume of life

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that this river is.

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That it's a wilderness

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that runs right through the heart of our communities.

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It's no different than the Serengeti

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or the Brooks Range in Alaska.

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It's a tremendous wilderness.

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And these migratory fish that run up and down the Hudson

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every spring and fall are like the antelope

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that cross the great plains in Africa.

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(soft music)

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It's a powerful, powerful force, the life in this river.

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So Riverkeepers enabled me to appreciate that.

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And in appreciating it,

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I realized that I had to fight for it.

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(soft music)

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The challenge for us and the community

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is to get a greater number of New Yorkers

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to care about the harbor.

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(soft music)

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-: People have no concept of the island city

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that they're living on.

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You have to take bridges and tunnels to get everywhere

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because we're surrounded by water.

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And that water has been part of our city's history

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for 400 years.

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(soft music)

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Water is life and water is something

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that not only provides jobs

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when you have clean working waterfronts,

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but it's something that can just restore the spirit.

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And unfortunately, in too many of our waterways in the city

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we've spent decades with polluted

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oil, lead and toxic waterways

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that have not had that restorative benefit

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for their community.

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(soft music)

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-: Newtown Creek Alliance

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is a non-profit community organization.

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Been around for about 15 years.

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Our mission is to reveal, restore and revitalize

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Newtown Creek which we're motoring through today.

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(soft music)

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We absolutely believe that industry,

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environmental restoration and recreation

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in the form of public access can all coexist

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on a place like Newtown Creek.

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The industry that's here now

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is not the industry of 1920.

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it's beyond imagination of how bad it was

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and how detrimental it was not just to the environment,

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but to all the people's health that were living nearby

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in places like Greenpoint, Long Island City.

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(soft music)

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-: We have so much to do in Newtown Creek.

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Yet over the last 10 years,

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it's gone from something that has a daily stench

00:05:03.490 --> 00:05:06.020
that you can detect from a mile away,

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to a place where there's there's dozens of people

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every day out there and kayaks and canoes.

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Businesses are popping up near the front end of the Creek,

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and we're working together as a community

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to develop a whole Creek wide plan for its restored future.

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(soft music)

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-: I've lived here for 32 years and based a family here.

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And though everybody in the community knew

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that it was a polluted body of water,

00:05:53.370 --> 00:05:57.000
I think that nobody could have truly imagined

00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:00.657
how polluted it was until it was declared a Superfund site.

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(soft music)

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The biggest problem in the Gowanus Canal

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is definitely the fact

00:06:08.760 --> 00:06:11.600
that this used to be an industrial waterway

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and the heritage pollution that still remains to this day

00:06:15.720 --> 00:06:17.010
at the bottom of the canal.

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That's really the biggest problem at the moment.

00:06:22.149 --> 00:06:25.580
We really need to go ahead and get it cleaned up.

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Number one, then comes to rezoning.

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And as part of the rezoning,

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we make sure that we allow public access.

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That's go for swimmable. Let's really do an amazing job.

00:06:40.760 --> 00:06:42.230
This is New York city.

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This is an urban area with lots of residents.

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Let's really do this 100%.

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And return it to the community as a healthy body of water

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that they can actually use and enjoy.

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(soft music)

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-: Every different neighborhood in New York City

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has its own connection with this waterfront.

00:07:02.570 --> 00:07:03.680
So in Gowanus Canal,

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the investments in development

00:07:05.550 --> 00:07:09.420
and commercial and retail enterprises preceded to clean up.

00:07:09.420 --> 00:07:12.360
And so that, that neighborhood started to change over

00:07:12.360 --> 00:07:14.411
before the clean up of the canal started.

00:07:14.411 --> 00:07:16.250
But here in Newtown Creek,

00:07:16.250 --> 00:07:18.450
it's really something that is gonna continue to have

00:07:18.450 --> 00:07:20.090
an industrial and manufacturing core.

00:07:20.090 --> 00:07:23.050
The question is what to do with all the ancillary properties

00:07:23.050 --> 00:07:23.883
and the communities

00:07:23.883 --> 00:07:27.610
around the less densely developed parts of Newtown Creek

00:07:27.610 --> 00:07:29.400
that really need to return that water

00:07:29.400 --> 00:07:31.420
to its clean, more natural state,

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before there can be investments.

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(soft music)

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-: People don't have much relationship with the waterway

00:07:37.010 --> 00:07:39.550
because there's no encouraging place for them

00:07:39.550 --> 00:07:41.100
to take it down and look at it.

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But it's a sort of chicken or the egg.

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If there's not a lot of people that care about the waterway,

00:07:46.100 --> 00:07:47.710
then it's hard for the city

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and all the other agencies involved to feel pressure

00:07:50.490 --> 00:07:53.237
to address it and clean it up properly.

00:07:53.237 --> 00:07:55.654
(soft music)

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It's amazing how quiet it can be out on the East River

00:08:02.560 --> 00:08:05.740
compared to the rest of New York City at certain times.

00:08:05.740 --> 00:08:07.280
There's absolutely part of this routine

00:08:07.280 --> 00:08:09.310
of people coming out, going out paddling.

00:08:09.310 --> 00:08:10.840
Both of it is sort of this way

00:08:10.840 --> 00:08:13.080
to get rid of stress and paddle,

00:08:13.080 --> 00:08:15.380
but also it's this sort of quiet time as well.

00:08:22.670 --> 00:08:25.460
New York City has 520 miles of coastline.

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You could spend the rest of your life

00:08:27.530 --> 00:08:29.090
exploring the shores of New York

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and never get bored with it.

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(soft music)

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(boat engine roaring)

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-: So New York City, like many older cities,

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has a combined sewer and storm water system.

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Good news is, in dry weather,

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all the sewage goes to the sewer plants

00:08:55.423 --> 00:08:58.140
and we measure good water quality

00:08:58.140 --> 00:09:00.500
in terms of fecal contamination.

00:09:00.500 --> 00:09:02.780
When it rains, because it's an old city,

00:09:02.780 --> 00:09:05.550
lots of rainwater, by design,

00:09:05.550 --> 00:09:07.890
still goes into the sewer system.

00:09:07.890 --> 00:09:09.920
So you can imagine what happens at the sewer plants.

00:09:09.920 --> 00:09:11.350
The sewer plants and the plumbing

00:09:11.350 --> 00:09:14.340
carrying that combined stormwater and sewage

00:09:14.340 --> 00:09:16.330
to the plants overloads.

00:09:16.330 --> 00:09:20.490
And when we measure the harbor during an after rain,

00:09:20.490 --> 00:09:22.337
it's full of sewage.

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(soft music)

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If every drop of oily ground is cleaned up,

00:09:47.490 --> 00:09:50.230
if every sip of oil, if every bit of cold tar

00:09:50.230 --> 00:09:52.030
in the Gowanus is cleaned up.

00:09:52.030 --> 00:09:53.670
We haven't achieved success

00:09:53.670 --> 00:09:57.180
if the city is still using the harbor as a sewer

00:09:57.180 --> 00:09:59.808
during rain events when the sewer system overloads.

00:09:59.808 --> 00:10:03.058
(plane engine roaring)

00:10:07.950 --> 00:10:09.340
-: As an academic scientist,

00:10:09.340 --> 00:10:12.140
I do field work and I spent a lot of time in my laboratory.

00:10:12.140 --> 00:10:14.410
What's been so unique about this relationship

00:10:14.410 --> 00:10:17.330
is the opportunity to get out on the water.

00:10:17.330 --> 00:10:20.810
We put together an initial study

00:10:20.810 --> 00:10:23.223
to try to answer the question; how's the water?

00:10:24.260 --> 00:10:26.840
Gathering information about water quality

00:10:26.840 --> 00:10:30.500
especially sewage pollution, fecal pollution.

00:10:30.500 --> 00:10:31.840
There are lots of places

00:10:31.840 --> 00:10:35.910
where, what we find actually is really good water quality.

00:10:35.910 --> 00:10:37.210
We are circled right now

00:10:37.210 --> 00:10:40.830
by places where last week in heavy rain,

00:10:40.830 --> 00:10:44.770
there was sewage, rivers of sewage entering this system.

00:10:44.770 --> 00:10:47.560
And of course the water quality is not very good then.

00:10:47.560 --> 00:10:51.460
But the bacterial component of that actually clears out,

00:10:51.460 --> 00:10:54.210
so that during periods of dry weather,

00:10:54.210 --> 00:10:56.122
the water quality can be quite good.

00:10:56.122 --> 00:10:59.040
(soft music)

00:10:59.040 --> 00:11:02.620
New York City is a city that's surrounded by water.

00:11:02.620 --> 00:11:04.980
And we don't take advantage of it

00:11:04.980 --> 00:11:07.200
nearly as much as we could.

00:11:07.200 --> 00:11:08.290
There's a lot of people

00:11:08.290 --> 00:11:10.550
who have kinda written off the Hudson.

00:11:10.550 --> 00:11:12.974
They've written off the system

00:11:12.974 --> 00:11:15.843
as one that they wouldn't want to come into contact with.

00:11:17.600 --> 00:11:20.880
I'm amazed when I talk to students in my classes

00:11:20.880 --> 00:11:23.240
or when we talk to people along the water,

00:11:23.240 --> 00:11:25.100
that there's not an appreciation

00:11:25.100 --> 00:11:29.060
for the way in which the system becomes contaminated

00:11:29.060 --> 00:11:32.263
and therefore the ways in which we can improve the system.

00:11:35.003 --> 00:11:38.170
(boat engine roaring)

00:11:40.100 --> 00:11:41.620
-: I'd fallen in love with the Hudson River

00:11:41.620 --> 00:11:44.280
in a way that was totally unexpected for me.

00:11:44.280 --> 00:11:45.570
And I just was amazed

00:11:45.570 --> 00:11:48.360
at how being given the responsibility

00:11:48.360 --> 00:11:51.270
for helping take care of this particular ecosystem

00:11:51.270 --> 00:11:53.130
had turned on the learning in my brain much.

00:11:53.130 --> 00:11:54.040
And I thought,

00:11:54.040 --> 00:11:56.883
I wonder if a school wouldn't do the same thing.

00:11:59.260 --> 00:12:01.270
Why do you have to wait until you are after school

00:12:01.270 --> 00:12:03.380
to actually do real work helping

00:12:03.380 --> 00:12:07.463
study, research, protect, and restore water bodies.

00:12:08.760 --> 00:12:10.512
And so a little light bulb went off then,

00:12:10.512 --> 00:12:12.580
that this is what school should look like.

00:12:12.580 --> 00:12:15.273
And really that's what the Harbor School has tried to be.

00:12:18.150 --> 00:12:19.970
So we actually designed our curriculum

00:12:19.970 --> 00:12:23.193
around Riverkeepers and Waterkeepers.

00:12:23.193 --> 00:12:24.026
A Riverkeeper has to be equal parts scientist,

00:12:28.070 --> 00:12:31.240
advocate, technician working on the boats.

00:12:31.240 --> 00:12:32.940
They have to be able to drive boats.

00:12:32.940 --> 00:12:35.373
They have to be able to communicate to the public.

00:12:36.760 --> 00:12:38.640
-: I just wanna know about the ecosystem,

00:12:38.640 --> 00:12:41.300
the environment, what's happening, what I can do to fix it.

00:12:41.300 --> 00:12:44.340
And I believe especially coming from the middle of Brooklyn,

00:12:44.340 --> 00:12:45.470
no one knows that.

00:12:45.470 --> 00:12:47.517
No one knows about what's going on out here and our efforts.

00:12:47.517 --> 00:12:50.100
`So we wanna push forward into the community

00:12:50.100 --> 00:12:51.800
especially the inland community,

00:12:51.800 --> 00:12:53.580
to be like, "Hey, it's what are we doing out here,

00:12:53.580 --> 00:12:55.880
we want you to join in and don't be left out."

00:12:57.130 --> 00:12:59.440
-: But we still didn't have something

00:12:59.440 --> 00:13:01.473
for all of the kids to work on together.

00:13:03.420 --> 00:13:06.070
We'd built this entire school around New York Harbor

00:13:06.070 --> 00:13:08.080
and yet it was still a really degraded,

00:13:08.080 --> 00:13:10.010
inaccessible, polluted water body.

00:13:10.010 --> 00:13:11.850
And so we were asking ourselves

00:13:11.850 --> 00:13:13.980
what role does the school have

00:13:13.980 --> 00:13:15.763
in helping restore New York Harbor?

00:13:17.290 --> 00:13:18.123
A key part of that

00:13:18.123 --> 00:13:19.380
was that we'd been participating

00:13:19.380 --> 00:13:22.440
in New York-New Jersey Bay Keepers, oyster gardening effort.

00:13:22.440 --> 00:13:25.200
And in 2008, Pete Malinowski,

00:13:25.200 --> 00:13:26.900
came to start a volunteering force.

00:13:26.900 --> 00:13:29.460
Him growing up on the Fishers Island Oyster Farm,

00:13:29.460 --> 00:13:30.293
and pretty quickly

00:13:30.293 --> 00:13:32.140
he said we shouldn't just be talking about oyster gardening,

00:13:32.140 --> 00:13:33.655
we should be talking about oyster farming.

00:13:33.655 --> 00:13:36.072
(soft music)

00:13:42.510 --> 00:13:44.100
-: Most people don't think about New York Harbor

00:13:44.100 --> 00:13:46.577
or New York city as being an important natural place.

00:13:46.577 --> 00:13:48.690
But when Europeans first arrived,

00:13:48.690 --> 00:13:51.110
they encountered a Harbor that was completely full of life.

00:13:51.110 --> 00:13:52.520
So many fish that you could catch them

00:13:52.520 --> 00:13:54.810
just by lowering a basket over the side of a boat.

00:13:54.810 --> 00:13:56.530
oyster reefs played an important role

00:13:56.530 --> 00:13:58.443
in supporting all of that life.

