Construction Commences on the Rivers and Estuaries Center

The first in several major steps begins

by Jennifer Sipple

Over the past couple of years, Beacon residents have become aware of the expanding presence of the Rivers and Estuaries Center now located on Main Street.  Questions loom: will the future Center bring new businesses to Beacon, more job opportunities and higher real estate values?  Although the project is still in the incubation stage, the Rivers and Estuaries people and their planners have fleshed out a vision.  Here’s what they say we can expect to see in the very near future.

“Building 1,” as it is lovingly named, is the first building to be incorporated into the future Rivers and Estuaries Center.  Presently, it is just the shell of a 19th century brick building that once served as part of an old brick works located on the northern tip of Dennings Point.  It is about to undergo some serious renovation. Building 1 will primarily serve as a visitor’s center featuring educational activities and displays as well as a learning lab for academics and the public.  A second role for the building is as a living example of sustainable building design.  The structure itself will educate the public with its composting toilets, solar panels, and “green roof” comprised of indigenous plants that will slow the building’s heat gain and loss.

The completion of Building 1 is estimated for early next winter, and the official groundbreaking for its renovation will take place sometime this March.  Mayor Clara Lou Gould, County Executive Robert Steinhouse, and representatives from the Parks and Recreation and the Department of Environmental Conservation are anticipated to be in attendance.  The public will be invited.  The Center plans to post notices about the groundbreaking and to send announcements to local businesses.

Whereas the focus of Building 1 will be on education, the focus of the second building on Dennings Point destined to become part of the Rivers and Estuaries Center -- the Main Building -- will be primarily a research facility, a home for labratories and conference rooms.

The future Main Building once housed a former paper clip factory located at the entrance to Dennings Point.  Eventually, this vast skeleton of a building will become known as the Center for Advanced Environmental Technology.  Governor Pataki has set aside $25 million in the state budget to fund construction of this second building. The Master Planning stage for the Main Building will begin late spring or summer of this year and the construction should be completed by 2009 or 2010.

Riverscope involves placing sensor devices at various stations in the river in order to monitor sediment movement, water flow, and the chemical composition of the river.  The beauty of this program is that all of the data collected is delivered to researchers in real-time, meaning that they will see what’s happening in the river at the exact moment that it is occurring.

“There is very little real-time technology for rivers out there because rivers and estuaries are so seldom studied,” says Amy Norquist, the Director of Development and Communications, “so we’ll be developing new technology on site.”  To meet that end, the Rivers and Estuaries Center is already working with 43 colleges and universities along the Hudson and with out-of-state organizations such as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.  Norquist says that real-time continuous monitoring will act as an early warning system and enable scientists and researchers to gain knowledge that will benefit the public as well as the environment.

For example, researchers will be able to determine when fish larvae are in the vicinity of a power plant.  With that knowledge, a plant can be requested to cool down during egg-hatching time.  It’s possible that this use of technology could help power plants meet their regulatory responsibilities at the same time as it is saving millions of larvae every year.

According to Norquist, there are many colleges and universities along the river that will embark on greening programs in the near future. She says that Riverscope will monitor the effect these new programs are having on the quality of storm-water flowing into the river during heavy rains and flooding.  (Green roofs, such as the one designed to cover Building 1, will be part of these greening programs and should significantly cut the amount of storm-water going into the river.) Norquist says that Riverscope should be able to pinpoint the successes and failures of the schools’ efforts by monitoring water quality before and after these university programs have begun. 

It is important to be collecting data over a long period of time.  It has been public knowledge for over 30 years that the Hudson is full of PCBs, yet, apparently, there is no sophisticated system to monitor them.  The Center intends for Riverscope to play a central role in creating such a system.

The third site slated to become part of the Rivers and Estuaries trilogy is a private dock in the future Beacon Harbor.  Although said dock does not yet exist, there are plans afoot for a renovated harbor, and it is there that the Center hopes to park a large research vessel. 

Regan Chichester, Project Manager for the Rivers and Estuaries Center, is one of 25 or so members of the Harbor Planning committee – a group comprised primarily of Beacon officials, local organizations, stakeholders, and citizens.  Chichester says that it is too early to determine what the Harbor is going to look like, however, the committee’s overall goal for the harbor is to revitalize the southern end as a small working harbor with enhanced public access while preserving the natural habitat of the northern end.

It seems that the Harbor Committee’s plans for the harbor reflect the Rivers and Estuaries Center’s intentions for their facilities:  to lure people down to the river.  When more folks are “down by the riverside,” scientists and laymen alike may experience the mysteries of the Hudson – the river that flows both ways – an initiation of sorts that the Center must hope will keep people coming back for more. 

Sidebar: Do Eagles and Backhoes Play Well together?

When questioned about the controversial banning of residents at Dennings Point due to eagle nesting, Norquist says that people walking on the southern end could cause a real problem for the birds – more than their own construction further north might.  She believes that eagles tend to get more spooked by people near them than by construction a mile away.  “We’re huge fans of eagles, and the Fish and Wildlife Department determined that [construction] wouldn’t cause a disturbance,” says Norquist.  Apparently, a monitor from the Rivers and Estuaries Center has been observing the point all winter to figure out how many eagles are there and to check on the influence of the noise on the their nests.

Comments

[Hippie]

HEY,
billp, Do you have anything negative to say about this story?

[billp]

i am all for it and belive it is the best thing to happen to beacon in years.

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[Stephen C. Knowles, PhD]

I have seen the 25 million dollar funding of the Rivers and Estuaries Center (now Beacon Institute) before. Can you verify that level of funding for me? I don't know if you realize there are many very fishy things associated with the Beacon Institute, funding being just one of them. John Cronin doesn't even have a college degree, and there isn't a single scientist on the board of directors of the Beacon Institute. There are major questions regarding what has happened with the State funds that originally went into this. (personally, I wouldn't be surprised if Pataki has a nice offshore bank account with a significant chunk of the money, but that's just based on living in the most corrupt state in the Union)