Documenting What We Bought: Inside the Old Powerhouse

Before you can restore anything, you have to know exactly what you have. We've spent the summer doing a top-to-bottom photographic survey of the entire site — nearly four hundred photos of the dam, the pond, the penstock, the powerhouse, and every piece of equipment inside it.

The old powerhouse is a time capsule. The turbine sits connected to its generator through controls that were state of the art when they were installed: a mechanical speed-control governor, a switchboard with round analog meters and knife-blade switches, and an overhead open-bus disconnect assembly of the kind you simply don't see in modern plants. It's beautiful industrial archaeology — and essentially none of it is reusable. Modern grid interconnection standards require digital protection relays, modern switchgear, and safety systems this equipment predates by half a century. The old gear will be documented and preserved in photos, but the electrical side of this plant will be built new from the ground up.

The civil works tell a similar story. The penstock — the big steel tube that carries water from the headgate down to the turbine — is intact but will need a thorough internal inspection before we trust it under pressure. The trash racks that keep debris out of the intake are original. The headgate machinery is original. The dam itself needs attention at the abutments.

None of this is discouraging. It's exactly what we expected from a plant that's been asleep for years, and now we have the complete picture we need to plan the restoration in earnest.