00:13:59.670 --> 00:14:02.830
The numbers you hear are 300 square miles of oyster reef

00:14:02.830 --> 00:14:04.647
just in New York Harbor.

00:14:04.647 --> 00:14:07.064
(soft music)

00:14:14.250 --> 00:14:17.890
Our premise is that restoring 1 billion oysters

00:14:17.890 --> 00:14:19.950
is the level of intervention that's necessary

00:14:19.950 --> 00:14:21.060
to get the oysters to a point

00:14:21.060 --> 00:14:22.960
where they can reproduce on their own.

00:14:26.520 --> 00:14:28.170
Oysters filter the water

00:14:28.170 --> 00:14:29.910
they provide three-dimensional habitat

00:14:29.910 --> 00:14:33.500
for thousands of species of fish and invertebrates.

00:14:33.500 --> 00:14:34.860
And if you put a cage,

00:14:34.860 --> 00:14:37.390
just a very simple wire box filled with live oysters

00:14:37.390 --> 00:14:39.450
on the bottom attached to cinderblocks

00:14:39.450 --> 00:14:41.450
and come back in a few weeks,

00:14:41.450 --> 00:14:44.348
you'll just see thousands of different animals.

00:14:44.348 --> 00:14:45.970
It's a little bit of three-dimensional structure,

00:14:45.970 --> 00:14:47.400
oysters pulling food out of the water

00:14:47.400 --> 00:14:48.233
and putting it on the bottom

00:14:48.233 --> 00:14:51.453
and you just get this explosion of living things.

00:14:52.910 --> 00:14:55.080
Anyone who grows up in a natural place

00:14:55.080 --> 00:14:57.910
has some fundamental connection to the natural world

00:14:57.910 --> 00:14:59.170
that changes who they are

00:14:59.170 --> 00:15:01.470
and how they interact with everything they do.

00:15:02.340 --> 00:15:05.560
Finding ways to create that connection for young people

00:15:05.560 --> 00:15:07.430
who would not have had that opportunity otherwise,

00:15:07.430 --> 00:15:09.130
is a fundamental part of our work.

00:15:10.376 --> 00:15:12.793
(soft music)

00:15:14.170 --> 00:15:16.570
-: New York city is a world capital.

00:15:16.570 --> 00:15:20.370
And I really believe that if we can pull off clean water

00:15:20.370 --> 00:15:21.203
here in New York Harbor,

00:15:21.203 --> 00:15:26.090
if we can show that a bustling old prosperous dense city

00:15:26.090 --> 00:15:29.410
can live in harmony with the waters that surround it,

00:15:29.410 --> 00:15:32.120
and that the waters can be healthy for wildlife

00:15:32.120 --> 00:15:35.870
and aquatic life and healthy for recreation.

00:15:35.870 --> 00:15:37.480
If we can show that here in New York,

00:15:37.480 --> 00:15:39.414
other cities will take notice.

00:15:39.414 --> 00:15:41.831
(soft music)

00:15:44.240 --> 00:15:47.050
-: It used to be that the waterways in New York City

00:15:47.050 --> 00:15:51.920
were forgotten, ignored, reviled, you name it.

00:15:51.920 --> 00:15:54.800
Now they're getting the love they deserve.

00:15:54.800 --> 00:15:56.140
And they're getting the love they deserve

00:15:56.140 --> 00:15:58.180
because of groups like Riverkeeper

00:15:58.180 --> 00:16:00.450
and all of our partner organizations

00:16:00.450 --> 00:16:03.113
that are out on the river protecting it.

00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:08.160
So even the water bodies that are still the most blighted

00:16:08.160 --> 00:16:10.660
your Gowanus Canals, your Newtown Creeks,

00:16:10.660 --> 00:16:14.030
they're coming back too, and that's the biggest turnaround.

00:16:14.030 --> 00:16:16.447
(soft music)

00:16:22.950 --> 00:16:26.340
-: We're the DCH Dragon Boat Club here a Flushing Bay.

00:16:26.340 --> 00:16:29.680
Comprises of high school kids and working professionals,

00:16:29.680 --> 00:16:32.067
kids from really all five boroughs.

00:16:32.067 --> 00:16:35.260
(soft music)

00:16:35.260 --> 00:16:37.110
This is mother nature there.

00:16:37.110 --> 00:16:39.610
So we would like a better solution

00:16:39.610 --> 00:16:41.760
to make this place healthier and beautiful.

00:16:43.470 --> 00:16:45.310
The community has gotten involved.

00:16:45.310 --> 00:16:47.140
It has gotten better within the last two, three years

00:16:47.140 --> 00:16:50.307
with a Riverkeeper and with the Guardians of Flushing Bay.

00:16:51.210 --> 00:16:52.250
-: The Guardians of Flushing Bay

00:16:52.250 --> 00:16:54.220
holds an annual cleanup every year.

00:16:54.220 --> 00:16:56.920
And we try to help out, try to clean up a bit

00:16:56.920 --> 00:16:58.458
because we do paddle in this water

00:16:58.458 --> 00:17:01.368
and we want it to be the best us and the fish.

00:17:01.368 --> 00:17:02.793
For the little fish.

00:17:02.793 --> 00:17:05.210
(soft music)

00:17:17.040 --> 00:17:20.010
-: When I was growing up, places like Flushing Bay,

00:17:20.010 --> 00:17:21.350
they were not places

00:17:21.350 --> 00:17:23.340
where you could go out on the water safely

00:17:23.340 --> 00:17:24.423
and enjoy yourself.

00:17:26.600 --> 00:17:29.250
We want people connected to our waterways.

00:17:29.250 --> 00:17:31.340
This is a city on the water.

00:17:31.340 --> 00:17:33.860
This is an opportunity to commune with nature.

00:17:33.860 --> 00:17:37.598
This is an opportunity to work up a sweat by paddling.

00:17:37.598 --> 00:17:40.015
(soft music)

00:17:47.439 --> 00:17:51.710
-: You see people out here cleaning their shorelines.

00:17:51.710 --> 00:17:53.870
People are taking pride in their waterways.

00:17:53.870 --> 00:17:57.600
There's been three or 4,000 people who became Riverkeepers

00:17:57.600 --> 00:17:58.783
during that process.

00:18:00.060 --> 00:18:02.020
They'll always be there for the river

00:18:02.020 --> 00:18:04.020
and we'll have people understanding

00:18:04.020 --> 00:18:07.443
why they call New York City's waterways the Sixth Borough.

00:18:15.682 --> 00:18:18.099
(soft music)

00:18:29.007 --> 00:18:31.757
(birds chirping)

00:18:34.737 --> 00:18:37.154
(soft music)

00:18:53.060 --> 00:18:57.220
-: The Hudson Valley used to be the bread basket in America

00:18:57.220 --> 00:18:59.510
but with the building of the Erie Canal

00:18:59.510 --> 00:19:01.350
and the westward expansion,

00:19:01.350 --> 00:19:03.470
people discovered that it was a lot easier

00:19:03.470 --> 00:19:06.233
to grow grains in the Western states.

00:19:07.160 --> 00:19:10.363
Here in the Hudson Valley, it takes a lot more finesse.

00:19:13.673 --> 00:19:15.830
(soft music)

00:19:15.830 --> 00:19:18.360
So it used to be hundreds of years ago

00:19:18.360 --> 00:19:20.920
that the farmer knew the miller

00:19:20.920 --> 00:19:22.560
and the miller knew the baker

00:19:22.560 --> 00:19:25.250
and the baker knew who was buying their bread.

00:19:25.250 --> 00:19:29.190
And there was a relationship between each of them.

00:19:29.190 --> 00:19:31.938
And we've lost that.

00:19:31.938 --> 00:19:34.355
(soft music)

00:19:46.800 --> 00:19:47.910
In this project.

00:19:47.910 --> 00:19:52.910
We're trying to reintroduce that human set of relationships

00:19:52.920 --> 00:19:55.220
along the food system.

00:19:55.220 --> 00:19:57.920
We here at the farm hub are growing the grain

00:19:57.920 --> 00:19:59.810
and we're talking to other farmers

00:19:59.810 --> 00:20:02.763
and we're helping them figure out how they can grow grain.

00:20:03.970 --> 00:20:07.350
We've been engaging in a series of variety trials

00:20:07.350 --> 00:20:08.790
in partnership with Cornell

00:20:08.790 --> 00:20:11.760
and Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County

00:20:11.760 --> 00:20:13.920
to answer those questions

00:20:13.920 --> 00:20:15.820
about what varieties of grains

00:20:15.820 --> 00:20:17.170
are good for the Hudson Valley

00:20:17.170 --> 00:20:18.933
and can be grown organically here.

00:20:19.816 --> 00:20:22.233
(soft music)

00:20:28.990 --> 00:20:29.823
-: The reason we're here

00:20:29.823 --> 00:20:31.700
is we're trying to find small grains varieties

00:20:31.700 --> 00:20:34.523
that are adapted to the Hudson Valley.

00:20:37.920 --> 00:20:40.810
Hudson Valley farmers need grains,

00:20:40.810 --> 00:20:42.953
that they can rotate with their vegetables

00:20:42.953 --> 00:20:47.250
to break up that disease and insect cycle and weed cycle

00:20:47.250 --> 00:20:50.000
that occurs when You grow the same crops over and over.

00:20:53.700 --> 00:20:56.360
So this is what we call a yield trial plot.

00:20:56.360 --> 00:20:57.620
And in a yield trial plot,

00:20:57.620 --> 00:21:01.470
we have, typically, anywhere from 10 to 40

00:21:01.470 --> 00:21:05.220
different varieties that we plant in replicates

00:21:05.220 --> 00:21:08.370
so that we can get multiple measures of their performance.

00:21:08.370 --> 00:21:12.910
We take notes on traits like heading date, diseases,

00:21:12.910 --> 00:21:15.570
flowering time, maturity

00:21:15.570 --> 00:21:17.823
and then grain yield and grain quality.

00:21:19.930 --> 00:21:23.210
And we propose to test winter and spring grains

00:21:23.210 --> 00:21:27.470
here in the Hudson Valley, 10 of each different kind of crop

00:21:27.470 --> 00:21:31.720
and also a large grow out of an acre or so

00:21:31.720 --> 00:21:35.770
of the best variety that the processors could use

00:21:35.770 --> 00:21:39.010
to figure out what works in their mills,

00:21:39.010 --> 00:21:42.110
in their distilleries, in their breweries

00:21:42.110 --> 00:21:43.690
and in our bakeries.

00:21:43.690 --> 00:21:46.150
And so we've been doing that for five years

00:21:46.150 --> 00:21:49.146
and we've had tremendous success.

00:21:49.146 --> 00:21:52.563
(tractor engine roaring)

00:21:58.140 --> 00:21:59.600
-: There's challenges to growing here

00:21:59.600 --> 00:22:02.140
is whether we've had a week of monsoonal rain

00:22:02.140 --> 00:22:04.813
and we had drought before.

00:22:06.470 --> 00:22:08.940
There's challenges in the Northeast and we're learning them

00:22:08.940 --> 00:22:12.330
and so we can say to farmers, "Hey, we planted this rye.

00:22:12.330 --> 00:22:14.710
It does this and this weather."

00:22:14.710 --> 00:22:17.260
with the Cornell grow outs, we did them three years

00:22:17.260 --> 00:22:19.070
in three different types of soil.

00:22:19.070 --> 00:22:21.330
So they could tell what they do

00:22:21.330 --> 00:22:22.760
in different types of ground.

00:22:22.760 --> 00:22:24.410
That was a nice thing with the size of this farm.

00:22:24.410 --> 00:22:25.260
We could do that.

00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:28.560
What I like about this is something we can take a chance on.

00:22:28.560 --> 00:22:31.410
If we put five acres of something and it doesn't grow,

00:22:31.410 --> 00:22:34.210
it doesn't grow good, I'm glad we can take that risk.

00:22:34.210 --> 00:22:36.950
So another farmer, we can say, "Hey, don't try that."

00:22:36.950 --> 00:22:38.030
It also goes with tools.

00:22:38.030 --> 00:22:40.960
We can take a chance on it and say, "Hey, this works great."

00:22:40.960 --> 00:22:42.517
Or "This doesn't."

00:22:42.517 --> 00:22:44.934
(soft music)

00:22:52.970 --> 00:22:55.483
-: This is Tom, our grade spring wheat.

00:22:56.370 --> 00:22:58.980
It's actually from Minnesota.

00:22:58.980 --> 00:23:01.220
So it's being milled by Wild Hive,

00:23:01.220 --> 00:23:03.923
and used for making bread type products.

00:23:04.987 --> 00:23:07.404
(soft music)

00:23:13.280 --> 00:23:14.610
-: I've been working with the Farm Hub

00:23:14.610 --> 00:23:16.840
and closely with Cornell University

00:23:16.840 --> 00:23:19.170
in their test trial program.

00:23:19.170 --> 00:23:23.100
And I help select a lot of the the genetics

00:23:23.100 --> 00:23:25.490
that they're using now in these test programs.

00:23:25.490 --> 00:23:27.340
And there's a lot of success in that.

00:23:29.760 --> 00:23:33.290
Our production is almost 100% locally grown

00:23:33.290 --> 00:23:34.800
or regionally grown.

00:23:34.800 --> 00:23:38.370
And the varietals aspect has increased tremendously.

00:23:38.370 --> 00:23:40.400
There's many more varieties available.

00:23:40.400 --> 00:23:45.400
Now, the products that we're getting from the hub right now

00:23:46.620 --> 00:23:49.520
is all part of the testing process.

00:23:49.520 --> 00:23:52.290
So we're about to run all of the results

00:23:52.290 --> 00:23:53.627
from last year's tests,

00:23:53.627 --> 00:23:55.970
that's about 10 different varieties

00:23:55.970 --> 00:23:58.970
and we'll be milling them very specifically,

00:23:58.970 --> 00:24:03.096
which we'll go to a couple of bakeries for baking tests.

