NEWBURGH – Many of the federal nautical charts mapping the bottom of the Hudson River are well over 100 years old and that poses a threat to oil barges and tankers traversing the river with millions of gallons of oil, US Senator Charles Schumer said Monday.
New York’s senior senator was at the Newburgh waterfront to emphasize the importance of updating those maps ASAP. NOAA says it will do it, but not until 2019.
“We all know a river is an organic, living, breathing thing that changes,” Schumer said. “The currents change, the shoreline changes, man and woman, man broadly defined, does things to the river and it changes. In certain parts of the federal channel right behind me haven’t been surveyed since 1939. Some of the recent surroundings are before 1900, so it’s a huge problem especially when you consider all the factors that can change a river’s landscape – erosion, weather change, over the course of a whole century.”
Newburgh Mayor Judy Kennedy said the river is important to the city’s commerce and to have accurate nautical maps is extremely important.
Schumer, right, accompanied by Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus and Mayor Kennedy
