Hudson Independent: The Coast Guard has shelved its pro­posal to add 43 barge an­chor­age lo­ca­tions on the Hud­son River, but en­vi­ron­men­tal or­ga­ni­za­tions are keep­ing a watch­ful eye on how the plan might be res­ur­rected in the fu­ture.

The con­tro­ver­sial con­cept, pur­sued by the ship­ping in­dus­try and ini­tially pro­posed two years ago, drew op­po­si­tion from mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties and much of the pub­lic, with en­vi­ron­men­tal groups lead­ing the re­sis­tance. A ma­jor con­cern was that with the added an­chor­age sites, haz­ardous car­goes such as oil could leak into the Hud­son River from the barges.

Pressed by the op­po­si­tion, the Coast Guard sus­pended the plan last year and held two work­shops this past No­vem­ber, one in Al­bany and the other in Pough­keep­sie, to hear from both the mar­itime in­ter­ests and those against the pro­posal.

Last month, the Coast Guard re­leased an ac­count of the is­sues dealt with at the work­shops: the Hud­son River Ports and Wa­ter­ways Safety As­sess­ment (PAWSA) Re­port. The re­lease stated, “The PAWSA work­shops were held in or­der to pro­vide stake­hold­ers an op­por­tu­nity to as­sist the Coast Guard in un­der­stand­ing nav­i­ga­tion safety and en­vi­ron­men­tal con­cerns on the Hud­son River.” It called the re­port, “a start­ing point for con­tin­u­ing di­a­logue with the Hud­son River stake­holder com­mu­nity.” The an­chor­age is­sue was placed in abeyance, at least for the pre­sent.  Read more.