Power on the Hudson

Storm King Mountain and the Emergence of Modern American Environmentalism

Robert D. Lifset

• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9780822979555
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

The beauty of the Hudson River Valley was a legendary subject for artists during the nineteenth century. They portrayed its bucolic settings and humans in harmony with nature as the physical manifestation of God's work on earth. More than a hundred years later, those sentiments would be tested as never before.In the fall of 1962, Consolidated Edison of New York, the nation's largest utility company, announced plans for the construction of a pumped-storage hydroelectric power plant at Storm King Mountain on the Hudson River, forty miles north of New York City. Over the next eighteen years, their struggle against environmentalists would culminate in the abandonment of the project.

Robert D. Lifset offers an original case history of this monumental event in environmental history, when a small group of concerned local residents initiated a landmark case of ecology versus energy production. He follows the progress of this struggle, as Con Ed won approvals and permits early on, but later lost ground to environmentalists who were able to raise questions about the potential damage to the habitat of Hudson River striped bass.

Lifset uses the struggle over Storm King to examine how environmentalism changed during the 1960s and 1970s. He also views the financial challenges and increasingly frequent blackouts faced by Con Ed, along with the pressure to produce ever-larger quantities of energy.

As Lifset demonstrates, the environmental cause was greatly empowered by the fact that through this struggle, for the first time, environmentalists were able to gain access to the federal courts. The environmental cause was also greatly advanced by adopting scientific evidence of ecological change, combined with mounting public awareness of the environmental consequences of energy production and consumption. These became major factors supporting the case against Con Ed, spawning a range of new local, regional, and national environmental organizations and bequeathing to the Hudson River Valley a vigilant and intense environmental awareness. A new balance of power emerged, and energy companies would now be held to higher standards that protected the environment.

Part I

The Growing Importance of Ecology within Environmentalism

Storm King, 1962–1965

While Consolidated Edison would eventually come to be depicted in the press as a bumbling and incompetent utility, the manner in which it pursued the construction of a pumped-storage hydroelectric plant at Storm King Mountain reveals a savvy and sophisticated company. In the early years of the struggle to build the plant, Con Ed quickly gained the support of the state's political establishment, the residents of Cornwall, and the leadership of the region's conservationist organizations.

Two developments, which emerged around 1964, began to change the nature of this struggle. First, opponents of the plant began to benefit from the larger changes in American society that were making environmental ideas and values more persuasive. An increasing number of people were open to seeing the struggle over Storm King as the opposition saw it—that this was not a struggle over a single project but an effort to protect the larger Hudson River valley from an undesirable future. It was an effort to do something locally to fight back against the larger national environmental crisis. Second, while opponents of the plant began by basing their opposition on the damage the plant would do to the aesthetic qualities of the Hudson River valley, those arguments would eventually be replaced by objections, based on technical information, to the damage the plant would do to the ecology of the immediate environment. Of those issues, the only one Con Ed would be unable to sufficiently address was the damage the Storm King project would do to the striped bass population that spawned in the Hudson River at precisely the place this plant was to be built.

The chapters in part I describe a grass-roots environmental community undergoing immense change. Without the benefit of protecting a national park or forest, a tiny, weak, disorganized opposition remade itself into a powerful force for (and of) nature, altering the political and legal landscape along the way. The increasing importance of ecology would also serve to promote the professionalization of environmental advocacy. This transformation helps to explain how and why environmentalism increased in scope and pace in the 1960s.

1

The Co-optation of Establishment Environmentalism and the Emergence of Scenic Hudson

Consolidated Edison did not simply march into the Hudson River valley and expect to build a large pumped-storage hydroelectric power plant. The company was careful to cultivate the support of local political leaders, as well as the region's leading environmentalists. Con Ed was successful in gaining the support of the valley's most powerful and established environmental groups because these environmentalists lacked any framework or understanding of ecology; instead, they were motivated largely by aesthetics. Yet, aesthetics can be subjective.¹ Con Ed successfully exploited this weakness by dividing and co-opting the established environmental organizations in Hudson River valley. This strategy led to the creation of a new organization—Scenic Hudson—comprising a diverse cross-section of the region's environmental community and devoting itself exclusively to stopping Con Ed from building a power plant at Storm King Mountain.

CORNWALL

Con Ed was able to co-opt the established environmental groups in part because the plant quickly enjoyed widespread favor within Cornwall. The Village of Cornwall lies about forty miles north of Manhattan on the west bank of the Hudson River. The village itself lies almost wholly within the town of Cornwall, which surrounds it on all sides save the east, where the town limit is the river.² The riverfront was a busy place in the nineteenth century as Cornwall became a resort town for New Yorkers escaping epidemics of cholera, yellow fever, and malaria that repeatedly ravaged the city. Medical theory held that these diseases were caused by miasma—gas produced by organic matter decomposing under humid conditions.³ The prescription was to relocate to an elevated environment of fresh, pine-scented air, which, it was believed, would expedite the healing process. The line that separated the fresh mountain air from the stagnant coastal air was called the “death-line,” and it was believed to lie somewhere just south of the Highlands. Cornwall was situated just to the north of this “death-line,” making it one of the closest destinations where the afflicted could hope to recover.

