Gay’s Point – Secondary Channel Restoration Project

Princeton Hydro was contracted by the New York State Thruway as a sub-consultant to AKRF to perform detailed ecological and water quality site characterization studies associated with the Gay’s Point Secondary Channel Restoration Project. The data collected by Princeton Hydro would ultimately be used by the NYSDEC to establish a baseline of site environmental conditions for the Gay’s Point Channel as well as in the development of channel reconnection and restoration concepts. If the resulting data proved favorable, the reconnection of the channel to the Hudson River would be implemented in part to satisfy the NYSDEC’s environmental mitigation requirements for the reconstruction of the Tappan Zee Bridge. Gay’s Point is a tidal embayment of the Hudson River associated with the Hudson River Islands State Park, Columbia County.

The work conducted by Princeton Hydro involved an intense sampling effort consisting of six (6) week-long sampling efforts conducted per year, with two sampling events conducted in the Spring, Summer, and Fall. Each sampling event involved the collection of fish, macroinvertebrate, aquatic vegetation, hydrologic, water quality, avifauna, and bathymetric data at both the Gay’s Point site and at Hallenbeck Creek, a reference analog used to project the potential post-restoration conditions of Gay’s Point should the channel be reconnected with the river. Hallenbeck Creek is located approximately nine miles south of Gay’s Point adjacent to the Rip Van Winkle Bridge and is tidally connected to the Hudson River.

A unique element of the project involved the installation and maintenance of radio-telemetry, remote sensing water elevation, and in-situ water quality monitoring equipment at both the Gay’s Point and Hallenbeck Creek sites. These data were utilized in combination with the discrete data collected during each field event to analyze the effects of storm events, seasonal changes in flow and other related temporal factors of the ecological and environmental attributes of both sites. The data collected and analyzed by Princeton Hydro were subsequently subject to detailed statistical analyses. The data confirmed the ecological benefits of reconnecting the Gay’s Point Channel to the Hudson River.