The Scenic Hudson Decision was a 17-year (1963-1981) legal dispute which defeated Consolidated Edison's plan to embed the world's largest pumped storage hydroelectric plant into the face of Storm King Mountain, near Cornwall, New York. The lengthy and controversial case had an immense impact on environmental and legal issues affecting the Hudson River Valley as well as the nation. The landmark case set important precedents in environmental law including: the right of citizens to participate in environmental disputes, the emergence of environmental law as a legal specialty, ideas Congress incorporated in the country's first National Environment Policy Act (NEPA), federal and state regulation of the environment, and it is credited with launching the modern environmental movement. Now approximately 1,000 books can be found on the Library catalog and all 17 of our archival collections documenting Scenic Hudson Decision have finding aids available on-line.
The environmental collections' newest addition is the recently published book, Environmental History of the Hudson River: Human Uses that Changed the Ecology, Ecology that Changed Human Uses (SUNY Press, 2011), which includes Executive Vice President Geoffrey Brackett’s chapter “Thy Fate and Mine Are Not Repose”: The Hudson and Its Influence. 