By the 1960s, the riverfront was largely abandoned and Cornwall, with almost no industry, was attempting to confront a range of problems, one of which was a drought that had persisted over much of the state since about 1960. Considering the difficulties many of Cornwall's neighbors had in securing water, this problem was foremost in Mayor Michael Donahue's mind when he stared at the model of a giant power plant that promised to forever change his village.

Con Ed presented Donahue with its plans for the plant on Wednesday, September 26, one day before the New York Times announced them in a front-page story. After overcoming his initial shock, Donahue quickly figured that the plant would benefit his village. With a declining economy, the village was considering a tax increase to meet its responsibilities. The proposed plant would provide construction jobs and would require personnel to run it. Con Ed was a private utility, so this non-fossil-fuel, nonpolluting plant at the town's edge would mean millions in tax revenue that could go to much-needed improvements. The economic boost from the plant might even lead to a lowering of the tax burden on the village's residents. The plant could attract other light industrial concerns into the area, creating even more jobs and generally raising property values in the village. And finally, though the company would take possession of the village reservoir to store water pumped from the river below, Con Ed promised, before the plant was ever constructed, to provide an adequate water supply for the village by improving its smaller supplemental reservoirs and by tapping into the New York City aqueduct, which conveniently ran under the village.

One village trustee told a local newspaper that he endorsed the project as “one of the most fortunate” things to happen to the village and that he believed, after talking to the mayor, that Cornwall would most likely come out with a better water supply. Another local official agreed, adding that “on its first appearance without town or village engineer advice, it looks like a very lucky break for Cornwall.” This view was common among the town's leadership.⁴

A local newspaper reported that the mayor had been warned that some people objected to the “alleged ruination of ‘natural beauty.’” The mayor responded, “I can't imagine how anyone could believe that this project will ruin any natural beauty[;] chances are, you will be able to drive on every road in the area and not see a sign of the project.”⁵

THE ENVIRONMENTAL ESTABLISHMENT

There existed two established and connected voices for conservation within the Hudson Highlands, organizations created by earlier generations of activists concerned about the local environment: the Palisades Interstate Park Commission and the Hudson River Conservation Society. If these groups joined the opposition, Con Ed would have a hard time building the plant.

In the 1960s, the Hudson River Conservation Society was still at work carrying out its original mission: identifying parcels of land going on the market in threatened areas, publicizing the scenic beauty and recreational values of the river valley (through a commissioned film), and concerning itself with air and water pollution from industries and from raw sewage. By the 1960s, the HRCS was led by William Henry Osborn, the son of the society's founder, William Church Osborn.

Several generations of the Osborn family had worked toward preserving the east bank of the Hudson. William Church Osborn's brother, Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborn, was president of the American Museum of Natural History and helped start the Save the Redwoods League (an organization devoted to preserving the redwood forests in California).⁶ His son, Fairfield Osborn, was for many years president of the New York Zoological Society and was instrumental in making the Bronx Zoo a center for the protection of endangered species. He was also the author of Our Plundered Planet (1948), an early cry for environmental awareness. William Church Osborn's daughter, Mrs. Vanderbilt Webb, succeeded him as president of the HRCS, and one of his sons (William Henry Osborn) succeeded her. William Church Osborn's oldest son, Gen. Frederick Osborn, served as a commissioner of the PIPC for more than forty years (1927–71).⁷

Con Ed's proposed hydroelectric plant was first discussed by the HRCS's executive committee in October 1962. The committee believed the primary danger to the river lay in the possibility that an “unsightly power line” would be strung across the river between Storm King and Breakneck Ridge. The committee asked the company to consider a different site for power lines to cross the river or to run the cables under the river. The society took pains to communicate that it did not oppose the material progress represented by this important new source of electrical energy for the public.⁸

One writer has concluded that the Osborn family believed that Con Ed's project was a test of their social responsibility. Should some scenery be sacrificed so that New York City could enjoy lower cost electricity? The answer was yes, so long as power lines did not visibly cross the river. Those who wished to take a tougher stand remained very aware that the power lines would have been easily seen from the large living room window of William Henry Osborn's home in Garrison, New York.⁹

Roughly one hundred HRCS members attended the group's 1963 annual meeting, during which Osborn defended his position; he argued that rather than attempt to stop these projects it was wiser to work with Con Ed and bring what pressure could be brought to bear to modify their plans in such a way as to do the least possible damage to the scenic beauty of the river.¹⁰ Osborn reported that, in part due to society pressure, Con Ed had agreed to place the power lines under the river. The company also agreed to site the plant itself on three separate terraced steps instead of at one level, thereby eliminating an unsightly, quarry-like cliff on the side of the mountain. The society voted to approve the agreement Osborn had worked out with Con Ed.¹¹

