Jon Bowermaster is a writer, filmmaker and adventurer. On Thursday (Sept. 28) at Industrial Arts Brewing Co. in Beacon, he will screen his latest short documentary, One Dam at a Time, about dam removal on the tributaries of the Hudson River.
What drew you to this story?
It’s a project that Riverkeeper has been working on [to improve fish and wildlife habitat], and they’ve been keeping me in the loop. We made a shorter version of the film a couple of years ago, but at that point, no dams had come down. This version has two dams coming down. We’re waiting for more. The issue is that while there’s plenty of dams lining up to be taken down, they need to find the money to do it.
Were you surprised at the emotions some of your subjects showed?
Yeah. George [Jackman, Riverkeeper’s director of habitat restoration] gets pretty worked up when it comes to migrating fish and wildlife returning to where they belong. It’s celebratory to see these blockades come down. But then when you hear how many inactive dams are still out there, it’s impressive, and not in a good way. It’s a reminder of how we as humans have a tendency to create these kinds of problems and walk away. No one ever thought: “We built this blockade, so now we should take it down instead of abandoning it.”
How did you get the shots of fish swimming upstream?
We practiced for years. You put the camera in a watertight box attached to a pole, and you hold the box below the surface. Then you have to be patient. Those shots were taken in tributaries and creeks because the Hudson is such a turbid, muddy river. Once you get 6 inches below the surface, you can’t see a thing.
In 2015 you made a film about “bomb trains,” or freight trains that carry oil along the Hudson. What was your reaction to the derailment earlier this year in East Palestine, Ohio?
It reminded me of just how awful that would be if it happened on the edge of the Hudson River. What happened in East Palestine was horrible, and those chemicals [vinyl chloride] spread into the atmosphere. But it dissipated quicker than oil would in the Hudson, because the Hudson is tidal. We were filming once in New Orleans, and there was a barge accident on the Mississippi River in the middle of the night and 400,000 gallons of oil went directly into the river, which is where New Orleans gets its drinking water. But because the Mississippi is a big river moving south, the oil was pretty much dissipated within 24 hours. That oil would stay in the Hudson River for a long time. We had an accident in Newburgh in 2017 when a train hit a forklift — it was carrying hazardous chemicals like the East Palestine train [although no chemicals escaped]. The firefighters in Newburgh reminded me that at least you can see oil. Gas is invisible, so it’s harder to clean up and more dangerous.
You’ve been making films about the Hudson for a long time. How would you define the state of the river?
I drive across the Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge three or four times a day. Every time I do it, I have the same feeling: I’m blown away by the beauty of the river. By the time I’m halfway across, I’m thinking: “Where are all the fishing boats? Why is it still one of the country’s largest Superfund sites? Why can’t we just fix this issue where raw sewage is dumped into the river when it rains?” I start out optimistic on one side of the bridge, but when I reach the other side I’m a little bummed out.
