Winter Wins: Standing Down for the Season

On December 20th, the coffer dam breached for the second time — and this time, we read the writing on the wall.

With winter rains and snowmelt driving the watershed, the math turned unwinnable: water was arriving faster than any temporary structure could reasonably be asked to hold back, and every repair would have bought days, not weeks. In the end, the river settled the question itself. Even with the sluice gate still fully open, the pond flooded back up on its own — inflow simply outran everything downstream of it. We secured and winterized the site and let winter take over.

It's worth being precise about what happened here: the drawdown was never formally ended. The gate stayed open; the water level rose anyway. That distinction matters for how this project is managed, and it says everything about what a New England watershed does in December.

Within days, Waterloom Pond froze over — and just like that, the 2025 work season was over.

Standing down for winter was always going to happen in some form; the only question was the date. Working downstream of retained water in a New England winter isn't brave, it's reckless, and this project doesn't do reckless.

The season's scorecard, for the record: old turbine, draft tubes, and generator out. New draft tube and turbine in. Coffer dam and siphon built. Trash racks removed. Headgate machinery out for rebuild. Penstock adapter fabricated and fitted. Platform and footings renewed. Two coffer dam breaches, two recoveries, several tons of humility.

The pond gets the winter. The crew gets some rest, the headgate parts get their machine-shop time, and the penstock rehab plan gets refined by the woodstove.

We'll see you in the spring.