Shoreline upgrades planned

Historic Nutten Hook area would get a 61-foot pier

A part of the Hudson River in Columbia County that holds the last surviving remnant of the oncethriving ice harvesting industry is being improved under a half-million dollar project by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

Plans call for a new sea wall and a recreational fishing pier to be built along a rocky outcropping called the Nutten Hook across the river from Coxsackie, Greene County. Expected to begin next fall, the work should be done by 2020.

“This shoreline stabilization project will improve this community’s resiliency by protecting the Nutten Hook site and enhancing recreational access to the Hudson River by constructing a new, 61-foot-long public fishing pier,” according to DEC.

The work is being paid for through the $1.2 billion New York Works funding program created in 2012 to upgrade and replace aging infrastructure.

A 2015 consultant’s report found that the shoreline on the Nutten Hook was being eroded by wakes from passing boats and wind-driven waves that were breaking down aging timber and rock bulkheads along the shoreline.

Located at the end of Ferry Road, the area has a parking lot that also is being eroded by waves. It is used as a put-in area for canoes and kayaks; deep water just offshore from a long-abandoned ferry landing makes the area a popular fishing spot.

The area also holds the sole surviving remnant of the Hudson River ice-harvesting industry, which flourished in the days before mechanical refrigeration. Visible from the water, the imposing brick tower was the power plant of a former commercial ice house used to store blocks cut from the frozen river.

DEC is taking public comments on the plan through Dec. 13. Comments can be made to Evan Hogan, NYSDEC Region 4 Headquarters, 1130 N. Westcott Road, Schenectady, NY 12306; or 518-357-2069 or R4DEP@dec.ny.gov.

The area is also currently know as Newton Hook, an Anglicized spelling of its original 1600s Dutch name of Nutten Hooke.