Hudson Shad

Folk music legend and environmental activist Pete Seeger, in despair over the pollution of his beloved Hudson River, launched a project to clean it up in the sixties. In Hudson Shad, Seeger and others in the "River Keepers," make a statement about our responsibility for keeping the waters of the river clean enough for the shad to thrive.

Co-director James Brown, who grew up near the banks of the river, felt a responsibility for sharing through this film a general concern for the relationship between contamination of the river and the survival of its natural inhabitants. Showing the film to people concerned with the Hudson River helped them garner colleagues and supporters towards the cause. Seeger has continued the work, with the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater.

Hudson Shad has been restored with a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation.

Also included on the DVD: Planning for Floods (color, 29 min, 1974)

A documentary commissioned for distribution and use by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), an organization founded by Dennis Puleston and others, to raise awareness around conservation issues and promote public environmental responsibility. Though focused on the immediate community of the Mississippi River, the film's message applies well beyond that region, also anticipating by more than 30 years present-day concerns about global warming. Significantly, it suggests positive action rather than just "ain't it awful."Today this film is applicable to our environmental concerns especially if it is used to promote public action, legislation and education. Planning for Floods is used courtesy of EDF.

This DVD is part of the George C. Stoney Collection