the governor of New York has called for the creation of an institute on the Hudson River to conduct research that would be applicable to rivers and estuaries around the world. Governor George Pataki said that he will urge legislators to authorise the formation of an international centre for studying fish, plant life, pollution, water quality, currents and other aspects of rivers. The centre would be modeled after the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, he said.

Pataki will ask the state legislature to release us $1 million in 2000 to get the project started. He said the institute would eventually be a between the state, the State University of New York, private colleges and industries. Thanks to sewage treatment projects up and down the Hudson and more stringent chemical discharge rules, the river is cleaner than it has been in decades.The institute "is the next logical step to the progress we have made," Pataki said.