Here's a mini ride report buried in the DAM-IT! thread: A short ride less than 1/2 mile from my house, including two earthen dams, two multi-hundred acre reservoirs, an 8300' penstock, a water tower, and a 5 Mw unmanned power plant. All right in my town, I live less than 1/2 mile from one of the reservoirs. We'll follow the water...... That powers Green Mountain Power, Marshfield Station No. 6. We start here, Peacham Pond. Manually controlled. no overnight camping, but dirt bikers are ok. Valve Shots crank handle for valve water comes out here: Next stop, Marshfield Dam (Mollys Falls Pond) second reservoir in the chain. This is located off of US Rte 2 The gate here has a house. No access to this one, gated off. So sad. Water comes out here: The start of 8300' of wooden penstock. Who wants to climb in first? here it goes underground, crossing US Rte 2 coming out the other side: Last summer they replaced some of the old wooded penstock with steel. Here is where they meet up: looking the other way, towards the water tower: from the water tower, the water goes here: water exits here: (power plant is "offline" in this shot) from the article linked below: Here's a shot online - old valve in the front yard Here's a really cool engineering link to the re-building of the vertical Francis turbine a few years back. This stuff intrigues me, so if this is a bit much detail, so be it. http://www.kassociates.com/pubs/marshfield_rehab.htm The whole system was built in the late 1920's, privately, by Green Mountain Power before the depression work program era stuff started up.
I grew up about 15 miles from kinzua in Warren. Took a couple school field trips to the place and got to tour the inside. They put an end to that after 9/11 though. Unfortunately I didn't get a bike until a year ago...AFTER moving to north east Ohio. I can't wait to get my bike back there for those roads.
The grand ole lady of the lower Susquehanna. Eleven turbine/generators with a combined maximum output of 530 MW or so. Also has two smaller house units for internal load. Construction started in 1926 with first unit on line in 1928. Original design was as a gravity dam, but after the resulting flood from the aftermath of hurricane Agnes in 1972 post tension anchors were added. She holds back a nominal 90 feet of head. Has 50 crest gates for river control. Not the greatest picture: [/URL][/IMG]
It's said by some that the Hetch Hetchy Valley is just as beautiful and interesting as Yosemite Valley. Except it's been under 300 feet of water since the construction of the O'Shaughnessy Dam. Many wish to dismantle and remove the dam (a five year project), despite the fact that it supplies 85% of the water needs to 2.4 million people (roughly 1/10 of the state's population) in the San Francisco region.
Hydro Quebec dam. Apparently the hot fishing spot too. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/antontrax/4688546670/" title="P1320303 by antontrax, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4045/4688546670_a235f2f200_b.jpg" width="1024" height="576" alt="P1320303"></a>