00:24:03.096 --> 00:24:05.513
(soft music)

00:24:06.570 --> 00:24:08.597
It's a learning experience because a lot of times

00:24:08.597 --> 00:24:11.964
this is the first time this grain is being stone milled,

00:24:11.964 --> 00:24:14.060
at least in this area.

00:24:14.060 --> 00:24:18.780
And so we really get to understand the nuance of the grain

00:24:18.780 --> 00:24:20.880
and the milling process too, for the future.

00:24:20.880 --> 00:24:22.950
Because all grains mill differently

00:24:22.950 --> 00:24:24.820
and some are more productive than others.

00:24:24.820 --> 00:24:28.000
Some are more fun to mill than others from Farm Hub,

00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:31.050
that's one of the things that we get to work on.

00:24:31.050 --> 00:24:33.021
That's really my thing.

00:24:33.021 --> 00:24:35.438
(soft music)

00:24:40.950 --> 00:24:43.480
-: So this is a wheat called Tom wheat

00:24:43.480 --> 00:24:47.130
that was developed at the University of Minnesota

00:24:47.130 --> 00:24:49.510
and they were growing it here

00:24:49.510 --> 00:24:51.393
as part of a trial with Cornell.

00:24:52.800 --> 00:24:55.460
And it makes really lovely bread.

00:24:55.460 --> 00:24:58.280
And this is the first time I'm using it for pizza.

00:24:58.280 --> 00:25:00.053
It's a really versatile wheat.

00:25:01.360 --> 00:25:03.500
I'm very excited about the possibility

00:25:03.500 --> 00:25:08.160
of it being able to be purchased by farmers in our area

00:25:08.160 --> 00:25:09.986
that we'll be able to grow it.

00:25:09.986 --> 00:25:11.090
(soft music)

00:25:11.090 --> 00:25:15.750
Bringing the growing of grain back to our area.

00:25:15.750 --> 00:25:18.253
And when I say our area, the Northeast is for me,

00:25:18.253 --> 00:25:22.287
very exciting and I'm fairly involved in it.

00:25:22.287 --> 00:25:24.704
(soft music)

00:25:29.070 --> 00:25:31.870
Before seven years ago, there wasn't really a conversation

00:25:31.870 --> 00:25:33.290
about where you can get your grain.

00:25:33.290 --> 00:25:34.290
You can get it from the Midwest.

00:25:34.290 --> 00:25:35.311
That was it.

00:25:35.311 --> 00:25:36.610
Instead, a lot of people and millers

00:25:36.610 --> 00:25:38.910
felt like you would never be able to make bread

00:25:38.910 --> 00:25:40.429
out of grain growth in the Northeast.

00:25:40.429 --> 00:25:42.354
The climate is not drying up.

00:25:42.354 --> 00:25:44.771
(soft music)

00:25:46.870 --> 00:25:49.160
And then the folks from the Farm Hub got us together

00:25:49.160 --> 00:25:52.150
to decide what to grow and there's many varieties.

00:25:52.150 --> 00:25:53.540
And there's emerging varieties too

00:25:53.540 --> 00:25:55.055
that are coming out of research labs.

00:25:55.055 --> 00:25:57.500
(soft music)

00:25:57.500 --> 00:26:01.172
I think we grew 20 varieties to start off.

00:26:01.172 --> 00:26:04.070
We looked at how it would perform in the field

00:26:04.070 --> 00:26:05.950
and we looked a little bit in how it tastes

00:26:05.950 --> 00:26:07.550
but there wasn't that data.

00:26:07.550 --> 00:26:10.140
There's that data now 'cause we made that data

00:26:10.140 --> 00:26:10.990
which is awesome.

00:26:12.570 --> 00:26:15.280
I'm a baker more like on the artist side of it

00:26:15.280 --> 00:26:16.540
than on the science side of it.

00:26:16.540 --> 00:26:18.790
A lot of bankers are very science oriented.

00:26:18.790 --> 00:26:22.820
I think by feel more than by actual numbers.

00:26:22.820 --> 00:26:25.460
Seeing that kind of research and that rigor

00:26:25.460 --> 00:26:26.510
and how important it is

00:26:26.510 --> 00:26:30.039
to have things in order is new to me.

00:26:30.039 --> 00:26:32.456
(soft music)

00:26:39.270 --> 00:26:42.387
-: All of these grains have interesting stories.

00:26:42.387 --> 00:26:45.340
The barleys are interesting because in 2012,

00:26:45.340 --> 00:26:49.290
the New York State legislature passed the Farm Brewery Bill

00:26:49.290 --> 00:26:52.830
that gave marketing and tax incentives to brewers

00:26:52.830 --> 00:26:55.320
to sell craft beer.

00:26:55.320 --> 00:26:58.430
But what New York State legislature didn't realize

00:26:58.430 --> 00:27:01.380
was that there wasn't any malting barley grown in New York.

00:27:02.620 --> 00:27:05.204
Today we have a couple of good winter varieties,

00:27:05.204 --> 00:27:07.990
a couple of good spring malting barley varieties.

00:27:07.990 --> 00:27:10.180
And the industry is growing.

00:27:10.180 --> 00:27:12.597
(soft music)

00:27:19.830 --> 00:27:22.300
-: Before prohibition, the Hudson Valley

00:27:22.300 --> 00:27:24.960
was a huge green end hop growing community

00:27:24.960 --> 00:27:27.780
for the brewing industry nationally.

00:27:27.780 --> 00:27:30.500
And after prohibition, that all fell by the wayside

00:27:30.500 --> 00:27:33.220
and now finally, the Hudson Valley's bounty

00:27:33.220 --> 00:27:35.904
is coming back for brewers, which is kinda cool.

00:27:35.904 --> 00:27:38.720
(soft music)

00:27:38.720 --> 00:27:39.590
So I'm Tommy Keegan.

00:27:39.590 --> 00:27:40.910
We're here at Keegan Ales,

00:27:40.910 --> 00:27:42.790
and we're doing an experiment here

00:27:42.790 --> 00:27:45.350
with the Farm Hub and Cornell Cooperative,

00:27:45.350 --> 00:27:48.430
trying to do this small grains project

00:27:48.430 --> 00:27:49.510
where we'll be bringing back

00:27:49.510 --> 00:27:51.060
the bounty of the Hudson Valley

00:27:51.060 --> 00:27:53.993
to make brewers grains for commercial use.

00:27:53.993 --> 00:27:56.790
(soft music)

00:27:56.790 --> 00:27:58.670
Using local grains in our beer here

00:27:58.670 --> 00:28:02.270
is rewarding as a community member myself

00:28:02.270 --> 00:28:04.390
because people are becoming more and more conscious

00:28:04.390 --> 00:28:06.350
and more and more concerned

00:28:06.350 --> 00:28:07.940
about where their food is coming from.

00:28:07.940 --> 00:28:09.349
How far it travels.

00:28:09.349 --> 00:28:11.766
(soft music)

00:28:12.840 --> 00:28:15.477
-: I'm Dennis Nesel from Hudson Valley Malt,

00:28:15.477 --> 00:28:17.640
my wife Jeanette, and I decided

00:28:17.640 --> 00:28:22.030
that in order for beers to truly be local

00:28:22.030 --> 00:28:24.010
and to be from here,

00:28:24.010 --> 00:28:27.580
we thought that you should be using ingredients from here.

00:28:27.580 --> 00:28:31.063
So we saw that there was a need for a malt house.

00:28:33.000 --> 00:28:37.330
Our job as maltsters is to convert the raw grain

00:28:37.330 --> 00:28:39.740
that the farmer grows into malt.

00:28:39.740 --> 00:28:42.180
Because you can't make beer and whiskey out of raw grain,

00:28:42.180 --> 00:28:43.670
you have to malt it.

00:28:43.670 --> 00:28:45.702
So we germinated here in Germantown.

00:28:45.702 --> 00:28:48.119
(soft music)

00:28:49.880 --> 00:28:53.450
Five years ago you couldn't make a beer

00:28:53.450 --> 00:28:55.080
using New York ingredients.

00:28:55.080 --> 00:28:56.562
Now you don't have that problem.

00:28:56.562 --> 00:29:00.140
There are 13 malt houses in the state.

00:29:00.140 --> 00:29:01.760
Our farmers are getting real good

00:29:01.760 --> 00:29:04.890
at growing premium grains

00:29:04.890 --> 00:29:07.483
with yield and quality and premium hops.

00:29:09.240 --> 00:29:12.740
We're excited to be part of figuring out the entire chain.

00:29:12.740 --> 00:29:13.720
'Cause what we have here

00:29:13.720 --> 00:29:16.520
is something that we've never had before.

00:29:16.520 --> 00:29:17.950
It's something our very own.

00:29:17.950 --> 00:29:22.610
It is a grain supply chain here in the Hudson Valley.

00:29:22.610 --> 00:29:24.240
It's grown here, it's malted here,

00:29:24.240 --> 00:29:27.650
it's brewed and distilled here and enjoyed here.

00:29:28.540 --> 00:29:29.839
So that's cool.

00:29:29.839 --> 00:29:32.256
(soft music)

00:29:41.650 --> 00:29:43.620
-: The one thing that's so interesting

00:29:43.620 --> 00:29:46.520
about this particular project

00:29:46.520 --> 00:29:50.700
is that it does everything at a human scale.

00:29:50.700 --> 00:29:55.370
And that's really different from how grains and bread

00:29:55.370 --> 00:30:00.370
and baking happens now in the national food system.

00:30:00.530 --> 00:30:04.089
Everything is large scale, it's centralized.

00:30:04.089 --> 00:30:08.270
Things travel hundreds and thousands of miles,

00:30:08.270 --> 00:30:10.890
and here, what we're trying to do,

00:30:10.890 --> 00:30:15.890
is relocalize our food system so that it's human scale

00:30:16.580 --> 00:30:19.370
and people can be in relationship to one another

00:30:19.370 --> 00:30:20.943
throughout a value chain.

00:30:21.833 --> 00:30:24.250
(soft music)

00:30:26.530 --> 00:30:27.630
-: When I first started,

00:30:27.630 --> 00:30:30.666
I realized that there used to be

00:30:30.666 --> 00:30:32.630
a local grain-based food system here.

00:30:32.630 --> 00:30:35.410
The Dutch built one in the 1600s,

00:30:35.410 --> 00:30:38.110
they started integral part of communities.

00:30:38.110 --> 00:30:41.270
There's there was always a miller in the center of town

00:30:41.270 --> 00:30:42.940
and growers around them.

00:30:42.940 --> 00:30:45.070
And that's how people survived.

00:30:45.070 --> 00:30:50.070
And now with this Renaissance of grain production

00:30:50.220 --> 00:30:52.560
in the region, it's happening here,

00:30:52.560 --> 00:30:56.367
and the Northeast is now becoming much more self-sufficient

00:30:59.979 --> 00:31:01.537
-: I've been here 40 years

00:31:01.537 --> 00:31:04.890
and there's never been anywhere close to the interest

00:31:04.890 --> 00:31:07.730
in grains and in this region,

00:31:07.730 --> 00:31:10.040
until the last five to 10 years.

00:31:10.040 --> 00:31:12.810
They're interested in things that have a story behind them.

00:31:12.810 --> 00:31:14.380
They'd ideally I'd like to know the person

00:31:14.380 --> 00:31:17.400
that grew the wheat or grew the barley.

00:31:17.400 --> 00:31:20.059
They wanna know the brewer, the baker,

00:31:20.059 --> 00:31:22.760
they wanna know how it was grown.

00:31:22.760 --> 00:31:24.010
Was it grown organically?

00:31:26.390 --> 00:31:29.430
-: As we started baking with organic grains in the 80s

00:31:29.430 --> 00:31:31.150
when no one really cared about organics

00:31:31.150 --> 00:31:33.740
and there was no certification from the government,

00:31:33.740 --> 00:31:36.110
it was something that we felt passionately about.

00:31:36.110 --> 00:31:38.315
There wasn't a whole lot of mills out there,

00:31:38.315 --> 00:31:40.850
there weren't a whole lot of farmers out there

00:31:40.850 --> 00:31:42.650
who were also passionate,

00:31:42.650 --> 00:31:44.623
but now we're seeing all kinds of young people

00:31:44.623 --> 00:31:47.830
who are just as passionate as we were,

00:31:47.830 --> 00:31:51.830
but they hopefully have 70 years instead of 40 years

00:31:51.830 --> 00:31:54.249
to achieve some big changes.

00:31:54.249 --> 00:31:56.666
(soft music)

00:31:59.000 --> 00:32:01.940
-: Most of the wheat that's produced is a commodity wheat

00:32:01.940 --> 00:32:03.200
and it all goes together.

00:32:03.200 --> 00:32:05.470
So you never know what you're eating, right?

00:32:05.470 --> 00:32:10.200
But because we brew Medina here in the Hudson Valley

00:32:10.200 --> 00:32:12.780
and Dan Lewis of Wild Hive nailed it.

00:32:12.780 --> 00:32:16.470
And Sharon Burns Lider bought the Medina flour.

00:32:16.470 --> 00:32:19.060
It was connected all the way from the breeding

00:32:19.060 --> 00:32:24.060
through the production, through the milling and the baking

00:32:24.070 --> 00:32:25.790
and the eating and enjoying.

00:32:25.790 --> 00:32:27.447
It was like magic.

00:32:27.447 --> 00:32:29.482
I never experienced that before.

00:32:29.482 --> 00:32:31.899
(soft music)

00:33:24.681 --> 00:33:27.348
(water flowing)

00:33:48.091 --> 00:33:50.508
(soft music)

00:34:37.210 --> 00:34:38.920
-: I started patrolling in 2000

00:34:39.770 --> 00:34:44.483
and there's no manual for how to protect a river.

00:34:45.790 --> 00:34:47.570
So we evolved a patrol,

00:34:47.570 --> 00:34:51.793
but we also were looking for ways to help the river.

00:34:54.440 --> 00:34:56.980
The question I kept getting from the public

00:34:56.980 --> 00:34:58.670
was how's the water?

