My father and I had been up to the site on Thursday the 18th for a Planning board meeting. Our property used to be part of a larger campus and was chopped off and land locked. In order to acsess our site we have many many easements through the mill property that must remain in effect in order for us to operate under our FERC exemption. When we bought the property there were developers who were in the middle of making about 70 condos next door, suboptimal. So at this meeting I again expressed my concerns with these developers trouncing on our deeded rights, and the planning board ended up unanimously voting to deny the developers plans based on a rule that said that a plan cannot be considered if there were private legal matters that had to be dealt with. Here's A link to the video anyways, we noticed that there was a burnt B phase up on the pole, and looking back at the pictures it was burnt from the day we bought the site. So I told the town we need that fixed, and they said no problem boss. They found that the B phase ceramic isolator was cracked an needed to be replaced, but said good luck finding a 1985 part. So they took photos for us and we did in fact later find the insulator on ebay for about 50 bucks shipped. It took a little bit of cross referenceing and looking at machanical drawings but no problem.
One of the most critical things for this particular turbine is filling it with about 50 gallons of 32 weight Turbine oil. There were maybe about 35 gallons or so on site, so we ordered a couple pails and filled up the resevoir while the pump was going. We ended up measuring a bunch of things and estimated how much we needed, and it wasnt enough, so the next weekend we ordered more and we will make sure that everything is on and flowing oil.
We also took the opportunity to lower the water in the pond and open the spillway so we could inspect the weird leak we have from the exit of the dam into the tailrace. There was very low flow, around 20cfs. So here is my dad Alan giving a thumbs up on this beautiful day.
We wondered around the de-watered area looking for odds and ends. We hadnt really had time or the opportunity to see these parts of the dam, as most of the time we have good flow. This summer has been particularly dry. This was just a short trip and next weekend is the planned first turning on of the facility if all goes well.