Environmental History on the Hudson

On Saturday afternoon, J. Winthrop Aldrich, Carl Petrich, and Richard Benas, three men who, in the late 1970s, played major roles in the effort to prevent the siting of a nuclear power plant in Cementon (now called Smith Landing), gathered at Stair Galleries to share their memories of the experience. The panel discussion, entitled "Framing the Viewshed: A Bend in the River," was moderated by Dorothy Heyl, a member of the Olana Landscape Viewshed Committee, and sponsored by The Olana Partnership.

In her opening remarks, Heyl recalled a conversation with Aldrich at his home in Barrytown during which he remarked, "A painting at Olana saved us from a nuclear power plant." That painting was this one: Winter Scene, Olana, circa 1890. As one of the participants asserted, "This view and this painting changed history." 

The painting was evidence in the hearings before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. Benas, who at the time worked for the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, testified at those hearings. In his testimony, he quoted extensively from the book The Landscape of Frederic Edwin Church: Vision of an American Era, by noted art historian David C. Huntington, to make the point that "to lose the view from Olana would destroy the vision for America that existed at that time." The following excerpts from Huntington's book were part of Benas's testimony at the hearings: 

"Winter Scene, Olana, c. 1890 . . . is an accurate sextant reading taken at Longitude 74 degrees, Latitude 42 degrees, in January. In this view, Church's inborn optimism dictates his choice of nature's moment; here the sharp, cold atmosphere and the sullen hues of a winter day are rescued from gloom by the newly arrived cheer of high luminous sunstruck clouds. . . . Winter Scene, Olana, shows the view in cloudy winter weather. On a crisp clear day, ridges of mountains break the horizon some sixty miles away. It is the view of expansionist America, an earthscape."

Photo by Chas A. Miller III

Critical to the success of the effort to prevent the nuclear power plant from being sited in the Olana viewshed was the environmental impact assessment written by Petrich. The initial EIA was so deficient that local protesters made changes to the document necessary. Then fresh from graduate school, Petrich, who worked at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, was assigned the task of revising the EIA. He knew nothing about Olana, so the first thing he did was to go to the library and consult what he called "the Google of the day": the Readers' Guide to Periodic Literature. That led him to a photo essay about Olana entitled "Must this mansion be destroyed?" which appeared in the May 13, 1966, issue of Life magazine. That was the beginning of two years of research and work, which included much time spent here in the community surrounding Olana. The result was a document that was received and approved, and, as a consequence, the recommendation was made that the project be blocked. 

The proposal for the nuclear power plant was rejected on March 23, 1979. It was the first time a project of this nature was rejected on the basis of environmental aesthetics. Five days later, the accident at Three Mile Island occurred.