Clearwater has gained national recognition for its activism starting in the 1970s to force a clean-up of the PCB contamination caused by industrial manufacturing by General Electric and other companies on the river's edge. Other specific Hudson watershed issues with which Clearwater is concerned are development pressures in the southern half of the Hudson Valley, pesticide runoff, the Manhattan west side waterfront, Indian Point nuclear reactors, and New York/New Jersey Harbor dredge spoil disposal. Clearwater played a key role in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decision to compel one of the Hudson River's biggest polluters to begin removing toxic PCBs from the water and restoring one of the most polluted portions of the river.