Pataki Calls for Institute on Rivers

An international center should be created on the Hudson River to conduct research that would be applicable to rivers and estuaries around the world, New York Gov. George Pataki said in Albany. Pataki said he will urge legislators to authorize the formation of an institute for studying fish, plant life, pollution, water quality, currents and other aspects of rivers. Pataki will ask the state Legislature to appropriate $1 million in 2000 to get the project started. He said the institute would eventually be a partnership between the state, the State University of New York, private colleges and industries. The center would be modeled after the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, he said. Thanks to sewage treatment projects up and down the Hudson and more stringent chemical discharge rules, the river is cleaner than it has been in decades. However, PCB-laden sediment north of Albany continues to contaminate fish throughout the river.