My friend John Lipscomb is the captain of R. Ian Fletcher, the Riverkeeper patrol boat. I’ve known him since I was a child as our parents were friends and so I know that water—the rivers and oceans--are in his blood; he’s lived on the Hudson for most of his life. I know few people as passionate about the environmental issues facing the Hudson as John—closing Indian Point, shutting down the shad fishing industry so that the fish can swim free, and clean water.

Clean water. Several times a year John makes the journey north to sample water quality in the river.  He tests the water for salinity, chlorophyll, turbidity and oxygen levels. But what is most important is he tests the enterococcus levels—yes, the levels of raw sewage in the river.

John then posts this information online. This ongoing study is fascinating to read to see how certain locations rate over time. Lucky for me, one of the sites is my reach off of Tivoli. So I know that for all of 2010 our water was acceptable, and I took that as a given. But the most recent set of water samples shows that the water quality in my reach is unacceptable.

This is from John’s most recent Riverkeeper member email: “Our May patrol was rainy, wet and nasty. It rained between 1.2 and 2.5 inches during and before our patrol (with local heavy rain every day as we worked north) and, as a result, we found more unacceptable water quality than ever before. Not one sample site north of Poughkeepsie was acceptable. This is stunning.”

It is stunning. John attributes this to sewage systems overloading during heavy rains. The solution: build better sewage treatment plants or repair old and broken systems.

Where this pollution comes from in my reach is troubling. If it is sewage from Tivoli, then that means that it has traveled from the Stony Kill into the North Tivoli Bay and then to the river. Perhaps with the incoming tide that raw sewage floats north. But the idea of that raw sewage entering the bay—a slice of marshland isolated from the river—makes me sad. There, snapping turtles, bitterns and rails make their lives. They deserve better than this.

To get my kayak in the water I wade in, the cool water slapping my calf muscles. Sometimes after an evening paddle, when it is hot and still, I like to beach my boat, then swim out into the river to cool off. That is what I almost did last night after a late paddle to the Saugerties Lighthouse. But something held me back and now I’m grateful I simply packed my boat up and headed home. Still, I’d like to be able to go for an after paddle swim, and to know that the waters I swim in are clean. It’s little and yet a lot to ask. But we do have to ask. One way is to support John in his work.