MID-HUDSON – The Hudson 7, the municipalities that get their drinking water from the Hudson River, Thursday, renewed their call for a proposed electric cable to be placed on land instead of buried in the river as it passed through the Mid-Hudson.
The drinking water intermunicipal council, Hudson 7, is comprised of the City and Town of Poughkeepsie, Village and Town of Rhinebeck, and the towns of Esopus, Hyde Park and Lloyd.
During a virtual meeting with officials of the Champlain Hudson Power Express and Transmission Developers, Inc. on Thursday, they expressed concerns about turbidity in the river from the digging of the trench to bury an electric cable underwater.
Paul Malmrose, the technical advisor to Hudson 7, said the process can cause serious issues for the drinking water system.
“The construction will present really unacceptable risks to 106,000 people, three hospitals, three colleges, and even a potential risk to TDI,” he said. “We can hardly image in the hospital lost water for a day or two so we don’t want to have anything like Flint, Michigan.”
The dual-cable electric line would run from Canada to Queens, New York along a 334-mile path that would be a combination of underground and underwater.
The Hudson 7 said instead of burying the two five-inch cables in the river in this area, they should be buried on land.
