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Archive > 2009 > Jan · Feb · Mar · Apr · May · Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep · Oct · Nov · Dec
December 2009 · Previous · Next   PDFPDF

The General Electric superfraud:
Why the Hudson River will never run clean

By David Gargill

David Gargill’s most recent article for Harper’s Magazine, “Not What It Takes: Running for President on Less Than $2,000 a Day,” appeared in the February 2008 issue. He lives in upstate New York.

On the shoulder of Mount Marcy, New York’s highest peak, it rises. From lofty yet humble beginnings at Lake Tear of the Clouds, the river winds through the Adirondacks, coursing 300 miles south to the harbor at the foot of Manhattan. Henry Hudson, an Englishman lost on the way to Cathay, arrived at the estuary’s mouth in 1609, following its path until declining depth and salinity disqualified it as a potential northwest passage to “the islands of spicery,” the ultimate prize of a cartographically challenged age. His Dutch sponsors, hoping to emulate French success in the fur trade, founded New Amsterdam beside what they termed the “North River.” In 1664, the English seized all of New Netherland, rechristening New Amsterdam “New York” and the North River the “Hudson.”

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SEE ALSO: Citizen participation; Contamination; Decision-making; Environmental aspects; Environmental conditions; Environmental protection; Factory and trade waste; Fish as food; General Electric Company; Hazardous waste site remediation; Housatonic River Valley (Mass. and Conn.); Hudson River (New York and N.J.); Knowledge—Contaminated sediments; Pittsfield (Mass.); Pollution; Polychlorinated biphenyls; United States. Environmental Protection Agency; Hang, Walter L.T. (Walter Liong-Ting); Water
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Archive > 2009 > Jan · Feb · Mar · Apr · May · Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep · Oct · Nov · Dec

December 2009

THE GENERAL ELECTRIC SUPERFRAUD
Why the Hudson River Will Never Run Clean
By David Gargill

THE MASTER OF SPIN BOLDAK
Undercover with Afghanistan’s Drug-Trafficking Border Police
By Matthieu Aikins

MERMAID FEVER
A story by Steven Millhauser

UNDERSTANDING OBAMACARE
By Luke Mitchell

Also: Dave Hickey and Wendell Berry

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