WILLIAMSVILLE — I live on the Rock River, just downstream from what was once a thriving industrial center.
At the turn of the 19th century, the Rock River powered more than 20 different industries, including a sawmill, a grist mill, a fulling mill, a felting mill, a jelly mill, a tannery, a wheelwright, a carriage maker, a hatmaker, and a bobbin- and boxmaker.
It's hardly surprising, given this industry, that both the stagecoach and the West River Railroad made regular stops in Williamsville, a village now so reduced in economic vitality that we no longer even host a general store, just a standard-issue post office.
Back when water powered our village's industrial activity, there were at least three dams on the river. The largest of these - a cedar crib dam - lasted into living memory. As a young girl visiting my aunt and uncle in the summer, I would swim in the mill pond, then climb below to “shower” in one of the dam's leaks.
Access to the dam site became the subject of a legal battle leading right up to the Vermont Supreme Court, and maintenance of the dam became a source of conflict between historical preservationists and fish biologists. While everyone argued, the same power the dam had been built to harness destroyed it, and only enough remains to challenge the kayakers who flock to the river in high water.
Indeed, it is boaters, swimmers and fishing enthusiasts who use the river these days, and the river is a great deal cleaner than it was back when the tannery dumped its waste into the stream.
But as the water roars through the village, I wonder if we haven't lost something more than a good swimming hole when the dam washed away, and if there isn't a way to harness some of the water's mesmerizing power as it tumbles through town.
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Other people must be wondering the same thing. On a recent trip up north, I visited two old hydro sites currently under development as eco-friendly, mini-hydro projects: one in Greensboro and one in Glover.
Of the two, the Greensboro Small Hydro Project is further along. The Greensboro Town Energy Committee developed a business plan two years ago, and last year a civil-engineering class from UVM designed a route for the penstock - the 16-inch pipe that will carry the still water from Caspian Lake down a 157-foot drop through turbines in a powerhouse that have all yet to be approved, purchased, and installed.
Like the river near my home, this water route has a long history of providing power in Greensboro, where the outflow of the lake turned a grist mill for 130 years, beginning in 1791. The water still flows under the old mill building, which now houses the local store. And the water will continue to flow, even when the Greensboro Small Hydro Project goes online.
Unlike the methods of harnessing waterpower of yesteryear - methods that degraded the natural flow of rivers and had significant, negative, environmental repercussions - these new projects call for “run of the river technology.”
This technology uses the natural flow and drop of a stream bed to create electricity. In Greensboro, the proposed hydro project will take advantage of the existing dam on Caspian Lake. Water will enter the pipe on one side of the dam and flow back out into the stream on the other. A screen will prevent fish from entering the pipe.
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When the Greensboro Small Hydro Project goes online, it will generate an estimated 322,368 kilowatt-hours per year. (The output of Vermont Yankee, by contrast, is measured in megawatts.) Greensboro's output is minuscule in the context of conventional power generation, thus the name “mini-hydro.”
Ideally, Greensboro would like to tap into its own power. Since that's not practical, Greensboro plans to sell the power back to the grid and use the income to offset the town's energy bill by an estimated $25,000 a year. In addition to the budgetary boon, Greensboro will have the added satisfaction of reducing its town's carbon footprint. What Greensboro is proposing is the energy equivalent of eating local.
The Low Impact Hydropower Institute (LIHI), a nonprofit whose mission is to reduce the impact of hydropower dams, issues certification for low-impact projects much the same way California labels its organic food. LIHI's mission statement reads, in part: “Just as an organic label can help consumers choose the foods and farming practices they want to support, the LIHI certification program can help energy consumers choose the energy and hydropower practices they want to support.”
The Winooski One Hydropower Project is Vermont's first - and so far, only - hydro plant to receive LIHI certification. This means the plant meets criteria in eight areas: river flows, water quality, fish passage and protection, watershed protection, threatened and endangered species protection, cultural protection, recreational resource protection, and facilities recommended for removal.
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Before the devastating flood in 1927, much of Vermont's - and the nation's - energy was generated at small, local plants. Granted, it wasn't a great deal of energy: Many hill towns in Vermont didn't plug into electricity until close to the middle of the twentieth century, by which time how we thought about power had shifted from site-specific generation to mammoth coal-, oil-, and nuclear-fueled plants sending power out along wires strung across the countryside.
It's now time to rethink generating and transmitting high-voltage electricity to distant end users and to start thinking about how we can use less power and generate that power closer to home. In many parts of the country, and in urban areas in particular, this strategy may not be practical; but in Vermont, it could be.
The Greensboro Project has received a grant from the Vermont Department of Public Service Clean Energy Development Fund and hopes to serve as a prototype for other small communities with rivers running through them.
That's just about every small town in Vermont.