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| Railroad tracks at Fishkill Creek |
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| Marsh at Fishkill Creek |
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| Composting toilet at Beacon Institute |
We hear about railways and how they
advanced the Hudson River Valley, but we don’t usually hear about how they affected
the environment. What I was really thinking about while watching the train go
by is how I wished I was on it so that I could see a different view of
Bannerman’s Island and how the castle looks. The creation of the railroads
changed the whole flow of the Hudson River by changing the flow of streams and
rivers that feed the Hudson. I presume that could have been a problem for
sailors and the way they navigated their ships when the railroads were first
built. But it also affected the ecosystem. The marsh shown above is one of many
the railroads created along with wetlands. But I don’t necessarily see this as
a bad thing. Marshes and wetlands help clean water, which means the Hudson
could be less contaminated. But as Toby said you have to see this change in the
ecosystem in different perspectives. The marshes also bring mosquitoes and
other insects many people don’t like. I know I personally wouldn’t want a
wetland or marsh by my house because mosquitoes are so unwelcoming. But it is
so true that any time you change the ecosystem it will have consequences, so I guess
we have to pick our poison. One of the things I think we can all agree that is
a poison, are the water chestnuts. These are invasive species and throughout our
adventure during the day I’ve learned about many other invasive species. While
walking through the trail I noticed the bricks that have been molded into the
ground. Even though this could be a bad thing, I think it serves a great purpose
at remembering what was going on in that area. The Hudson was the leading
manufacturer in bricks (and leading in a lot of others things so I’ve noticed)
and the remnants in the ground and at Madam Brett Park proves it. I think what I enjoyed most in today’s
adventure was looking at the toilets (never thought I’d say that). It was
really amazing and I think this is something we should all invest in. I kept
saying it saves 60,000 liters of water each year because that’s such a great
savings. I know it’s hard to pay more taxes and afford these types of machinery
but I can’t see why this isn’t a huge priority for us.
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| Remnants of brick building and pipes at Brett Park |
Water chestnuts during the Beacon
Institute trail is not the only invasive species we’ve encountered today.
Nearly one-third of the plants in Madam Brett Park are non-native but have
become prevalent throughout the Hudson Valley. The Madam Brett Park sign also
spoke about the water chestnuts at Fishkill Creek saying that they have taken
over wetlands which were populated by native water celery. Something also
related to the Fishkill Creek trail are the bricks. The building we passed
during our walk at Brett Park was built from the bricks manufactured in the
Hudson Valley. What I thought was cool was that the building still had the
pipes which would dump wastes into the Hudson River. I cringed just thinking of
how many dirty things once came out of that pipe. But I moved along once again
because I had to. We saw a wetland and I knew right away the railroad caused it
because right behind it was the railroad tracks. These areas affect the Hudson because
they are the ones feeding the river. But I think it’s okay to have them as long
as they aren’t in my backyard.
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| View from our walkway on the Hudson |
I think I learned a lot more about
the Hudson River reading those little signs on the bridge than I have reading
200 pages in The Hudson. The Hudson
River’s width ranges from 3-4 feet at Lake Tear of the Clouds to 3.5 miles at
Haverstraw Bay. The part of the river we walked over today was .5 miles wide.
The water that was below us is 50-60 feet deep and has very thick sediment. The
thickest point in the Hudson is at West Point which is 175 feet. That just
helps to show how hard the dredging will be because the sediment is so thick. The
traffic on the Hudson River used to be people transporting back and forth but
now the traffic consists of tugboats pushing tanker barges carrying petroleum,
gasoline, fuel, and other products. It’s hard to imagine only being able to
take a boat to go wherever we need to go and even though the cars and other
transporting source we have affects the environment, I’m really glad we have
them.
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