00:34:58.670 --> 00:34:59.503
How's the water?

00:35:03.510 --> 00:35:06.290
Nobody knew what the water quality in the Hudson was

00:35:06.290 --> 00:35:07.543
and we wanted to know.

00:35:10.430 --> 00:35:13.313
As I started thinking about how to work for this river,

00:35:14.280 --> 00:35:15.780
you can't help a river

00:35:15.780 --> 00:35:18.610
without the public buying in.

00:35:18.610 --> 00:35:19.513
You can't do it.

00:35:21.409 --> 00:35:23.330
And it just dawned on me

00:35:23.330 --> 00:35:27.603
that if we started sampling water quality for swimming,

00:35:29.630 --> 00:35:31.960
we would engage the large public,

00:35:31.960 --> 00:35:33.530
and the hope was that that public

00:35:33.530 --> 00:35:36.300
would then become interested in all the other things

00:35:36.300 --> 00:35:38.653
the river needs to think about on its behalf.

00:35:39.530 --> 00:35:42.143
And so it was a mechanism.

00:35:47.100 --> 00:35:50.210
-: One of the early findings was that the tributaries,

00:35:50.210 --> 00:35:52.790
these little beautiful creeks that reached the Hudson

00:35:52.790 --> 00:35:57.000
which looked gorgeous are often more highly contaminated

00:35:57.000 --> 00:35:59.720
than the big muddy Hudson with the bad reputation.

00:35:59.720 --> 00:36:02.670
And that's what really led us into the citizen science work

00:36:02.670 --> 00:36:06.160
to build out these teams to be able to measure water quality

00:36:06.160 --> 00:36:09.100
on a whole creek or a whole river in a single day,

00:36:09.100 --> 00:36:10.380
and really get a snapshot

00:36:10.380 --> 00:36:12.643
of what that water quality is like.

00:36:12.643 --> 00:36:15.060
(soft music)

00:36:25.160 --> 00:36:28.160
Our program is focused on looking at indicators

00:36:28.160 --> 00:36:29.670
for sewage pollution,

00:36:29.670 --> 00:36:32.130
but really what we have is a platform for science.

00:36:32.130 --> 00:36:33.940
And that's 170 people

00:36:33.940 --> 00:36:37.650
going out across 800 plus miles of water every month

00:36:37.650 --> 00:36:38.660
to grab a sample.

00:36:38.660 --> 00:36:41.033
Over 440 samples per month.

00:36:42.710 --> 00:36:44.620
That gives an unprecedented scope,

00:36:44.620 --> 00:36:46.370
at unprecedented geographic range,

00:36:46.370 --> 00:36:48.610
at an unprecedented kind of small price

00:36:48.610 --> 00:36:50.740
because you're using citizen scientists

00:36:50.740 --> 00:36:51.991
to gather that data.

00:36:51.991 --> 00:36:54.408
(soft music)

00:36:59.710 --> 00:37:01.100
The involvement of citizen scientists

00:37:01.100 --> 00:37:02.990
really in part is the goal

00:37:02.990 --> 00:37:06.600
to get people involved in measuring water quality

00:37:06.600 --> 00:37:09.590
that they care about because their power comes from that.

00:37:09.590 --> 00:37:11.510
It's not just the data, but it's the people.

00:37:11.510 --> 00:37:13.550
And that's really critical to the success

00:37:13.550 --> 00:37:14.921
of the whole program.

00:37:14.921 --> 00:37:17.338
(soft music)

00:37:25.310 --> 00:37:27.360
-: Our mission is to help monitor the river

00:37:27.360 --> 00:37:29.870
to make sure that it is clean and stays clean.

00:37:29.870 --> 00:37:32.100
Clean water means it's less expensive

00:37:32.100 --> 00:37:34.580
for people to treat their water.

00:37:34.580 --> 00:37:38.743
There's a lot of kayaking, fishing, canoeing, swimming.

00:37:40.700 --> 00:37:43.020
It really filters down to everyday life

00:37:43.020 --> 00:37:44.847
and everything we do.

00:37:44.847 --> 00:37:47.264
(soft music)

00:38:00.210 --> 00:38:04.280
-: I want these privileges that we have to continue on.

00:38:04.280 --> 00:38:06.980
So generations can enjoy it as well.

00:38:08.736 --> 00:38:11.819
(car engine roaring)

00:38:13.440 --> 00:38:16.320
My designated area is the headwaters

00:38:16.320 --> 00:38:17.623
of the lower Esopus Creek.

00:38:18.470 --> 00:38:20.903
And within that area, there's four sample sites.

00:38:22.240 --> 00:38:27.130
The higher, lower Esopus is about 34 miles long

00:38:27.130 --> 00:38:28.870
from the headwaters

00:38:28.870 --> 00:38:31.423
to where it enters the Hudson River and Saugerties.

00:38:33.223 --> 00:38:35.650
So it's a bit of a hike to get to some of them.

00:38:35.650 --> 00:38:37.420
It takes about an hour,

00:38:37.420 --> 00:38:39.505
maybe an hour and a half to do them all.

00:38:39.505 --> 00:38:41.922
(soft music)

00:38:49.760 --> 00:38:51.680
And then I take the samples

00:38:51.680 --> 00:38:54.980
to the Maritime Museum in Kingston, New York,

00:38:54.980 --> 00:38:57.703
where the Riverkeeper maintain water quality level.

00:38:58.590 --> 00:39:00.500
There they get checked in

00:39:00.500 --> 00:39:03.623
and I'll get duplicate bottles for the next sampling time.

00:39:05.343 --> 00:39:10.343
(soft music)
(birds singing)

00:39:20.160 --> 00:39:21.410
-: I was always amazed

00:39:21.410 --> 00:39:23.620
at the amount of people that didn't know that their water

00:39:23.620 --> 00:39:25.083
came from the Hudson River.

00:39:29.290 --> 00:39:32.820
We have 7,000 customers between the village and the town

00:39:32.820 --> 00:39:34.350
that the village services.

00:39:34.350 --> 00:39:36.530
And the river is a lifeline for us,

00:39:36.530 --> 00:39:40.233
providing that water source for us on a daily basis.

00:39:42.750 --> 00:39:43.583
On average each month,

00:39:43.583 --> 00:39:45.960
we pump 12 to 15 million gallons of water

00:39:45.960 --> 00:39:48.610
to a reservoir outside of the village.

00:39:48.610 --> 00:39:50.770
Every morning, starting at 3:00 AM,

00:39:50.770 --> 00:39:51.780
we turn on the pumps

00:39:51.780 --> 00:39:54.480
and fill our reservoir up on top of Hurley.

00:39:54.480 --> 00:39:56.738
And then that feeds a distribution system all day long.

00:39:56.738 --> 00:39:59.810
(soft music)

00:39:59.810 --> 00:40:02.500
If we run out of water, what are we gonna do?

00:40:02.500 --> 00:40:05.143
We have a three-day supply and that's it.

00:40:06.038 --> 00:40:08.455
(soft music)

00:40:14.302 --> 00:40:17.730
-: Here in Poughkeepsie, we produce about 10 million gallons,

00:40:17.730 --> 00:40:20.720
11 million gallons a day that people use.

00:40:20.720 --> 00:40:24.070
That serves a population, a resident population

00:40:24.070 --> 00:40:26.500
of about 80,000, 81,000.

00:40:26.500 --> 00:40:29.830
And then during the day all the businesses, IBM,

00:40:29.830 --> 00:40:33.430
all the hospitals, all the shops.

00:40:33.430 --> 00:40:36.510
So on any given day, about 100,000 people

00:40:36.510 --> 00:40:38.560
get drinking water from the Hudson River.

00:40:39.570 --> 00:40:42.440
And I read the reports all the time.

00:40:42.440 --> 00:40:46.230
It's as good as we can get it now.

00:40:46.230 --> 00:40:50.433
Clean, clear disinfected, and very good.

00:40:52.830 --> 00:40:55.120
-: I remember the first time I ever swam in the Hudson

00:40:55.120 --> 00:40:57.030
it was probably in the mid 80s.

00:40:57.030 --> 00:40:58.890
And as a kid, you didn't swim in the Hudson.

00:40:58.890 --> 00:41:00.560
You know, it was just the 70s.

00:41:00.560 --> 00:41:02.090
Nobody's gonna go in the water.

00:41:02.090 --> 00:41:03.860
And a friend of mine had a boat.

00:41:03.860 --> 00:41:04.990
They were gonna go water skiing.

00:41:04.990 --> 00:41:06.340
And I was, in the Hudson?

00:41:06.340 --> 00:41:09.350
And he says, "Croton Point it's a really nice beach."

00:41:09.350 --> 00:41:10.760
And it was. It was beautiful.

00:41:10.760 --> 00:41:12.160
And it wasn't until years later

00:41:12.160 --> 00:41:15.200
that we worked on water quality here

00:41:15.200 --> 00:41:17.335
but now I swim in the Hudson every chance I get.

00:41:17.335 --> 00:41:22.080
So I think things have gotten better over the years.

00:41:22.080 --> 00:41:24.497
(soft music)

00:41:40.550 --> 00:41:41.383
-: But historically,

00:41:41.383 --> 00:41:44.210
the river was not a desirable place to be.

00:41:44.210 --> 00:41:46.710
And it's because the water quality was so poor.

00:41:46.710 --> 00:41:49.683
And I think that's changing.

00:41:51.000 --> 00:41:53.630
The number that I often tell people,

00:41:53.630 --> 00:41:55.470
which I think usually surprises them,

00:41:55.470 --> 00:41:58.090
is that about 80% of the samples that we collect

00:41:59.568 --> 00:42:04.060
are okay for swimming-like contact.

00:42:04.060 --> 00:42:06.380
I think if you look now at a lot of the towns

00:42:06.380 --> 00:42:07.320
up and down, along the river

00:42:07.320 --> 00:42:09.074
or you can look at New York City,

00:42:09.074 --> 00:42:09.907
there's a tremendous amount of interest

00:42:09.907 --> 00:42:13.210
in redeveloping the waterfronts of these towns.

00:42:13.210 --> 00:42:16.790
And I think there's a direct line that you can draw

00:42:16.790 --> 00:42:20.919
between that economic opportunity and the water quality.

00:42:20.919 --> 00:42:23.336
(soft music)

00:42:26.930 --> 00:42:29.710
-: It's no secret what GE and other companies did

00:42:29.710 --> 00:42:30.543
to that river.

00:42:33.430 --> 00:42:34.910
We're trying to raise awareness

00:42:34.910 --> 00:42:36.736
in this local community all the time.

00:42:36.736 --> 00:42:39.153
(soft music)

00:42:41.200 --> 00:42:42.210
It's my greatest resource.

00:42:42.210 --> 00:42:45.531
It's 90% of the ingredients of my beer.

00:42:45.531 --> 00:42:46.910
I mean, there's four ingredients to make it,

00:42:46.910 --> 00:42:48.783
but 90% of it is water.

00:42:51.180 --> 00:42:53.400
If you're like, "Oh my God, you use the river water."

00:42:53.400 --> 00:42:56.350
I'm like, well, it comes from our town municipality

00:42:56.350 --> 00:42:58.750
and it's cleaned

00:42:58.750 --> 00:43:01.325
and and just like any river water would be anywhere else,

00:43:01.325 --> 00:43:04.670
it tributes home for brewing it's great water.

00:43:04.670 --> 00:43:06.270
So I mean, people around this country

00:43:06.270 --> 00:43:08.830
would kill for this type of water to make their beer.

00:43:08.830 --> 00:43:10.270
It's a lower mineral content.

00:43:10.270 --> 00:43:12.430
It's a surface water runoff shed,

00:43:12.430 --> 00:43:13.430
which also contributes

00:43:13.430 --> 00:43:15.280
to some of the things that go into the river

00:43:15.280 --> 00:43:18.150
in terms of toxins and things that pollute.

00:43:18.150 --> 00:43:20.520
But in terms of trace minerals and brewing,

00:43:20.520 --> 00:43:23.499
it's world-class brewing liquor, which is amazing.

00:43:23.499 --> 00:43:25.916
(soft music)

00:43:51.730 --> 00:43:55.410
-: My routine is I get up, jump on the bike,

00:43:55.410 --> 00:43:57.970
roll down the hill, three blocks to the Navy Yard,

00:43:57.970 --> 00:44:00.230
go to my spot, my dock, where our boat is,

00:44:00.230 --> 00:44:02.530
where I take high school kids out rowing.

00:44:02.530 --> 00:44:03.490
And I sample right there

00:44:03.490 --> 00:44:05.080
because when we're putting the boat in the water,

00:44:05.080 --> 00:44:07.330
that's where they're gonna come into contact.

00:44:08.900 --> 00:44:11.100
It's right across from an outfall.

00:44:11.100 --> 00:44:13.250
So if it's rained a lot, I can see pretty quickly

00:44:13.250 --> 00:44:15.980
that the water quality is different.

00:44:15.980 --> 00:44:18.830
But some days it looks great and the number is still high.

00:44:18.830 --> 00:44:20.300
So that's why you test.

00:44:20.300 --> 00:44:22.717
(soft music)

00:44:29.460 --> 00:44:32.610
We test once a week, on Thursdays,

00:44:32.610 --> 00:44:34.970
in order to have the results on Friday,

00:44:34.970 --> 00:44:36.730
so that we can post them on Friday night

00:44:36.730 --> 00:44:37.933
before the weekend.

00:44:37.933 --> 00:44:40.350
(soft music)

00:44:45.395 --> 00:44:47.500
-: I'm not too surprised by the improvement of the river,

00:44:47.500 --> 00:44:49.630
just because there are so many passionate people

00:44:49.630 --> 00:44:50.463
working on it.

00:44:50.463 --> 00:44:53.170
Our group is small, but there are many, many small groups

00:44:53.170 --> 00:44:55.070
that also, I've been working together.

