Hudson River
The Hudson River [ ˈhʌdsn̩ˌɹɪvɚ ] is a 493 kilometer long river in the US states of New York and New Jersey in the northeast of the United States .
River course
The Hudson has its source in the Adirondack Mountains on Henderson Lake in the US state of New York . From there it flows mainly in a southerly direction through this state and takes in the water of the Mohawk River at Albany . Only in the lower reaches does it partially form the border with the neighboring state of New Jersey and before its mouth it reaches the New York harbor . In the Atlantic it flows into Upper New York Bay between the islands of Manhattan and Staten Island .
The lower reaches of the Hudson are subject to the influence of the tides . The tidal range is still noticeable over 225 kilometers upstream to the weir in Troy , north of Albany. Therefore, the Hudson cannot be called a river along its entire length. This section is called Estuary (dt .: estuary called).
The Hudson, along with its tributaries , particularly the Mohawk River , drains a large area in the eastern United States.
Because of the beauty of the Hudson Valley, the Hudson River was given the name The Rhine of America .
history
The original inhabitants of the area, the Mahican , called the river Mahicannituck , meaning "water that always flows". The Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano was the first European to discover the river in 1524 . The Dutch settlers, who had settled in Nieuw Amsterdam and on the lower reaches of the river since 1624 , called it Noortrivier , sometimes Manhattes rieviere , Groote Rivier or de grootte Mouritse area . It was later named after Henry Hudson , an English navigator who explored it in 1609 on behalf of the Dutch East India Company . Hudson had sailed up to what is now Albany, as far as his three-masted Halve Maen , a hunt , could go. Until the second half of the 18th century, a century after the colony of Nieuw Nederland had to be ceded to the British in 1664, Dutch was still spoken throughout the Hudson Valley .
The Hudson River came into view of the global public on January 15, 2009, when the captain Chesley Burnett Sullenberger of US Airways flight 1549 carried out a spectacular ditching on the Hudson River near Manhattan Island .
shipping
The stream is navigable upstream to Albany . 8 km north of Albany is the first Federal Dam and the first lock on the Hudson River. Above this, the Erie Canal , built in the 19th century , which connects the Hudson River with Lake Erie , branches off to the west. The middle reaches of the Hudson River is developed as a Champlain Canal with several locks . At Fort Edward this branches off on the eastern bank of the river and runs north to Lake Champlain .
Hydropower plants
There are several hydropower plants on the upper Hudson River.
The Green Island hydropower plant 8 km north of Albany is located on the lowest dam of the Hudson River. It is planned to increase the output from 8 MW to 48 MW.
A selection of downstream hydropower plants:
| Surname | Power in MW |
Number of turbines |
location | operator |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Curtis | 10.8 | 5 | ( ⊙ ) | International Paper Co. |
| Palmer Falls | 48 | 2 | ( ⊙ ) | International Paper Co. |
| Spier Falls | 56 | 2 | ( ⊙ ) | Brookfield |
| Sherman Island | 38 | 6th | ( ⊙ ) | Brookfield |
| Feeder Dam | 5 | 5 | ( ⊙ ) | Brookfield |
| Glens Falls | 12.1 | 5 | ( ⊙ ) | Brookfield |
| South Glens Falls | 13.8 | 2 | ( ⊙ ) | Boralex |
| Hudson Falls | 36.1 | 2 | ( ⊙ ) | Boralex |
| Fort Miller | 5 | 2 | ( ⊙ ) | Fort Miller |
| Stillwater | 3.5 | 2 | ( ⊙ ) | Stillwater Hydro |
| Upper Mechanicville | 18.5 | 2 | ( ⊙ ) | New York State Elec & Gas Corp. |
| Mechanicville | 7th | 7th | ( ⊙ ) | Albany Engineering Co |
| Green Island | 8th | ( ⊙ ) | Green Island Power Authority |
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jaap Jacobs: New Netherland. A Dutch Colony in Seventeenth-Century America . Brill, Leiden 2005, ISBN 90-04-12906-5 , p. 11.
- ^ Thomas L. Purvis: A dictionary of American history . Blackwell, Cambridge, Mass. 1997, ISBN 1-55786-398-9 , p. 186.
- ↑ Jaap Jacobs: New Netherland. A Dutch Colony in Seventeenth-Century America . Brill, Leiden 2005, p. 31.
- ↑ Kenneth Myers: The Catskills. Painters, writers, and tourists in the mountains 1820–1895 . Hudson River Museum of Westchester, Yonkers 1987, p. 24.
- ↑ brookfieldrenewable.com
- ↑ energyjustice.net
- ↑ hydroreform.org: Green Iceland
- ↑ US Fish and Wildlife Service Home Page: Hydropower Energy Projects (as of December 15, 2016)