September 9, 2023

By Barrett Seaman–

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British staying power swimmer Lewis Pugh was once on the ultimate stretch of his 315-mile aquatic adventure down the Hudson River when he stopped by means of the marina at the Half Moon Bay in Croton-on-Hudson Saturday morning to sign up for a press convention with Republican Congressman Mike Lawyer and State Senator Pete Harckham, a Democrat, to extol the virtues of a cleaner river.

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For Lawler, Pugh’s passage via his 17^th District that surrounds maximum of the stretch he had simply finished, introduced a possibility to tout his toughen for contemporary pro-environment items of law—a credit he’ll want when he comes up for re-election in 2024 in a district this is closely Democratic and pro-environment—particularly in the rivertowns.

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“We’re pleased to have you here and to highlight not just your swim but the purpose of it—and to talk about the importance of our environment and the Hudson River behind us,” mentioned Lawler in introducing Pugh. “I’m proud to be a co-sponsor ion the New Jersey/New York Watershed Protection Act and to really focus on protecting the Hudson River and the estuaries and the watershed that feeds into it, as well as to support the efforts to prevent the discharge of nuclear wastewater into the Hudson.”

Lawler additionally recounted how his soon-to-be 90-year-old grandfather was once an environmental engineer “and one of the foremost experts on cleaning up the Hudson River and getting the PCBs out.”

Both Lawler and Senator Harckham wired the bipartisan nature of the contemporary “Save the Hudson” law, signed into regulation by means of Governor Hochul closing month. The invoice blocked Holtec Corp. the corporate managing the decommissioning of the within reach Indian Point nuclear energy plant, from dumping 1,000,000 gallons of nuclear wastewater into the river. Harckham cited the “overwhelming public support” for the invoice. “No level of pollution is acceptable,” he declared. “Our water bodies—rivers, bays or oceans—are critical to our economic sustainability.”

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Pugh thanked the politicians for his or her efforts, confessing that as he swam by means of Indian Point the evening prior to, “I took myself back a month when I thought that this swim would end just before Indian Point, because the governor had not [yet] made a decision” on banning the discharge.

Pugh, 53, of British and South African descent, has been known as “the Sir Edmund Hillary of swimming” (after the conqueror of Mt. Everest). He is the first particular person to finish a long-distance swim in each one among the international’s oceans. He started his adventure on August 13^th at the river’s supply in the Adirondacks and is predicted to succeed in New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty on Wednesday, September 13^th.

Pugh effused over the numerous flora and fauna of the Hudson—the beavers, bears, vultures, osprey and the large sturgeon, now additionally swimming downriver again to the ocean. “I feel that I have made a lifetime friend,” he mentioned. He recounted how, a couple of days previous, he had swum previous Marist College in Poughkeepsie, the place he was once joined in the water first by means of the school’s swim group, then the water polo group, then the rowers and the school’s president, Kevin Weinman, and his spouse—and a nine-year-old woman who swam 5 kilometers along him. “I dream of the day,” concluded Pugh, “when a vice chancellor of a British University can dive into the Thames, or into the Isis or into the Firth of Forth…and swim with her or his students.”

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