00:44:55.070 --> 00:44:59.917
So we have teams up and just even in the past 10 years

00:44:59.917 --> 00:45:02.603
we've seen very good results.

00:45:03.810 --> 00:45:05.440
And so it's really exciting

00:45:05.440 --> 00:45:07.610
just to work with so many other passionate people

00:45:07.610 --> 00:45:09.134
that feel the same way that I do.

00:45:09.134 --> 00:45:11.551
(soft music)

00:45:29.943 --> 00:45:31.200
-: For our events, people come from all over the world

00:45:31.200 --> 00:45:32.903
to to swim around Manhattan.

00:45:36.010 --> 00:45:39.100
We're at JFK Marina Park here in Yonkers

00:45:39.100 --> 00:45:42.440
and this is a six and a half mile swim

00:45:42.440 --> 00:45:46.493
that we'll head South in the Hudson River down to Inwood.

00:45:47.810 --> 00:45:52.810
And we have 200 swimmers from all over the world here today.

00:45:57.917 --> 00:45:59.670
-: Hudson River it definitely has a reputation

00:45:59.670 --> 00:46:01.750
for not being the cleanest,

00:46:01.750 --> 00:46:03.200
but I also don't think it's as bad

00:46:03.200 --> 00:46:05.140
as what everyone pegs out to be.

00:46:05.140 --> 00:46:07.410
I did talk to my dad before the race

00:46:07.410 --> 00:46:10.000
and he was like, "Pop some antibiotics."

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:13.425
I kind of took it as a joke. He wasn't joking though.

00:46:13.425 --> 00:46:14.902
But I'm excited.

00:46:14.902 --> 00:46:17.319
(soft music)

00:46:40.160 --> 00:46:41.530
-: The big story about the Hudson

00:46:41.530 --> 00:46:44.600
is unfortunately you can't answer it with a simple phrase.

00:46:44.600 --> 00:46:45.941
It's not one river.

00:46:45.941 --> 00:46:48.550
The water quality varies from place to place.

00:46:48.550 --> 00:46:49.770
It varies over time.

00:46:49.770 --> 00:46:53.720
So we see in places like where we are here in Garrison,

00:46:53.720 --> 00:46:55.510
water quality is often excellent here,

00:46:55.510 --> 00:46:57.697
and it's a great place to go swimming almost all the time.

00:46:57.697 --> 00:46:59.760
And a lot of places through this stretch,

00:46:59.760 --> 00:47:01.020
you could say that about.

00:47:01.020 --> 00:47:02.420
You get up into the Capitol District

00:47:02.420 --> 00:47:04.230
and it's almost the opposite story.

00:47:04.230 --> 00:47:05.680
There, you've got combined sewers

00:47:05.680 --> 00:47:08.089
that are releasing sewage to the water still

00:47:08.089 --> 00:47:10.610
every time it rains and we see the impact of that

00:47:10.610 --> 00:47:13.010
and there's still a lot of unsafe water quality.

00:47:13.010 --> 00:47:15.610
So there are places that are good,

00:47:15.610 --> 00:47:17.240
there are places that need work

00:47:17.240 --> 00:47:20.086
and we're we're defining where those places are.

00:47:20.086 --> 00:47:22.503
(soft music)

00:47:26.300 --> 00:47:27.880
-: If you wanna count on having clean air,

00:47:27.880 --> 00:47:29.950
then we wanna count on having clean water.

00:47:29.950 --> 00:47:31.960
And I will fight for protecting both of those

00:47:31.960 --> 00:47:35.280
so that we have protection For generations to come.

00:47:35.280 --> 00:47:37.080
We're not talking just now

00:47:37.080 --> 00:47:39.781
we got to do this for our children and their children,

00:47:39.781 --> 00:47:43.295
because the Hudson River is gonna be their source forever.

00:47:43.295 --> 00:47:45.712
(soft music)

00:47:50.550 --> 00:47:55.550
-: So my vision for the Hudson is, above all,

00:47:55.700 --> 00:47:59.949
a healthy Hudson, meaning a thriving river of life.

00:47:59.949 --> 00:48:01.046
(soft music)

00:48:01.046 --> 00:48:03.860
And then right behind that,

00:48:03.860 --> 00:48:07.730
is a river that is drinkable by us,

00:48:07.730 --> 00:48:10.713
and swimmable by us, and fishable by us,

00:48:11.950 --> 00:48:16.950
but above all, it, itself, must be healthy.

00:48:16.950 --> 00:48:18.423
Its body must be healthy.

00:48:19.630 --> 00:48:20.463
That's my hope.

00:48:20.463 --> 00:48:23.580
I know it's not happening in my lifetime,

00:48:23.580 --> 00:48:28.580
and I'm aware that custodian of a battle

00:48:30.100 --> 00:48:31.990
that will be handed off to others,

00:48:31.990 --> 00:48:32.823
and to others and others.

00:48:32.823 --> 00:48:36.720
But the goal is a healthy river

00:48:37.596 --> 00:48:38.577
that we've disconnected from,

00:48:38.577 --> 00:48:41.677
and the river thrives in parallel with our human society.

00:48:41.677 --> 00:48:44.094
(soft music)

00:49:12.742 --> 00:49:15.409
(water flowing)

00:49:18.575 --> 00:49:21.325
(birds chirping)

00:49:28.069 --> 00:49:30.486
(soft music)

00:49:34.560 --> 00:49:37.856
-: This is a story of healing through many generations.

00:49:37.856 --> 00:49:39.740
(soft music)

00:49:39.740 --> 00:49:41.160
A great, great granddaughter

00:49:41.160 --> 00:49:43.213
who is allowed to speak her language.

00:49:45.200 --> 00:49:46.670
This is the story of a mother

00:49:46.670 --> 00:49:49.823
who sings the songs of the sacred corn to her children.

00:49:51.870 --> 00:49:55.280
This is a story of children being proud of who they are

00:49:55.280 --> 00:49:56.530
and where they come from.

00:49:58.240 --> 00:50:01.400
This is a story of my great great-grandmother's dreams

00:50:01.400 --> 00:50:05.330
and wishes coming to life in the beat of the water drum

00:50:05.330 --> 00:50:06.863
and the seeds of the rattle.

00:50:08.430 --> 00:50:11.870
This is the story of intergenerational resilience

00:50:11.870 --> 00:50:14.524
coming alive to dance into another day.

00:50:14.524 --> 00:50:16.941
(soft music)

00:50:28.359 --> 00:50:30.942
(wind howling)

00:50:52.880 --> 00:50:55.030
The beginning of our agricultural calendar

00:50:55.030 --> 00:50:57.390
and our ceremonial calendar is midwinter.

00:50:57.390 --> 00:50:59.790
And that's the time when the seeds are dreaming.

00:51:04.350 --> 00:51:05.183
They're sleeping,

00:51:05.183 --> 00:51:07.320
they're getting and gaining all of their energy

00:51:07.320 --> 00:51:09.733
for the coming spring and the coming year.

00:51:13.480 --> 00:51:15.180
Pretty soon, the spring will be coming.

00:51:15.180 --> 00:51:18.230
The thunder beings will come and awaken the earth

00:51:19.295 --> 00:51:20.128
and pretty soon the seed ceremonies will come,

00:51:20.128 --> 00:51:21.873
where we sing the seeds fully awake.

00:51:25.174 --> 00:51:30.174
(thunder clapping)
(rain pouring)

00:51:48.710 --> 00:51:51.110
-: We are going to give a special acknowledgement

00:51:52.010 --> 00:51:54.220
to the creator Himself

00:51:54.220 --> 00:51:57.260
and we're gonna ask Him to protect all of it.

00:51:57.260 --> 00:52:01.200
The land, the seeds, and to make sure

00:52:01.200 --> 00:52:05.043
that when we go into the garden, that we have good minds,

00:52:06.510 --> 00:52:10.380
so that those seeds, when you enter there,

00:52:10.380 --> 00:52:12.960
they're gonna recognize a spirit

00:52:12.960 --> 00:52:14.653
that has good intentions for it.

00:52:16.850 --> 00:52:21.750
We believe that those seeds that we prayed to are babies.

00:52:24.890 --> 00:52:26.633
So when we sing to them,

00:52:27.690 --> 00:52:30.440
and when we acknowledged them and when we talk to them

00:52:30.440 --> 00:52:32.750
and we tell them that we're going to go

00:52:32.750 --> 00:52:35.580
and we're going to plant you with the good mind,

00:52:35.580 --> 00:52:37.670
and we're gonna sing to you, it makes them feel good,

00:52:37.670 --> 00:52:40.930
and the same time it makes us feel good.

00:52:40.930 --> 00:52:45.760
And so we reciprocate that love for one another

00:52:45.760 --> 00:52:48.160
because we recognize that they have a spirit

00:52:48.160 --> 00:52:50.847
just like we do, and they need to feel love.

00:52:56.200 --> 00:53:00.367
(man singing in foreign language)

00:53:01.863 --> 00:53:03.440
-: What we did when we were out there

00:53:03.440 --> 00:53:04.850
is we did an opening address,

00:53:04.850 --> 00:53:07.200
which is just a thanksgiving address,

00:53:07.200 --> 00:53:09.237
We call it the Ohenton Karihwatehkwen

00:53:09.237 --> 00:53:11.380
which means the words that come before all else

00:53:11.380 --> 00:53:12.850
which is an acknowledgement

00:53:12.850 --> 00:53:14.990
and a thanks to everything in creation.

00:53:14.990 --> 00:53:18.710
You say, thank you and hello to everything.

00:53:18.710 --> 00:53:20.140
The sun, the moon and stars

00:53:20.140 --> 00:53:22.830
and all the way down to the insects

00:53:22.830 --> 00:53:27.200
to the fruits and the trees, the birds, everything.

00:53:27.200 --> 00:53:28.220
We mention every single one of them,

00:53:28.220 --> 00:53:30.062
and say hello and thank you.

00:53:30.062 --> 00:53:34.229
(man singing in foreign language)

00:53:35.450 --> 00:53:36.740
-: I think it's a beautiful way

00:53:36.740 --> 00:53:39.100
for everybody to start out the season.

00:53:39.100 --> 00:53:40.669
It's always a reminder

00:53:40.669 --> 00:53:43.720
that we give our gratitude to these seeds

00:53:43.720 --> 00:53:46.856
and we always show our respect to them.

00:53:46.856 --> 00:53:51.023
(man singing in foreign language)

00:53:52.230 --> 00:53:53.150
-: What we're doing here

00:53:53.150 --> 00:53:55.540
is growing out native American varieties

00:53:55.540 --> 00:54:00.230
of corn, beans, squash and sunflowers for food production,

00:54:00.230 --> 00:54:03.480
but most importantly, for saving the seeds.

00:54:03.480 --> 00:54:06.620
These seeds, many of them are in danger of disappearing

00:54:06.620 --> 00:54:10.380
because the seed stock has windled down in some cases

00:54:10.380 --> 00:54:11.280
to almost nothing.

00:54:12.800 --> 00:54:15.830
The Native American Seed Sanctuary at the Farm Hub

00:54:15.830 --> 00:54:17.030
is a partnership.

00:54:17.030 --> 00:54:20.670
It's a collaboration between the Akwesasne Mohawk tribe

00:54:20.670 --> 00:54:22.750
in Northern New York State,

00:54:22.750 --> 00:54:27.100
the Hudson Valley Seed Company and the Nonprofit Seed Shed

00:54:27.100 --> 00:54:29.263
and our farm, the Hudson Valley Farm Hub.

00:54:31.090 --> 00:54:33.710
This is really part of a larger effort

00:54:33.710 --> 00:54:36.984
on the part of the tribe to preserve Mohawk culture.

00:54:36.984 --> 00:54:39.820
(drums beating)

00:54:39.820 --> 00:54:42.270
We have a covenant, a special agreement,

00:54:42.270 --> 00:54:46.150
both with the creator and with the plants and animals.

00:54:46.150 --> 00:54:47.460
We have to fulfill this.

00:54:47.460 --> 00:54:49.370
It was a promise made long ago

00:54:49.370 --> 00:54:52.540
between my ancestors and their answers.

00:54:52.540 --> 00:54:56.020
So we maintain those relationships the best we can,

00:54:56.020 --> 00:54:57.890
to protect them, to know them,

00:54:57.890 --> 00:54:59.610
to have a relationship with them,

00:54:59.610 --> 00:55:01.700
and despite the weather we're out there,

00:55:01.700 --> 00:55:03.230
and we're working in the woods,

00:55:03.230 --> 00:55:04.460
we're working in the gardens,

00:55:04.460 --> 00:55:07.760
we're working in the fields, and it's who we are.

00:55:07.760 --> 00:55:10.032
(drums beating)

00:55:10.032 --> 00:55:12.782
(fire crackling)

00:55:21.107 --> 00:55:26.107
(soft music)
(water flowing)

00:55:33.554 --> 00:55:37.721
(man singing in foreign language)

00:56:13.910 --> 00:56:18.520
-: So each of these mounds is gonna have five corn seeds.

00:56:18.520 --> 00:56:21.570
So one, two, three, four, in the four directions,

00:56:21.570 --> 00:56:23.130
and then one in the middle.

00:56:23.130 --> 00:56:26.580
And in here, we'll put two squash.

00:56:26.580 --> 00:56:29.590
So the cooperative planting will still work

00:56:29.590 --> 00:56:31.170
'cause this squash is gonna spread...

00:56:31.170 --> 00:56:33.990
Seeds need our care.

00:56:33.990 --> 00:56:36.010
For me, the joy of working with seeds

00:56:36.010 --> 00:56:38.070
and the power of working with seeds

00:56:38.070 --> 00:56:40.680
is that seeds are small and powerful

00:56:40.680 --> 00:56:43.530
and we can be small and powerful as well

00:56:43.530 --> 00:56:44.580
in working with them.

