STORM KING

Storm King mountain has had a few names before this quite epic one was settled on. Henry Hudson called it Klinkesberg, due to it's wrinkled ridges. Dutch colonists gave it the name Boterberg, as the curved mound resembled a lump of butter. But 19th century writer, Nathaniel Parker Willis gave it the name that stuck. He says, "the tallest mountain is looked upon as the sure foreteller of a storm...He seems the monarch, and this seems his stately ordering of a change in weather."

In the mid 60's Storm King was the focal point of a monumental environmental battle. The Scenic Hudson Preservation Coalition fought to save Storm King, as Con Edison proposed to build a pumped-storage hydroelectric plant that would cut through the mountain. After a 17-year battle, Scenic Hudson gathered support from 20,000 people world wide and forced Con Ed to abandon their plans. The judge agreed this project would effect aesthetic properties of the land -- a surprising ruling at that time. This case marks the first time environmental law was seen as a new legal specialty, and is a cornerstone of environmental battles. It's good that Nathaniel Parker Willis's name for the mountain stuck. Perhaps today it is not seen as the ruler over the changing weather, but over the change in social climate.