Fishkill Creek - Conservation

Conservation

The main stem of the Fishkill is not used as a water supply, although some of its tributaries are, such as Beacon's Dry Brook, impounded by the city for Beacon Reservoir. Nor is it navigable due to its many dams. It has nevertheless been a focus of local conservation efforts both as a local scenic and recreational resource and as an indicator of the health of the aquifers around it.

In 1975, just as development of the lower watershed was beginning to accelerate, the United States Geological Survey closed the Hopewell Junction stream gauge. The Beacon stream gauge had already been shut down in 1967. There has thus been no consistent data on streamflow, a frequent measure of development's impact on a stream, since then. At the time of their respective closures, the Beacon station showed a slow decline in discharge, while the Hopewell Junction station showed an increase. A 1992 study predicted that if current demographic and hydrologic trends continue both the Fishkill and Sprout could expect to have an annual weeklong dry period by 2035.

Recent biological and chemical testing indicates water quality has been improving in the upper watershed (above the village of Fishkill) but remains low below it, particularly in the creek within the city of Beacon, with an improvement just above the estuary. There are 25 State Pollution Discharge Elimination System (SPDES) permits issued by the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) within the watershed, four of which are on the Fishkill itself. A further 64 permits have been issued for groundwater discharge.

The largest facilities to have SPDES permits on the Fishkill itself are the former Texaco facility at Glenham, between Beacon and the village of Fishkill, and Green Haven. Chevron, which took over the former from Texaco, closed it in 2003. The Environmental Protection Agency has been monitoring cleanup efforts of the volatile organic compounds at the site and considers them to be progressing according to schedule.

An ongoing concern is the IBM facility in East Fishkill, which dumps its wastewater into Gildersleeves Brook, a tributary of Wiccopee Creek. In 2002, the company introduced a new method of chip manufacture on 300 mm silicon wafers. Within four years the plant had become the state's top water polluter by pounds of pollutants in the 3.2 million US gallons (12,000 m3) the plant releases into the creek every day, as production expanded due to demand for the chips, which power the PlayStation 3 video game console, primarily copper, lead and nitrates. In 2004 the company settled a suit brought by local residents who argued that a contractor's dumping of perchloroethylene had led to an increase in cancer and other diseases. Researchers have so far been unable to determine if some phenomena reported downstream, such as increased lead levels in crustaceans, are the result of the IBM discharges.

In 2005 the Fishkill Creek Watershed Committee, in partnership with the Dutchess County Environmental Management Council, inventoried the natural resources of the stream and watershed to produce a management plan. It focused on protecting groundwater, which many residents surveyed had expressed the greatest level of concern about. Recommendations made were to expand and maintain riparian buffer along the stream while protecting it against encroaching land use, and to find a way to balance groundwater withdrawals and discharges. It also called for research into alternatives to the use of impervious surfaces, such as asphalt, which increased runoff at the expense of groundwater.