Riverkeeper Watchdog team
Emergency situations
If you are reporting an active petroleum or chemical spill or other emergency situation please contact the DEC Spills Hotline at 1-800-457-7362 and/or your local police and emergency responders.
Watchdog reports
While harmful algae blooms also appear bright green in color, one natural sign of fall are rafts of duckweed. It is released from the marshes as water chestnut and other vegetation break loose at the end of the season. While other bright green algal blooms can be seen in the warmer months and should be reported, the duckweed is a harmless (and beautiful) mass of hundreds of thousands of the smallest flowering plants known.
Long white streaks of foam can appear with random orientation in the Hudson throughout the year. They are often not predictable and can vary in length and size, but are a function of the "river" being more accurately a tidal estuary. As the tides change to flow in and then out toward the ocean again, a shear is created between waters moving at different speeds, and generating foam. This observation is often confused for pollution, but it never hurts to check!
Often observed from the "Walkway Over the Hudson" bike and walking path in Poughkeepsie, the colder and less turbid waters of the Fall Kill enter the Hudson with striking contrast. While it looks as though something unnatural is entering the river, it's just a function of waters with different characteristics mixing
Spring pollen can blow into the river in large quantities and when it settles on the water, it sometimes forms a "raft" that can look like pollution, but is in fact a natural occurrence.
Confidentiality
Reporting best practices
Submit in a timely manner
Provide a precise location and photo/video documentation
Description of the observation of concern should be detailed
Violations outside the Hudson watershed
Related tools and how-tos
How to spot a polluter
Knowing what to look for helps you protect the river
What to do if you spot invasive species, dead fish, or algae blooms
You can help protect the river’s ecology
Other ways to volunteer
