Tracing a River´s Toxic Pollution: A Case Study of the Hudson

An inventory of 185 dischargers of 554 discharges of 26 hazardous chemicals to the Hudson River basin for a six-year period (1978-1983) was created using data available in state and federal regulatory agency files. Available data were generally inadequate for calculating amounts of chemicals discharged to the Hudson. This was primarily due to incomplete and, in some cases, false information in the regulatory agency files. Also, no trends in discharges over time (increases or decreases) for the past 10 years could be discerned. This was due to incomplete regulatory files and to variability in reporting requirements for dischargers.