As the controversy surrounding the plant increased, the society's position and its compromises became increasingly objectionable to an ever-larger number of members. While additional meetings of the board produced resolutions calling into question the impact of the plant on the aesthetic values of the Hudson, they did not reverse Osborn's (and the society's) support for the plant. Although the new power plant might have been objectionable from an aesthetic viewpoint, it also represented progress. The ideology of progress was so ingrained, even in those members whose associational interests seemed to put them in a position to question it, that they could not question the need for the plant nor confront the utility company directly.

Yet, pressure continued to build. In April 1964, Osborn again defended his leadership, writing that the position of the society was “based on the feeling that Con Edison's proposal meant such advantages to such a large consuming public that it was bound to be eventually endorsed by higher authority.” Indeed, a number of powerful individuals and organizations had informed the society of their support for the proposed plant and their belief that the plant would not do serious damage to the landscape around the river. These supporters included Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, Robert Moses, and the Palisades Interstate Park Commission. As a result, Osborn believed that fighting the entire project was a lost cause, and he reminded the membership of the success born from this pragmatic position. Con Ed had agreed not to run the power lines above the river and had made changes to the design of the power plant site.¹²

This view would become increasingly difficult to defend in light of the damage being done to scenic resources across the country. In arguing that the problem facing the society was not a local one, Carl Carmer, vice-chair of the HRCS, wrote that “all over America far-seeing citizens are aware that the wholesale defacement of the beauty that created our love of the American landscape is threatened by commercial and opportunistic disregard of its values.”¹³ Beauty was not a luxury but a necessity for the preservation of the American ideals of self-discipline and self-sacrifice. These were being threatened by the lure of material progress and money.

Stewart Udall, secretary of interior under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, described the same problem: “America today stands poised on the pinnacle of wealth and power, yet we live in a land of vanishing beauty, of increasing ugliness, of shrinking open space, and of an over-all environment that is diminished daily by pollution and noise and blight. This, in brief, is the quiet conservation crisis of the 1960's.” Udall would ultimately be credited with coining the phrase “the quiet crisis” to describe this growing view. The “crisis” would not remain quiet for long.¹⁴

From a very early point, diehard opponents of Con Ed's plans would refuse to see the project (as Osborn did) in isolation; instead, they would come to view it as a harbinger of the industrialization of the Hudson River valley. Perhaps more importantly, many environmentalists, feeling overwhelmed at the changes they had witnessed during their lives, developed a militant, winner-take-all attitude when it came to land-use struggles. Carl Carmer pleaded with the society's board of directors that April to take a more definitive stand: “It is my conviction that those who would destroy the beauty of our landscape should be fought off—not appeased. Appeasement is a postponement and if we are to preserve the landscape of the America we have come to love, postponement is the equivalent of complete surrender.”¹⁵

Osborn's statement was, for the most part, also the view of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission. But there was a significant difference; the PIPC had greater leverage. In 1922, Dr. Ernest Stillman, a resident of Cornwall, donated 800 acres of mountain and riverfront land to the commission for the creation of a Storm King section of the Palisades Park. By 1962, Storm King Park contained 1,102 acres. If the plant was to be constructed, the company would have to work with the PIPC because it is difficult to condemn parkland (the State of New York requires an act of the legislature to release parkland). Many believed that Palisades parkland would be even more difficult to condemn, for the PIPC was the product of an interstate compact with the full legal force of a treaty.¹⁶

Con Ed understood that fighting the commission could be costly and dangerous. The proposed plant would not require significant park acreage, and the company had been quietly purchasing privately held land in the vicinity and was prepared to condemn land owned by any remaining holdouts. But the company did need easements before it could build water tunnels beneath parkland. So Con Ed elected to work with the commission. What quickly developed was a curious and secret working understanding. However, the company was not always adept in advancing its plans.

Laurance Rockefeller, chair of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission and the brother of Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, was annoyed at having to learn about Con Ed's project by reading about it in the newspapers. He was also annoyed that Con Ed was planning on using Palisades parkland for the plant's powerhouse.

This Rockefeller brother was the last person Con Ed wanted to annoy. He had made a name for himself by taking up the conservationist interests of the family. In addition to the PIPC, he chaired President Eisenhower's Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission (1958), which created the Land and Water...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Environmentalism, Energy, and the Hudson River Valley
• Part I. The Growing Importance of Ecology within Environmentalism: Storm King, 1962–1965
• Part II. The Struggle between Energy and Environmentalism: Storm King, 1966–1972
• Part III. A New Balance of Power: Storm King, 1970–1980
• Epilogue: The Legacy of Storm King, 1981–2012
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index