and in 1986, merged the two into a single group officially named Riverkeeper. Boyle's research and articles were crucial to the litigation brought in 1965 by Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference (Scenic Hudson) against Consolidated Edison (Con Ed), New York's primary electric utility company in the lawsuit titled Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission. He relayed the concerns of Hudson River Valley citizens and environmentalists regarding Con Ed's proposed pumped-storage power plant on Storm King Mountain in the Hudson Highlands, not the least of which included the potential for irreparable ecological harm, the destruction of critical habitat for aquatic species, and the killing of small fish by the plant's water-intake equipment. In late December 1965, the court ruled in favor of Scenic Hudson in that round of litigation stating that "the FPC had to consider the environmental consequences of the plan, which they had not done." Litigation dragged on until 1980 when Con Ed entered into an agreement with conservation groups. Boyle was a signatory for one of the groups, ending the effort to build the pumped-storage power plant. The Con Ed action "became the basis of environmental law in the United States by establishing the right of citizens to sue the government to protect natural resources". Sports and environmental writing As a writer for Sports Illustrated, Boyle broke the mold of typical sportswriter covering football, boxing, golf and other sports. He extended his range of topics and wrote about various outdoor activities, birds, and other topics that he was passionate about from when he was a small boy, such as fishing and the river. In 1969, Boyle published The Hudson River: A Natural and Unnatural History, describing the negative effects of pollution on the waterway. It was positively reviewed as a "book of great charm with many nuggets of little known lore". In 1970, Boyle "was among the first journalists to report that North American Fish were contaminated with toxic polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs", and provided in-depth coverage about the methyl mercury, DDT and PCB contamination of saltwater fish in an article he wrote for Sports Illustrated, titled Poison Roams Our Coastal Seas. He also exposed sizeable fish kills in the Hudson that was caused by the Indian Point nuclear power plant dumping their thermal discharge water into the river. His efforts helped instigate a billion-dollar cleanup effort. In 1981, he received the Communicator of the Year award