What do you think when you hear “Hoosic River?” If you’re a student at Williams, you might think about swimming. If you’re an administrator at Williams, you might think about how no one should be swimming in that dangerous and polluted water. Every summer, early fall, and late spring, students run to the Hoosic and its tributaries to swim and enjoy the water. And every summer, early fall, and late spring, College administrators frantically send out emails to warn students of the pollution dangers of swimming in the Hoosic and Green Rivers. But what’s that all about?
During the Industrial Revolution, textile mills and factories began dumping toxic waste into rivers across the country. Factories were built alongside these rivers for many reasons — they were easy sources of energy; they provided water for surrounding towns; and they provided water for factory and milling processes. They were also convenient places to dump toxic chemicals.
Through various cleaning and restoration initiatives across the decades, the river has regained much of its natural cleanliness. The 1972 Clean Water Act and the broad-sweeping environmental regulations of the late 1970s successfully halted and reversed a good amount of industrial pollution in rivers across the country. Moreover, the factories around the Hoosic closed their doors, and the buildings were repurposed. Massachusetts has now declared the Hoosic a class B body of water — meaning that the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation considers it safe to swim and fish in — as a result of these changes in politics and land-use. However, the river continues to face serious threats of pollution. Now, instead of coming from industrial land uses, the majority of that pollution comes from water runoff from cities and farms along its banks.
According to information from the Hoosic River Watershed Association, a local environmental group advocating for a cleaner river, the storm drainage system in North Adams was created to prevent serious floods in the mid-1900s and drain as much water as possible into the Hoosic. The problem with this is that as water drains across cement and pavement surfaces, it picks up contaminants — oil, bacteria, pesticides, rat poison, and other toxins — then dumps all of it into the river. This system was established when nobody particularly cared about what pollutants ended up in the river. It was already so heavily contaminated by mills and industrial factories along its banks that the pollutants from runoff paled in comparison to the chemicals that the textile mills were dumping. Moreover, since it was already so polluted, nobody swam in it anyway. But now that the river is considered a safe body of water and invites swimmers, pollution from city runoff and fertilizer runoff matters substantially more.
So why is this op-ed in the Record? The College already acknowledges the recreational use of the river and the health risks associated with that activity. Instead of encouraging prevention, however, the College ought to make the river safer by actively investing in and contributing to the mitigation of its environmental damage. Instead of trying to keep students away from the river following every major rain, the College should invest — or campaign for greater funds — to help the cities, towns, and farms upstream from us mitigate their environmental footprint on the river. Doing so would be beneficial for a few reasons. For one, the College is part of the community that this river runs through. It should therefore do its part to clean up the river. However, more pertinent to the student body, swimming in the Hoosic following rain — rain that washes in those dangerous pollutants — is quite dangerous.
Rainfall increases the amount of chemicals that end up in the river from city surfaces, and it also increases the amount of water in the river; thus, the flow of the river is indicative of how badly the water is polluted. In the spring, when rain levels and water flow are at their highest and temperatures are conducive for swimming, this poses an actual problem. Students are exposed to levels of pollutants that can cause health problems such as damage to immune systems, asthma, general disease and sickness, and increased risks of cancer.
To combat these environmental and health concerns, numerous cities around the country — including Philadelphia, Seattle, and Portland — have begun green infrastructure projects. Green infrastructure replaces traditional “gray infrastructure” such as pipes, aqueducts, and cement with infrastructure that attempts to mimic the natural drainage and water-capturing capabilities of swamps and green areas. They do this by using carefully planted and located green spaces along roads and near runoff areas to make sure that water carrying large amounts of contaminants doesn’t end up in waterways such as the Hoosic and instead diffuses into the ground, filtering out contaminants in the process. The best part is that these solutions are relatively cost-effective.
These green infrastructure projects not only mimic nature to protect waterways from pollution but also carry numerous ancillary benefits to the cities in which they’re established. Green spaces in cities have been shown to raise happiness levels, raise property values, lower asthma rates, and decrease the heat island effect of large asphalt cities. Green infrastructure is also unobtrusive and generally uncontested by stakeholders in every aspect of city planning.
Perhaps the College should be having a conversation about how to use its considerable influence and economic power to help the communities around us. Because at the end of the day, helping that community helps us. It’s also just a good thing to do.
Felix Diaz ’26 is from Arlington, Mass. and Charlie Halverson ’26 is from Denver, Colo.
