Protecting Natural Resources
The natural beauty of the Mid-Hudson Valley is renowned, and as the area’s utility, Central Hudson takes proactive steps to ensure the region’s unique and valuable natural resources are preserved. Our employees, customers and stakeholders work, play and live in the beautiful Hudson Valley region. All of us at Central Hudson are proud of our environmental accomplishments, both past and present, and we are committed to continuing as a partner in the preservation and enhancement of the region’s environmental heritage.
Protecting the Land
Central Hudson is conscious of the impacts from construction projects. We are continually seeking methods to support the biodiversity and natural processes including erosion and sediment controls. Examples of efforts the company has utilized include:
- Utilizing helicopters to deliver new poles and materials;
- Reduction in use of heavy trucks and equipment in environmentally sensitive areas;
- Identification of environmentally sensitive areas during planning process and engineering for minimal impacts;
- Identification of endangered species (e.g., Timer Rattlesnakes) habitat protection efforts;
- Substation designs incorporates containment barriers to minimize impacts to the environments around them.
Protecting the Water
Protecting the water resources are also essential to ensure the protection of this critical resource. In the early 1990s, for example, Central Hudson chose to cross the Hudson with a major transmission line by boring under the riverbed (at the time the longest and most extensive bore attempted in the country), rather than simply laying the line in a trench along the floor of the river, which would have disturbed aquatic life. Today, the company continues its protection efforts of water resources through the designing construction projects with minimal disturbances and utilizing best management practices with soil and sediment control measures.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Minimizing our waste footprint is an important element in our environmental stewardship efforts. We routinely provide comprehensive training to employees to ensure wastes are properly identified, processed and disposed of. The company continues to identify ways to reduce the volume of wastes being sent to landfills and is actively seeking ways to recycle more waste streams.
Hundreds of tons of paper, cable, wire and other building materials are recycled under the Resource Recovery Program operation at our facility in Ulster County. As part of this program, employees of the Ulster-Green Arc, sort, bale and ship this salvageable material. The recycling program not only saves valuable landfill space and energy by reusing these materials, it also provides employment for individuals who, although functionally impaired, have the training and ability to make a significant contribution to the protection of the environment.
Reclaim and Remediate
Today, Central Hudson remediating sites of former Manufactured Gas Plants in the region, which were built and operated by predecessor companies to Central Hudson. These are among the more than 300 plants throughout New York that, during the late 1800s to mid-1900s, produced gas from coal and oil for heating, lighting and cooking before the introduction of natural gas. Although these plants have long since been retired, some of the by-products of the manufacturing process remain. Central Hudson is committed to a thorough and comprehensive cleanup of these sites and is working voluntarily with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to conduct these clean-ups. Cleaning these sites is important to the environmental health of the region, as it will allow these sites to remain in safe and valuable use.