00:56:46.570 --> 00:56:51.320
This is a sacred corn from the Iroquois nations,

00:56:51.320 --> 00:56:53.200
and at a certain point

00:56:53.200 --> 00:56:56.711
there were only two ears of this corn left.

00:56:56.711 --> 00:57:01.410
We've begun the process of increasing the seed stock

00:57:01.410 --> 00:57:04.880
of these varieties to return those seeds to the community

00:57:05.722 --> 00:57:07.340
where they came from.

00:57:07.340 --> 00:57:12.077
These seeds are seeds of resistance and seeds of hope.

00:57:12.077 --> 00:57:14.494
(soft music)

00:57:21.350 --> 00:57:23.090
The seeds that we're working with,

00:57:23.090 --> 00:57:25.450
are varieties that specifically came

00:57:25.450 --> 00:57:27.820
from the Akwesasne community.

00:57:27.820 --> 00:57:32.753
And in some cases they're endangered. They could disappear.

00:57:33.750 --> 00:57:36.830
So even though there may only be two ears left,

00:57:36.830 --> 00:57:39.950
we can bring that back to six pounds

00:57:39.950 --> 00:57:43.650
and turn that into 800 pounds and turn that into 2000 pounds

00:57:43.650 --> 00:57:48.080
and feed communities and restore culture and language

00:57:48.080 --> 00:57:52.010
and ceremony just through having the right skills

00:57:52.010 --> 00:57:53.760
and resources and the right heart

00:57:53.760 --> 00:57:58.021
for working with these little powerful living beings.

00:57:58.021 --> 00:58:00.438
(soft music)

00:58:09.032 --> 00:58:12.160
It's that leap of faith with seeds every time.

00:58:12.160 --> 00:58:13.320
That something so tiny

00:58:13.320 --> 00:58:16.920
is gonna produce something so big and beautiful

00:58:18.590 --> 00:58:19.423
when it looks this barren.

00:58:19.423 --> 00:58:20.982
this Three Sisters Part behind me

00:58:20.982 --> 00:58:25.800
is gonna be a crazy jungle of corn and beans and squash

00:58:25.800 --> 00:58:28.970
all growing together, cooperating with each other,

00:58:28.970 --> 00:58:30.650
helping each other grow,

00:58:30.650 --> 00:58:33.300
using each other as support and protection.

00:58:33.300 --> 00:58:34.133
And then behind that

00:58:34.133 --> 00:58:37.799
will be the field of the red bread corn,

00:58:37.799 --> 00:58:41.820
which is, I think the largest grow out of the corn

00:58:41.820 --> 00:58:43.030
that's ever been done.

00:58:43.030 --> 00:58:45.447
(soft music)

00:58:53.840 --> 00:58:57.550
-: The idea was to help increase the seed stock

00:58:57.550 --> 00:59:00.290
for native American varieties of vegetables

00:59:00.290 --> 00:59:02.800
that are in danger of disappearing.

00:59:02.800 --> 00:59:07.530
And we being the Farm Hub with land and resources,

00:59:07.530 --> 00:59:09.090
we're able to kind of step up

00:59:09.090 --> 00:59:11.940
and identify this piece of property that we have,

00:59:11.940 --> 00:59:14.359
which is a 28 acre field.

00:59:14.359 --> 00:59:17.350
(soft music)

00:59:17.350 --> 00:59:20.350
And that particular piece of property is so emblematic

00:59:20.350 --> 00:59:21.960
of so many beautiful things

00:59:21.960 --> 00:59:24.780
like the Esopus Creek borders that piece of property,

00:59:24.780 --> 00:59:26.530
the soil is good.

00:59:26.530 --> 00:59:28.863
It's quite beautiful there.

00:59:28.863 --> 00:59:29.760
(soft music)

00:59:29.760 --> 00:59:32.970
On the other hand, we have symbols

00:59:32.970 --> 00:59:37.450
of 20th century transportation infrastructure surrounding it

00:59:37.450 --> 00:59:40.805
that remind us of some of the things that aren't so good.

00:59:40.805 --> 00:59:43.450
(soft music)

00:59:43.450 --> 00:59:44.557
So when we look at the throughway

00:59:44.557 --> 00:59:46.860
and we see the trucks going by,

00:59:46.860 --> 00:59:49.550
it also reminds us of what's happened to our food system

00:59:49.550 --> 00:59:52.060
over the past couple of generations, right?

00:59:52.060 --> 00:59:56.940
As fewer and larger farms, much farther away

00:59:56.940 --> 00:59:58.430
have come to produce the food

00:59:58.430 --> 01:00:01.030
that we eat here in our region,

01:00:01.030 --> 01:00:02.413
that's come at a cost.

01:00:04.830 --> 01:00:06.600
There's an environmental cost

01:00:06.600 --> 01:00:09.720
on the part of all that transportation that's needed.

01:00:09.720 --> 01:00:11.740
There's an intellectual cost

01:00:11.740 --> 01:00:14.000
because we're losing our connectedness

01:00:14.000 --> 01:00:16.483
to how food is grown and where it comes from.

01:00:19.880 --> 01:00:22.129
Our system of agriculture here in the region

01:00:22.129 --> 01:00:24.600
is not gonna solve this on its own.

01:00:24.600 --> 01:00:27.660
It's gonna take places like the Farm Hub

01:00:27.660 --> 01:00:30.730
and financial resources that are gonna allow people

01:00:30.730 --> 01:00:32.170
to take some risks,

01:00:32.170 --> 01:00:35.640
to experiment with new ways of doing things,

01:00:35.640 --> 01:00:38.850
and to do projects like we're doing at the Seed Sanctuary,

01:00:38.850 --> 01:00:41.178
which are very, very special.

01:00:41.178 --> 01:00:43.960
(soft music)

01:00:43.960 --> 01:00:47.870
we really relish the opportunity to think about culture

01:00:47.870 --> 01:00:51.242
and ceremony and human relationships

01:00:51.242 --> 01:00:55.143
and how food relates to all of that in our lives.

01:00:56.500 --> 01:01:01.500
When we spend time with the Akwesasne Mohawk community,

01:01:02.220 --> 01:01:04.870
we also are able to kind of tap into the past.

01:01:04.870 --> 01:01:07.500
We're able to think about who was here on this land

01:01:07.500 --> 01:01:08.950
before we ever got here.

01:01:08.950 --> 01:01:11.367
(soft music)

01:01:40.050 --> 01:01:41.010
-: The whole part of New York,

01:01:41.010 --> 01:01:43.130
from New York city, all the way up to Plattsburgh

01:01:43.130 --> 01:01:45.410
and kind of over as the ancestral territory

01:01:45.410 --> 01:01:46.460
of the Mohawk people.

01:01:47.590 --> 01:01:50.080
And so the Hudson Valley and surrounding areas,

01:01:50.080 --> 01:01:51.860
Albany area would have been a place

01:01:51.860 --> 01:01:54.220
where we would have ancestrally grown our food

01:01:54.220 --> 01:01:55.560
and seed crops.

01:01:55.560 --> 01:01:57.240
But now we had been relocated

01:01:57.240 --> 01:01:59.220
to the banks of the St Lawrence River,

01:01:59.220 --> 01:02:00.990
which isn't necessarily that conducive

01:02:00.990 --> 01:02:04.683
for growing the food and seed that we have always done.

01:02:04.683 --> 01:02:07.030
(soft music)

01:02:07.030 --> 01:02:09.160
It's an interesting pathway to walk.

01:02:09.160 --> 01:02:12.321
Coming back home to really rediscover our ancestral seeds

01:02:12.321 --> 01:02:14.610
and the importance of the food and seed

01:02:14.610 --> 01:02:17.164
as it relates to our cultural restoration.

01:02:17.164 --> 01:02:20.040
(soft music)

01:02:20.040 --> 01:02:24.000
And in talking with elders and gathering stories,

01:02:24.000 --> 01:02:26.840
gathering seeds, I had this whole suitcase

01:02:26.840 --> 01:02:29.370
full of various seeds that different elders had given me

01:02:29.370 --> 01:02:32.730
from first nations communities and Canada

01:02:32.730 --> 01:02:35.623
and then the New York State and beyond.

01:02:36.590 --> 01:02:38.830
And for some reason in this box of seeds,

01:02:38.830 --> 01:02:40.210
there were these two bean varieties

01:02:40.210 --> 01:02:42.330
that for some reason, in my mind,

01:02:42.330 --> 01:02:44.190
kept saying they wanna be here.

01:02:44.190 --> 01:02:45.960
They wanna grow here on this farm.

01:02:45.960 --> 01:02:47.683
And so I entrusted them to Ken.

01:02:50.440 --> 01:02:54.120
-: It's a really big responsibility to be entrusted

01:02:54.120 --> 01:02:55.363
with these seeds.

01:02:57.162 --> 01:03:00.430
The Hudson Valley Farm Hub came to me with this idea,

01:03:00.430 --> 01:03:01.263
is there some way

01:03:01.263 --> 01:03:04.133
that we could work with native American seeds here?

01:03:06.600 --> 01:03:11.600
And I kind of felt like the seeds like had reached out,

01:03:11.930 --> 01:03:13.520
like who can help?

01:03:13.520 --> 01:03:15.100
Who in this community

01:03:15.100 --> 01:03:17.413
could really help make a difference with this?

01:03:19.890 --> 01:03:23.910
And Rowan and Tina and Kenny and Mary,

01:03:23.910 --> 01:03:25.770
they were like, "Let's do this.

01:03:25.770 --> 01:03:26.990
It feels right.

01:03:26.990 --> 01:03:30.600
Let's just put our faith in the seeds

01:03:30.600 --> 01:03:33.130
and the land here that we're doing things right.

01:03:33.130 --> 01:03:34.690
And so this will work."

01:03:37.366 --> 01:03:39.949
(wind howling)

01:03:44.001 --> 01:03:46.834
(trumpet blowing)

01:03:51.429 --> 01:03:55.170
(speaking in foreign language)

01:03:55.170 --> 01:03:59.720
-: I want to extend my greatest greetings to all of you

01:03:59.720 --> 01:04:03.270
on that we are still able to come together peacefully

01:04:03.270 --> 01:04:04.383
in a good way.

01:04:05.550 --> 01:04:10.080
I'm very, very happy to see our old varieties

01:04:10.080 --> 01:04:12.040
of seeds doing so well

01:04:12.040 --> 01:04:15.624
because this is what in our ceremonies we've asked for.

01:04:15.624 --> 01:04:18.041
(soft music)

01:04:18.949 --> 01:04:21.616
(water flowing)

01:04:26.850 --> 01:04:29.017
They say in our language that (speaks in foreign language).

01:04:36.070 --> 01:04:40.340
The corn herself, she was given the duty by our creator

01:04:40.340 --> 01:04:42.430
to be the leader of her three sisters,

01:04:42.430 --> 01:04:44.550
the squash and the beans.

01:04:44.550 --> 01:04:48.080
And so I went first to her to sing some songs

01:04:48.080 --> 01:04:51.870
and to greet her and to feel the corn touch you

01:04:52.942 --> 01:04:53.775
on your shoulders.

01:04:53.775 --> 01:04:55.850
And it's almost like being hugged by the corn.

01:04:55.850 --> 01:04:58.780
There's a lot of things in our prophecies and our history

01:04:58.780 --> 01:05:02.320
that talks about that long relationship between the people,

01:05:02.320 --> 01:05:04.340
especially the woman in the corn.

01:05:04.340 --> 01:05:06.680
And I felt like she was there for us

01:05:06.680 --> 01:05:08.671
and she was happy to see us.

01:05:08.671 --> 01:05:11.088
(soft music)

01:05:28.770 --> 01:05:33.590
-: I found myself in a position of feeling deeply moved

01:05:33.590 --> 01:05:36.960
and deeply inspired to not only work with my own community

01:05:36.960 --> 01:05:39.550
but recognizing that native communities

01:05:39.550 --> 01:05:41.900
all over Turtle Island or North America

01:05:41.900 --> 01:05:43.470
are in the same predicament

01:05:43.470 --> 01:05:46.110
of being that doorway to memory, right?

01:05:46.110 --> 01:05:49.010
That doorway to that long lineage of stewardship

01:05:49.010 --> 01:05:51.993
and memory of our ancestral seeds and our ancestral foods.

01:05:53.250 --> 01:05:55.000
It's only in one or two generations

01:05:55.000 --> 01:05:57.180
that these seeds can disappear within a community

01:05:57.180 --> 01:05:58.360
without that stewardship.

01:05:58.360 --> 01:06:01.300
And as an indigenous person,

01:06:01.300 --> 01:06:04.980
we recognize that our ancestors came into an agreement

01:06:04.980 --> 01:06:06.460
with these plant relatives

01:06:06.460 --> 01:06:08.470
that we were going to take care of them

01:06:08.470 --> 01:06:09.961
because they took care of us.

01:06:09.961 --> 01:06:12.890
(soft music)

01:06:12.890 --> 01:06:15.750
That was severed and was almost broken.

01:06:15.750 --> 01:06:17.760
And so within a couple generations

01:06:17.760 --> 01:06:20.750
of people not planting and not singing the seed songs

01:06:20.750 --> 01:06:23.783
and not doing that work, we could lose that.

01:06:23.783 --> 01:06:25.700
(soft music)

01:06:25.700 --> 01:06:27.780
And so that's a big part of this work

01:06:27.780 --> 01:06:29.800
of revitalizing the seeds

01:06:29.800 --> 01:06:34.010
is getting people inspired by the flavors, the colors,

01:06:34.010 --> 01:06:36.347
the creativity that exists in these gardens.

01:06:36.347 --> 01:06:37.910
And that's what's inspiring

01:06:37.910 --> 01:06:39.880
to these young people getting involved,

01:06:39.880 --> 01:06:42.630
but to also recognize that food sovereignty

01:06:42.630 --> 01:06:43.810
and seed sovereignty,

01:06:43.810 --> 01:06:47.490
having the foods and seeds in our life is inextricable

01:06:47.490 --> 01:06:50.674
from the process of revitalizing our culture.

