Hudson River Research Paper

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The Hudson River is New York’s largest river and much of its population lives around it. The head of the Hudson River is in upstate New York in the Adirondack Mountains and flows south to New York City. The river’s water eventually ends up in the Upper New York Bay and then the Atlantic Ocean. From beginning to end, the river flows 315 miles. Between 1947 and 1977 the General Electric Company discharged 1.3 million pounds of PCD into the Hudson River. As a result, even still today, the river is still very polluted. The General Electric Company polluted the water so much that in 2002 the government forced them to clean up the damage they had done. There are many sewers in New York that eventually lead to one big pipe underground. When a rainstorm …show more content…

It ranges from zero to fourteen with seven being neutral. Anything less than seven is considered acidic and anything greater is considered basic. A river can become acidic through acid rain or certain pollutants. A non toxic stream is supposed to be around a pH of seven, and anything too far away could harm aquatic life and drinking water quality. Changing the pH of the water affects the solubility of nutrients and heavy metals in the water that aquatic life needs to survive. Dissolved oxygen is how much oxygen is dissolved in the water. Life in the rivers and streams breath this oxygen in order to survive. If the dissolved oxygen were to drop too low, the life in those waters would begin to die off. The oxygen enters the stream mostly from the atmosphere. When eutrophication occurs, it can cause an oxygen deficiency in the water. Eutrophication is a significant increase in plant life in a river which can kill off much of the aquatic life due to lack of dissolved oxygen. An ideal level of dissolved oxygen is five to six parts per million(ppm). Aquatic life will have difficulty with anything below three ppm. The level of nitrates in the water can affect the plant’s life directly and the aquatic life

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