Happy Labor Day!
If you’re thinking about this holiday at all — beyond a day off, cookouts, and the unofficial end of summer — it might be in the context of, well, labor.
For more than 2 centuries after its founding in the 1600s, Westport benefited from the labor of its residents. Dairy farmers, onion farmers, railroad and stone wall builders, coal and oil haulers, twine and ping pong ball and embalming supply factory workers — all helped make this town what it was.
A detail from Robert Lambdin’s magnificent mural, depicting long-ago commerce in town. It is on display in the Town Hall lobby.
Longtime Westporter Lynn Flint is an anthropologist. She is fascinated by the history of water power.
She has researched old water mills. One that caught her attention is the well-maintained Revolutionary War-era building on Ford Road, at the junction of the Saugatuck and Aspetuck Rivers near where Lyons Plains meets Weston Road.
Older residents know it as part of the Dorr-Oliver Laboratories. It’s remembered, Lynn says, for inventing the continuous vacuum filter for separating gold from baser elements in the early 20th century.
Dorr-Oliver mill, circa 1920.
In 1812 this was a gristmill. Later, it became a textile mill. She does not know whether a water wheel and grindstone still remain,
“I’m not suggesting we need to go back to grinding our own grain,” Lynn says.
“But I wonder if it could be the start of an idea of producing electricity using water power.”
Elon Musk produces vehicles that use alternate sources of power, she says.
“It’s electricity in his case. But most electricity is made with fossil fuels. Water power is free and clean.”
Potential source of water power on Ford Road? (Photo/Fred Cantor)
Climate change causes more and heavier rain here, Lynn says. “As we scramble to improve our drains and siphon off standing water near roads, maybe we should consider that a bounty may have been dropped on our doorstep. Maybe we can use this annoying and destructive water to our advantage as a power source.”
The number 1 source worldwide for producing electricity is coal. Natural gas is second.
Both are in finite supply. Both cause emissions, and cost a substantial amount to find and distribute.
(Not for nothing, she notes, her Eversource bill — for a household of one person — doubled last month, with no change in usage.)
Old Mill grist mill, in an undated photo.
Lynn says, “Even if the Ford Road building was reconstructed as a mill, I’m not sure there would be that much energy.
“But at least it would be a demo, something to begin to think about. Maybe some water energy could be used for the residential area near there.
“Maybe one of our brilliant Staples students could make us a working model.”
(Click here for some statistics on hydropower.)
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I’d like to help.
There are many examples of small hydropower turbines that could be installed.
the presidential candidate said they give people cancer
Great thought. I live about 2 feet from Deadmans Brook (it’s a 8′ wide by 4′ deep stone lined channel as its lower end). The sight of all that water roaring by at 15 plus miles an hour after a storm is astonishing. I’m not smart enough to calculate the force that an 8′ by 4′ column of water moving at that speed generates but I often think about the possibility of harnessing it – even if only on an intermittent basis. Looking online, there’s a ton of stuff about mini mills for rivers and small streams. Given where my
Eversource bill is headed, that idle fantasy is starting to look maybe not so crazy.
It is a good thought but not too practical. The average 4,000 sq ft house is reported to use 73 kWh/day according to Prof. Google’s assistant, AI. Calculations show that a turbine at the Senior Dam at the Saugatuck reservoir would produce up to 189 kWh/day at peak out put. A back yard turbine might produce 67 kWh/day. (Calculations and citations below).
So I figure that would be some very expensive electricity. Just sayin’
According to the Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Science https://www.e-education.psu.edu/emsc297/node/648#:~:text=The%20power%20available%20in%20water,also%20mass%20per%20unit%20time)
The available electricity from a 100 foot drop in elevation with a low flow of 50 gallons per minute would be about 350 watts which comes out to 8.4 kWhr/day as shown in the following example. On property with a drop of 100 ft above the turbine and a river flow of 50 gpm. Assuming a good system design which includes a head loss of 30%, my output would be:
power = net head x flow / 10
power = 100 ft x 0.7 x 50 / 10 = 350 W
If I could get this to operate all day, I would get (350 W x 24 h/day = ) 8400 Wh or 8.4 kWh/day
So: A two foot drop, say, at the dam by kings highway with a flow of 20,770 gallons/min (per snoflo.org) would yield about 67 kWh/day.
Were the turbine to be put in place at the Samuel P. Senior Dam at the outlet of the Saugatuck Rewerviour which Dams of the World reports to be 130 feet in height, the maximum electrical output with a full reservoir would be about 189 kWh/day.
Wow. That’s some impressive analysis, David. This is just one of the many, many reasons I love the 06880 community; readers will joyfully go down a rabbit hole on the most seemingly arcane topics and come up with really interesting information. I guess maybe my fantasy of living off the grid in downtown Westport is a little unrealistic. Sigh.
Solar is the way to go. Since installing solar panels and Tesla batteries and selling my extra power in the summer to Eversource, my bill nets out to zero.
question is how much did it cost versus benefits ? since it’s a new installation can the outcome be predictable for the amount of years it will take to recapture capital. ? what about maintenance costs and potential repairs ?
do solar panels interfere if roof repair is required ?
Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited between Pittsfield and Springfield MA follows the Westfield River and one can see the ruins of numerous factories built along its banks in pre-electric days that depended on water wheels for power.
“ average 4,000 sq. foot house” hahaha.
Very interesting article. For art/historic images of mills in Westport in WestPAC’s collection, here is another:
Kerr Eby, The Westport Mill (etching, 1927) https://ctcollections.org/index.php/Detail/objects/33483
Dan–this Lambdin mural, Saugatuck in the 19th Century, shown here is on view at town hall in the auditorium lobby- it was in the Saugatuck bank branch (never at the Westport B & T downtown building that became Patagonia) and was donated to the town when TD bank closed that drive through office.
Thanks, Kathie, for the correction. I’ll change the story now.