01:06:50.674 --> 01:06:53.091
(soft music)

01:08:04.940 --> 01:08:07.373
-: We're done. The corn's ready.

01:08:08.480 --> 01:08:13.480
Possibly looks like they're gonna pick this whole field now.

01:08:13.630 --> 01:08:14.580
That's ready to go.

01:08:16.021 --> 01:08:19.280
We're gonna grind this up to make mush

01:08:19.280 --> 01:08:21.320
and the mush that we make we use in ceremonies,

01:08:21.320 --> 01:08:22.838
but we use that as a breakfast cereal too.

01:08:22.838 --> 01:08:26.210
It's like kind of like cream of wheat or oatmeal.

01:08:26.210 --> 01:08:29.350
And the way I do it because it's Apple season right now,

01:08:29.350 --> 01:08:31.890
we press our apples to make cider,

01:08:31.890 --> 01:08:35.770
and we boil this crushed red corn in our cider.

01:08:35.770 --> 01:08:37.750
And then we'll add either peaches to it

01:08:37.750 --> 01:08:40.800
or raspberries that we've frozen

01:08:40.800 --> 01:08:43.030
or blueberries or something like that.

01:08:43.030 --> 01:08:45.337
And oh my God, it's good.

01:08:45.337 --> 01:08:48.130
(soft music)

01:08:48.130 --> 01:08:51.570
-: So we've just started processing a bunch of the seed.

01:08:51.570 --> 01:08:55.940
So from those two remaining ears of Mohawk bread corn

01:08:55.940 --> 01:08:57.670
that were left in the world

01:08:57.670 --> 01:09:00.400
through work with Rowan and others,

01:09:00.400 --> 01:09:04.903
we've now produced 1600 pounds of the Mohawk red corn.

01:09:07.043 --> 01:09:10.593
The sunflowers this year, we have 250 pounds of seed.

01:09:12.300 --> 01:09:15.730
These squash actually we're averaging about 40 pounds

01:09:15.730 --> 01:09:17.450
and some are closer to 60 pounds.

01:09:17.450 --> 01:09:19.463
So that's a lot of food.

01:09:20.560 --> 01:09:22.120
They were two new bean varieties

01:09:22.120 --> 01:09:25.940
the potato bean and the true red cranberry bean.

01:09:25.940 --> 01:09:29.620
And it's probably gonna be about four times as many beans

01:09:29.620 --> 01:09:32.463
harvested this year compared to what we grew last year.

01:09:35.260 --> 01:09:38.217
Anything that we can send back is wonderful.

01:09:38.217 --> 01:09:40.893
And it is a really important part.

01:09:41.920 --> 01:09:45.340
Really it's about the relationships that we're forming

01:09:45.340 --> 01:09:49.782
through the seed partnership that are the real value.

01:09:49.782 --> 01:09:52.199
(soft music)

01:09:53.327 --> 01:09:55.740
-: I think the most significant aspect for me

01:09:55.740 --> 01:09:57.970
is watching people come together

01:09:57.970 --> 01:10:00.220
from many different cultures and backgrounds.

01:10:01.860 --> 01:10:04.283
And I think that that's what the seeds themselves offer us.

01:10:04.283 --> 01:10:07.540
Is they offer us that potential for healing.

01:10:07.540 --> 01:10:09.400
They offer us that potential to understand

01:10:09.400 --> 01:10:12.010
that there is mutual benefit between communities

01:10:13.135 --> 01:10:14.720
that it doesn't have to be a continued exclusivity

01:10:14.720 --> 01:10:17.710
or segregation that we can continue to come together

01:10:17.710 --> 01:10:19.138
with common purpose and a hopeful purpose

01:10:19.138 --> 01:10:21.380
to reconcile a lot of differences

01:10:21.380 --> 01:10:22.816
that we've seen in the past.

01:10:22.816 --> 01:10:26.000
(soft music)

01:10:26.000 --> 01:10:27.480
-: The teachings that I was given

01:10:27.480 --> 01:10:29.730
comes from this corn as well.

01:10:29.730 --> 01:10:34.253
About sharing about bartering, about what corn really is.

01:10:35.630 --> 01:10:38.220
And so if I can get like-minded people

01:10:38.220 --> 01:10:42.290
who aren't necessarily Haudenosaunee or Onkwehonwe

01:10:42.290 --> 01:10:46.410
and that are non-native, and that share that same respect

01:10:46.410 --> 01:10:48.370
and that are open-minded enough

01:10:48.370 --> 01:10:51.270
to know that this corn that I'm holding in my hand,

01:10:51.270 --> 01:10:54.973
it means a little bit more than going into a cereal box.

01:10:56.990 --> 01:10:59.790
And we kinda look at it as money,

01:10:59.790 --> 01:11:02.263
but to us, we look at this as more than that.

01:11:02.263 --> 01:11:03.923
It's our culture.

01:11:03.923 --> 01:11:06.340
(soft music)

01:11:07.930 --> 01:11:10.580
-: On a weekend where we were having harvest ceremony back

01:11:10.580 --> 01:11:13.680
at Akwesasne for us to be in ceremony and harvesting

01:11:13.680 --> 01:11:15.570
this food here in this ancestral land,

01:11:15.570 --> 01:11:17.883
and Hudson Valley felt really significant.

01:11:20.170 --> 01:11:23.350
To bring those songs and those ceremonies and that

01:11:23.350 --> 01:11:26.110
to the harvest that we're doing here in this valley,

01:11:26.110 --> 01:11:27.780
renews those agreements

01:11:27.780 --> 01:11:29.620
with the land that our ancestors have had

01:11:29.620 --> 01:11:33.343
for hundreds upon hundreds, even thousands of years.

01:11:35.300 --> 01:11:38.210
For me, it brings me great joy and hope in my heart

01:11:38.210 --> 01:11:41.380
to know that this land here is hearing those songs again

01:11:41.380 --> 01:11:44.210
and is feeling the reverence that we have for this land

01:11:44.210 --> 01:11:46.620
and that those seeds that have been grown here

01:11:46.620 --> 01:11:50.310
that will then go back home and nourish people at Akwesasne,

01:11:50.310 --> 01:11:52.740
that those seeds are infused with that gratitude

01:11:52.740 --> 01:11:54.660
that we bring in those songs and those dances

01:11:54.660 --> 01:11:55.560
and those prayers.

01:11:58.860 --> 01:12:01.073
We can share stories and song and laughter.

01:12:01.073 --> 01:12:03.210
Many hands making light work

01:12:03.210 --> 01:12:06.200
to harvest all of this good food to send back

01:12:06.200 --> 01:12:09.165
up to the ancestral people of this land, the Mohawks

01:12:09.165 --> 01:12:11.582
(soft music)

01:12:31.344 --> 01:12:34.011
(drums beating)

01:12:45.281 --> 01:12:49.448
(man singing in foreign language)

01:13:48.735 --> 01:13:53.735
(soft music)
(water flowing)

01:14:12.366 --> 01:14:13.540
-: Free flowing creeks

01:14:13.540 --> 01:14:16.633
are part of what binds ecosystems together.

01:14:18.100 --> 01:14:20.880
These waterways are the circulatory systems

01:14:20.880 --> 01:14:22.393
of our landscapes.

01:14:22.393 --> 01:14:27.393
(soft music)
(water flowing)

01:14:28.180 --> 01:14:30.980
There's approximately 67 tributaries

01:14:30.980 --> 01:14:32.793
in the lower Hudson River watershed.

01:14:33.630 --> 01:14:35.243
Half of those are damned.

01:14:36.270 --> 01:14:39.080
These are not those giant structures out West

01:14:39.080 --> 01:14:41.750
the Elwha dam, the Hoover dam.

01:14:41.750 --> 01:14:45.223
These were mill dams and they were much smaller.

01:14:46.113 --> 01:14:48.870
(soft music)

01:14:48.870 --> 01:14:52.110
The vast majority of these dams are outdated,

01:14:52.110 --> 01:14:54.890
outmoded and serve no viable purpose anymore.

01:14:54.890 --> 01:14:56.620
They're essentially obsolete.

01:14:56.620 --> 01:14:59.594
We at Riverkeeper feel they should be removed.

01:14:59.594 --> 01:15:04.594
(soft music)
(water flowing)

01:15:09.990 --> 01:15:13.900
The first problem with dams is they bisect habitat.

01:15:13.900 --> 01:15:16.190
They block historic flows of water,

01:15:16.190 --> 01:15:19.640
they block sediment and they block nutrient flow.

01:15:19.640 --> 01:15:22.140
All these are important for food chains

01:15:22.140 --> 01:15:23.864
all along the reaches.

01:15:23.864 --> 01:15:26.281
(soft music)

01:15:28.790 --> 01:15:30.880
Dams have to be maintained.

01:15:30.880 --> 01:15:32.810
You have to constantly repair them

01:15:32.810 --> 01:15:34.890
and somebody has to pay for them.

01:15:34.890 --> 01:15:38.173
It's generally more expensive to repair a dam

01:15:38.173 --> 01:15:39.745
than to remove it.

01:15:39.745 --> 01:15:42.162
(soft music)

01:15:44.410 --> 01:15:45.870
-: These dams are aging.

01:15:45.870 --> 01:15:48.980
If you think about a dam and what the life of a dam will be,

01:15:48.980 --> 01:15:51.070
you have three trajectories.

01:15:51.070 --> 01:15:55.020
Either you repair and maintain the dam, you remove the dam,

01:15:55.020 --> 01:15:58.270
or eventually it progressively fails and collapses

01:15:58.270 --> 01:15:59.503
and crumbles on its own.

01:16:01.170 --> 01:16:02.120
In the Estuary Program,

01:16:02.120 --> 01:16:05.085
we believe that dams aren't serving a purpose anymore,

01:16:05.085 --> 01:16:07.330
are biologically important,

01:16:07.330 --> 01:16:09.030
we would like to help remove them.

01:16:11.240 --> 01:16:13.470
What happens when you take the dam away?

01:16:13.470 --> 01:16:14.773
Will there be any water left?

01:16:14.773 --> 01:16:17.700
All you have to do is go just downstream of any dam

01:16:17.700 --> 01:16:20.620
or upstream of any dam and you'll see what used to be there.

01:16:20.620 --> 01:16:22.600
(soft music)

01:16:22.600 --> 01:16:25.950
To take a walk up beyond the pond or down below the dam.

01:16:25.950 --> 01:16:27.720
and you'll see what is a stream where a river

01:16:27.720 --> 01:16:30.677
which essentially is what it used to look like.

01:16:30.677 --> 01:16:33.094
(soft music)

01:16:35.460 --> 01:16:36.790
-: Not all dams are bad.

01:16:36.790 --> 01:16:39.400
There's a lot of dams that serve very, very good purposes

01:16:39.400 --> 01:16:40.640
and are necessary.

01:16:40.640 --> 01:16:42.940
But we've had over...

01:16:42.940 --> 01:16:44.500
We've had centuries of dam buildings

01:16:44.500 --> 01:16:46.960
and there are some that are anachronistic.

01:16:46.960 --> 01:16:49.070
There are some that have outlived their usefulness

01:16:49.070 --> 01:16:51.160
and there are some that are even hazards.

01:16:51.160 --> 01:16:52.415
So thinking hard

01:16:52.415 --> 01:16:55.230
about how we keep streams connected together,

01:16:55.230 --> 01:16:57.880
thinking hard about rightsizing culverts,

01:16:57.880 --> 01:17:00.660
about taking down or adjusting dams

01:17:00.660 --> 01:17:03.040
that may no longer be of use.

01:17:03.040 --> 01:17:06.290
That's really important, both for us as a human society,

01:17:06.290 --> 01:17:08.820
and also for this whole ecosystem

01:17:08.820 --> 01:17:11.175
of watershed estuary connection.

01:17:11.175 --> 01:17:13.842
(water flowing)

01:17:31.864 --> 01:17:36.039
-: I've been removing dams for what, maybe 25, 30 years now.

01:17:36.039 --> 01:17:38.590
And most of what I'm working on

01:17:38.590 --> 01:17:40.800
are old relic, industrial dams

01:17:40.800 --> 01:17:43.483
that industry's stopped 50 years ago.

01:17:46.990 --> 01:17:49.820
And I think most people who think of what I do for a living

01:17:49.820 --> 01:17:52.300
assume I'm like an explosives expert.

01:17:52.300 --> 01:17:54.620
That I go when I blow up these dams all the time.

01:17:54.620 --> 01:17:55.720
But that's not really the case.

01:17:55.720 --> 01:17:57.840
It's pretty rare that we blow up a dam.

01:17:57.840 --> 01:17:58.673
Most of the time

01:17:58.673 --> 01:18:00.870
we're just bringing in the big yellow equipment.

01:18:02.130 --> 01:18:04.260
We wait until the flows are really, really low

01:18:04.260 --> 01:18:06.250
in the in the river for the most part.

01:18:06.250 --> 01:18:08.360
And then we go in with the mechanical equipment

01:18:08.360 --> 01:18:10.080
and we slowly lower it

01:18:10.080 --> 01:18:13.070
while controlling the flows at the same time.

01:18:13.070 --> 01:18:18.070
We need dams for things like water supply or flood control,

01:18:18.770 --> 01:18:20.530
but there's a lot of dams in the rivers

01:18:20.530 --> 01:18:22.280
that aren't serving a purpose anymore.

01:18:22.280 --> 01:18:24.010
There's a lot that just are remnants

01:18:24.010 --> 01:18:26.002
of this industrial legacy.

01:18:26.002 --> 01:18:28.410
(water flowing)

01:18:28.410 --> 01:18:30.230
It's interesting to think

01:18:30.230 --> 01:18:33.753
what now it looks kind of like a grown over forest,

01:18:34.900 --> 01:18:37.070
had a lot of structures here at one point.

01:18:37.070 --> 01:18:40.426
Had a lot of buildings. Had people taking their lunch.

