Williams

By Judson Gooding

The rumble underfoot starts faintly, then grows in force to recall the roar of a distant subway train. Tons of water are pouring down the 47-ft. drop at the Brockway Mills hydroelectric plant and smashing against the turbine blades. The glistening steel shaft connecting turbine to generator begins to revolve, accelerating quickly. Needles on gauges tremble and move upward; panel lights go on.

Brockway Mills is on line, ready to feed 850 kilowatts of electric power from the Williams River falls into the Vermont power grid. For David F. Buckley, who swam at this same scenic spot as a boy and who has been struggling since 1979 to bring the modest $1.9 million plant into being, it is a rhapsodic moment. Standing inside the powerhouse as the 18-ft.-high generator whirs, he says, "For me this is like music."

All of the equipment before him -- control panels studded with dials and gauges, lights, signs shouting HIGH VOLTAGE! -- is necessary just to light a few streets or farmyards, heat up a few dozen toasters, run a few score washing machines. Because, for all its complexity, this installation produces only enough electricity to run some 400 households -- a total of 2.5 million kilowatt-hours a year.

Buckley, 52, is a soft-spoken lawyer of philosophic bent who likes to walk the woods of Vermont hunting for chanterelles. He started the hydro project because of a boyhood fascination with moving water and dams, which abound where he grew up (and lives), the riverside village of Bellows Falls, and out of a growing concern in the 1970s over energy sources. "I saw those gas lines, and it seemed the Ayatullah could make it much worse on us if he wanted to," he says.

He also believed the project would benefit society in another way. Every kilowatt generated from the river's waters means less burning of fossil fuels, and less atmospheric pollution, less increase in the greenhouse effect. Operating Brockway Mills will save 4,000 bbl. of oil each year. And Buckley readily admits that he hoped to make a profit from his work -- a concept known as doing well while doing good.

What he encountered, however, was a daunting list of bureaucratic obstacles and then a dismaying series of technical setbacks in building the plant. "It has been unbelievable," he says. "I wouldn't think of doing it again unless the whole regulatory procedure was changed."

First, to obtain the required series of federal and state permits and authorizations, various studies and projections had to be prepared by engineers and consultants. Buckley applied for the key federal document, issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, in November 1981, then waited 14 months to get the license papers. It was also necessary to get a Water Quality Certificate from the Vermont department of environmental conservation. All told, permits or approvals were required from almost two dozen federal, state and local boards and agencies, and it cost some $200,000 to get them.

"The worst part was the agencies," Buckley says. "The historic preservation division of Vermont's development and community affairs agency, Environmental Protection, Fish and Wildlife, National Parks, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the public service department of Vermont, the state agency of transportation, and on and on."

Then came the challenge of getting the plant built and operating within all the constraints imposed by licensing authorities. Buckley and his partners in the Williams River Electric Corp., founded for this project, decided to buy the turbine and generator set and control equipment from China, where they got the best price.

A crew of Chinese technicians came to install the equipment, but severe problems arose in combining the different elements, which had not been preassembled before shipment as the contract specified. Special tools had to be sent from China. The English translation of the instructions supplied by the manufacturer was often puzzling. A sample sentence: "Starting direction signal is sent out in electric part, enabling main servomotor open, increasing speed of generating unit and reach to steady speed under no load under the function of auto adjusting speed." Deciphering such instructions and reconciling the various pieces of equipment caused a delay of one year, during which interest payments and other costs continued.

Then there were the problems posed by nature. In October last year, a downpour sent near record floodwaters roaring along the spectacular gorge of the Williams, over the wall protecting the powerhouse and down into the turbine level. The water in the powerhouse fouled the turbine equipment and the vital compressors, which power the hydraulic systems, with stones and silt. The compressors had to be completely rebuilt.

In March this year, the hydraulic system that operates the governor failed, and the turbine went into a runaway state, approaching dangerous speeds before it could be shut off with manual controls. Later in the spring, when rainfall was light, the plant was found to be in violation of the terms of its permit, which requires a certain minimum flow through the gorge. So much water was used in running the plant that the river itself was "dewatered," as one official put it, threatening the survival of fish. The plant's operation had to be halted until a new computer and automatic flow controls to maintain the minimum flow could be installed. More months of delay followed.

Between the problems of threading the regulatory maze and the mechanical difficulties, the project has been a cliffhanger for Buckley and Alexander Hadden, a co-investor whom Buckley credits with seeing the enterprise through. "Without his strength and determination," he says, "I don't know if I would have stuck with it." For Hadden it has been a matter of common sense. "It's crazy not to use this power that's freely available and does no harm to the environment."

- Today, however, on a bright fall afternoon, past worries are forgotten. After a four-month plant shutdown, the new computer that will automate operations is in place, and the shaft will soon start to turn again. A few last-minute tasks remain. Engineers bend over diagrams of the wiring circuits as they test connections in the mazes of wires that fill the control cabinets. The start-up countdown begins in earnest. Engineers watch the gauges as the needles begin to move. An exacting series of 14 conditions must be met before the computer will allow operation to start. When the computer is satisfied, the green prestart light goes on, the master control switch is turned to start, and the gates that let water into the turbine are opened. The generator begins to turn, slowly at first, then quickly builds to its 300 r.p.m. speed. A high-pitched hum fills the building, but the generator is so steady a nickel can be balanced on edge on its housing.

Outside the powerhouse, near the dam, Buckley beams. He is hearing his favorite sound. Despite all his reservations about the bureaucratic process, he is upbeat. "They've taken a lot of the fun out of it," he says quietly, watching the black water roiling into white foam as it cascades over the steep rock cataract, "but it's still definitely worth doing."