How far up is the Hudson River salty?


How far up is the Hudson River salty? The salt front (100 milligrams per liter of chloride) ranges from below Hastings-on-Hudson to New Hamburg during most years, but can move as far north as Poughkeepsie (which uses the Hudson as a drinking water source) during periods of drought.


How far up the Hudson River is tidal?

For about half its length, the Hudson is actually a tidal estuary, where salt water from the ocean combines with fresh water from northern tributaries. The Hudson is tidal from the mouth of the Hudson in New York Harbor to the Federal Dam in Troy, a distance of about 153 miles.


What is the salinity level of the Hudson River?

Seawater from the ocean generally has a salinity level of about 35,000ppm. Freshwater draining into the Hudson River usually has a salinity level of about 25-50ppm.


Are there fish in the Hudson River?

Saving the River's Fish. For schools of migratory shad, sturgeon, river herring, blue crab, menhaden and striped bass, the Hudson is an unimpeded corridor from the Atlantic to their ancestral spawning grounds.


Is the Hudson River drinkable?

An estimated 100,000 people in the Hudson Valley rely on the Hudson for their drinking water.


Why is the Hudson River so gross?

Other ongoing pollution problems affecting the river include: accidental sewage discharges, urban runoff, heavy metals, furans, dioxin, pesticides, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Numerous factories that once lined the Hudson River poured garbage and industrial waste directly into the river.


What lies at the bottom of the Hudson River?

Underneath the surface of the Hudson River Estuary exists a wide range of river-bottom habitats-from the shallow, muddy bottom in the Tappan Zee and other shallow near-shore areas, to the deep, sandy bottom in the navigation channel that runs north to Albany.


What was dumped in the Hudson River?

General Electric dumped an estimated 1.3 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Hudson River between 1947 and 1977. The PCB discharges came from two GE capacitor manufacturing plants located in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls, New York, about 50 miles north of Albany.


Is the Hudson River too salty to drink?

The “Salt Front” is the location where the river is 100 ppm salinity. 100 ppm salinity falls within acceptable drinking water standards.


Why does the salt front move along the Hudson River?

In years with average precipitation falling in usual seasonal patterns, spring runoff holds the leading edge of dilute sea water-the salt front-downriver in the Tappan Zee. As runoff slackens in summer, the salt front pushes northward to Newburgh Bay, and further-to Poughkeepsie-in droughts.


Where is the salt front in the Hudson River?

The lower portion of the Hudson River is an estuary. Here fresh water flowing down the river meets salt water pushing in from the Atlantic Ocean. The leading edge of seawater entering the estuary is called the salt front. Its location influences where animals and plants live in the Hudson.