01:18:40.426 --> 01:18:43.194
With their lunch pails and everything else.

01:18:43.194 --> 01:18:46.450
But now it's been kind of just left.

01:18:46.450 --> 01:18:49.010
Some of the dams have already collapsed

01:18:49.010 --> 01:18:50.770
and then some haven't.

01:18:50.770 --> 01:18:53.880
And so we get this kind of mix-match of history

01:18:53.880 --> 01:18:54.933
on these sites.

01:18:57.650 --> 01:18:59.480
So this barrier is quite a bit smaller

01:18:59.480 --> 01:19:00.830
than the one we were just at,

01:19:00.830 --> 01:19:04.570
but this is actually the first barrier on the system.

01:19:04.570 --> 01:19:08.460
So right now just might as well be Hoover dam

01:19:08.460 --> 01:19:10.830
to the fish get up to the base of this.

01:19:10.830 --> 01:19:13.990
And we can actually see Harry at the base right now.

01:19:13.990 --> 01:19:15.210
They get stopped right here.

01:19:15.210 --> 01:19:17.662
They never make it up to the base of the next dam.

01:19:17.662 --> 01:19:20.329
(water flowing)

01:19:24.330 --> 01:19:26.050
-: In tracking some of the case histories

01:19:26.050 --> 01:19:27.750
of our losses of these fish

01:19:27.750 --> 01:19:30.060
in rivers like the Susquehanna River, for instance,

01:19:30.060 --> 01:19:32.980
which was the premier shad river on the East coast,

01:19:32.980 --> 01:19:35.500
those populations went from the tens of millions

01:19:35.500 --> 01:19:38.250
to less than a hundred, some years,

01:19:38.250 --> 01:19:39.310
reaching this pointing ground.

01:19:39.310 --> 01:19:41.883
That's a five order of magnitude decline.

01:19:44.480 --> 01:19:46.470
When the colonists first came here from Europe,

01:19:46.470 --> 01:19:50.050
they were blown away by what they saw in our fresh waters.

01:19:50.050 --> 01:19:51.140
Remember that Europeans

01:19:51.140 --> 01:19:53.463
were coming from a continent even in the 1600s,

01:19:53.463 --> 01:19:56.920
that had been heavily over-fished over-timbered

01:19:56.920 --> 01:19:59.853
just overused environmentally for centuries.

01:19:59.853 --> 01:20:02.517
The Europeans were astounded by what they saw.

01:20:02.517 --> 01:20:05.616
The quotations are actually quite inspiring to see.

01:20:05.616 --> 01:20:07.222
They're not quantitative,

01:20:07.222 --> 01:20:09.658
but they tell you that they were simply wowed

01:20:09.658 --> 01:20:11.100
by what they saw.

01:20:11.100 --> 01:20:12.900
They talked about walking dry shard

01:20:12.900 --> 01:20:14.250
across the backs of these fishes,

01:20:14.250 --> 01:20:16.950
which is an exaggeration but it just tells you

01:20:16.950 --> 01:20:19.800
that there were an awful lot of fish there in those days.

01:20:25.626 --> 01:20:27.090
One of the cool things

01:20:27.090 --> 01:20:28.820
that if you're really lucky you might get to see

01:20:28.820 --> 01:20:30.320
even here in the Hudson Valley,

01:20:30.320 --> 01:20:35.124
are small eels climbing up waterfalls or the faces of dams,

01:20:35.124 --> 01:20:39.710
trying to get upstream trying to find habitats

01:20:39.710 --> 01:20:41.850
where they can settle in and mature.

01:20:41.850 --> 01:20:43.800
And it doesn't seem possible

01:20:43.800 --> 01:20:46.900
that these fish are climbing up wet rocks,

01:20:46.900 --> 01:20:49.913
but I've seen it myself, and it's a pretty awesome site.

01:20:54.440 --> 01:20:58.520
Even though eels can sometimes get around or ascend dams,

01:20:58.520 --> 01:21:00.890
anytime you have a barrier to migration,

01:21:00.890 --> 01:21:03.280
you're going to be limiting some of those animals.

01:21:03.280 --> 01:21:06.943
Some of that connectivity between upstream and downstream.

01:21:06.943 --> 01:21:08.360
Woman: Dump them in there.

01:21:08.360 --> 01:21:11.070
-: And remember, even though, yeah, sure,

01:21:11.070 --> 01:21:13.420
a few eels can get above those dams,

01:21:13.420 --> 01:21:16.580
that's a food source for the upriver ecosystem

01:21:16.580 --> 01:21:20.316
that those dams may be preventing and limiting.

01:21:20.316 --> 01:21:23.090
(water flowing)

01:21:23.090 --> 01:21:23.923
-: Another factor that I think

01:21:23.923 --> 01:21:25.390
does not get enough attention,

01:21:25.390 --> 01:21:28.000
is that many of the dams in the Hudson Valley

01:21:28.000 --> 01:21:30.260
and the entire Northeast are aging

01:21:30.260 --> 01:21:35.050
and are already beyond their expected life period.

01:21:35.050 --> 01:21:37.593
So we should be thinking about the future

01:21:37.593 --> 01:21:40.770
and also in relation to just the sheer safety factor

01:21:40.770 --> 01:21:43.880
of these dams which are not gonna last forever

01:21:43.880 --> 01:21:45.425
and have a finite existence.

01:21:45.425 --> 01:21:48.092
(water flowing)

01:21:48.960 --> 01:21:53.140
-: You would have thought we'd had a full lifecycle process

01:21:53.140 --> 01:21:54.240
and economic process

01:21:54.240 --> 01:21:57.360
that included that full life cycle for a dam,

01:21:57.360 --> 01:21:58.570
but that's not what happened.

01:21:58.570 --> 01:22:01.280
So we had something built, we had it used,

01:22:01.280 --> 01:22:02.752
served an economic purpose

01:22:02.752 --> 01:22:05.850
and it was built on a public trust resource.

01:22:05.850 --> 01:22:08.940
So it was built on a resource that was for everyone

01:22:08.940 --> 01:22:11.070
but then there was no funding source

01:22:11.070 --> 01:22:12.910
put into the end of its life,

01:22:12.910 --> 01:22:14.980
to what was gonna happen in the end.

01:22:14.980 --> 01:22:17.760
And unlike a building kind of rotting in place

01:22:17.760 --> 01:22:19.727
let's say in the center of a town

01:22:19.727 --> 01:22:22.077
that really becomes a nuisance and a hazard,

01:22:22.077 --> 01:22:25.070
and then at some point, the owner of that building

01:22:25.070 --> 01:22:27.640
is really responsible for taking that out,

01:22:27.640 --> 01:22:29.330
that's not what has happened on rivers.

01:22:29.330 --> 01:22:33.230
We've had these just left 50, 100 years ago,

01:22:33.230 --> 01:22:35.287
and just kind of rotting on their own,

01:22:35.287 --> 01:22:37.010
and they industry's long gone.

01:22:37.010 --> 01:22:39.427
(soft music)

01:22:41.010 --> 01:22:44.160
-: These are the ghosts of capitalism past.

01:22:44.160 --> 01:22:46.460
People made their fortunes and abandoned them.

01:22:48.390 --> 01:22:51.640
They are now an ecological problem

01:22:51.640 --> 01:22:53.173
that we have to resolve.

01:22:55.760 --> 01:22:59.330
in places like Newburgh, there are series of dams

01:22:59.330 --> 01:23:01.740
and it could all be within a few blocks.

01:23:01.740 --> 01:23:03.133
One after another.

01:23:04.910 --> 01:23:07.170
Each person, each miller wanted a dam.

01:23:07.170 --> 01:23:09.270
They wanted their certain amount of water.

01:23:10.480 --> 01:23:14.350
And so these now represent bonafide obstacles.

01:23:14.350 --> 01:23:17.320
So if you remove one, there's one behind it.

01:23:17.320 --> 01:23:19.630
And then there's another, and then there's another.

01:23:19.630 --> 01:23:23.413
So we have to engage the community one dam at a time.

01:23:24.267 --> 01:23:26.684
(soft music)

01:23:44.650 --> 01:23:45.860
-: A lot of the films

01:23:45.860 --> 01:23:48.360
and a lot of the publicity about dam removal

01:23:48.360 --> 01:23:50.230
are the big West Coast dams.

01:23:50.230 --> 01:23:54.620
And they're huge names, Hoover dam and others. Huge dams.

01:23:54.620 --> 01:23:57.260
And a 10 foot dam blocks fish

01:23:57.260 --> 01:23:59.583
just as much as a 500 foot dam.

01:24:02.630 --> 01:24:05.310
You can prioritize dams

01:24:05.310 --> 01:24:07.120
and sort them in a whole bunch of different ways.

01:24:07.120 --> 01:24:09.780
You could sort them by, which is the most hazardous?

01:24:09.780 --> 01:24:12.900
You could sort them by, which dam owner

01:24:12.900 --> 01:24:15.360
is most likely to let the dam go?

01:24:15.360 --> 01:24:17.990
Which of course, the best way for the fish's point of view

01:24:17.990 --> 01:24:19.720
is to say which dams

01:24:19.720 --> 01:24:22.673
are going to benefit aquatic life the most.

01:24:23.736 --> 01:24:26.153
(soft music)

01:24:47.470 --> 01:24:51.990
This dam is gonna be extraordinarily expensive to fix

01:24:51.990 --> 01:24:53.917
when the time comes to fix it.

01:24:53.917 --> 01:24:56.334
(soft music)

01:25:00.100 --> 01:25:04.170
But sooner or later, the fish will win.

01:25:04.170 --> 01:25:05.700
Sooner or later it's coming down

01:25:05.700 --> 01:25:10.263
because nobody's going to spend $10 million to fix this dam.

01:25:11.760 --> 01:25:12.610
Not gonna happen.

01:25:14.080 --> 01:25:15.870
So sooner or later the fish are gonna win.

01:25:15.870 --> 01:25:17.220
It's just a matter of time.

01:25:18.191 --> 01:25:20.608
(soft music)

01:25:22.144 --> 01:25:25.311
(boat engine roaring)

01:25:36.114 --> 01:25:37.360
-: We are on the Wynantskill,

01:25:37.360 --> 01:25:39.830
which about three miles south of Troy

01:25:39.830 --> 01:25:42.190
which is the end of the estuary.

01:25:42.190 --> 01:25:44.510
There was a heavy industry here.

01:25:44.510 --> 01:25:47.640
And this little tributary comes in from the east.

01:25:47.640 --> 01:25:51.020
And for 15 years, and I'd been looking at a dam

01:25:51.020 --> 01:25:54.653
that I thought was a concrete wall, immovable structure.

01:25:58.060 --> 01:26:01.390
We've been talking to New York State DEC Estuary Program

01:26:01.390 --> 01:26:05.660
for years about their initiative to take down barriers

01:26:05.660 --> 01:26:06.923
for fish migration.

01:26:07.850 --> 01:26:12.120
And in May, 2016, City of Troy came down here

01:26:12.120 --> 01:26:15.530
and it took a loader and a cutting torch,

01:26:15.530 --> 01:26:19.203
and the barrier that had been there for 85 years,

01:26:20.248 --> 01:26:21.081
it was gone.

01:26:24.170 --> 01:26:26.370
Five days after it came down,

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then they put a camera in the water right here behind me,

01:26:31.120 --> 01:26:34.988
and there were herring coming up the Wynantskill.

01:26:34.988 --> 01:26:38.233
(water flowing)

01:26:38.233 --> 01:26:40.650
(soft music)

01:26:49.770 --> 01:26:51.460
They hadn't reached the spawning ground

01:26:51.460 --> 01:26:54.230
and they were gonna fulfill their destiny.

01:26:54.230 --> 01:26:55.063
And when you think

01:26:55.063 --> 01:26:58.360
about what's happening here in these migrations,

01:26:58.360 --> 01:27:01.460
is these fish are born in the upper hatchs.

01:27:01.460 --> 01:27:05.570
They had left when they were this big years ago.

01:27:05.570 --> 01:27:07.650
They came back on faith,

01:27:07.650 --> 01:27:12.590
driven by forces that are beyond all of our understanding

01:27:13.510 --> 01:27:16.610
and they found that fast water coming over the dam

01:27:16.610 --> 01:27:19.940
and fast water to them says it was a tributary.

01:27:19.940 --> 01:27:20.840
We wanna go in there.

01:27:20.840 --> 01:27:22.680
We wanna get above the tide,

01:27:22.680 --> 01:27:24.380
we wanna get away from the predators.

01:27:24.380 --> 01:27:27.930
So for 85 years, their parents, their grandparents

01:27:27.930 --> 01:27:28.900
their great-grandparents,

01:27:28.900 --> 01:27:29.870
their great great, great, great,

01:27:29.870 --> 01:27:31.620
great, great, great, grandparents

01:27:31.620 --> 01:27:34.883
had been coming up and knocking on the door at that dam.

01:27:36.590 --> 01:27:37.423
Nobody home.

01:27:40.550 --> 01:27:43.830
A lot of times people thank us, Riverkeeper,

01:27:43.830 --> 01:27:46.120
they'll say, "Oh, thank you you. You're doing God's work."

01:27:46.120 --> 01:27:48.093
Well when we took down that barrier,

01:27:49.700 --> 01:27:50.990
we were part of it.

01:27:50.990 --> 01:27:53.520
We felt like we were doing God's work.

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It's a wondrous thing to be involved in something like that.

01:27:59.710 --> 01:28:04.490
It was the first barrier in the history of the Hudson Valley

01:28:04.490 --> 01:28:07.024
removed expressly for fish passage.

01:28:07.024 --> 01:28:09.780
(water flowing)

01:28:09.780 --> 01:28:12.660
The dams were all built one at a time.

01:28:12.660 --> 01:28:15.268
They're gonna come down one at a time.

01:28:15.268 --> 01:28:20.268
(soft music)
(water flowing)

01:28:33.725 --> 01:28:36.142
(soft music)