On the Road

We’re off the grid–meaning we generate our own power chiefly with fossil fuels. This is very expensive. As gas prices in the lower 48 have recently dipped below $2 a gallon, we’re still paying $3.90 a gallon here in Petersburg. Further our only supplier, Petro Marine, topped off every tank when the price of crude was $149/barrel. So this price will get passed on to us for a very long time….

We’ve a diesel 6kw Northern Lights generator in our well house. These are great machines–I’ve got four of them–two on our tug Katahdin and two here on land. Besides producing 110 VAC, it heats the three story insulated structure above preventing freezing of the 1000 gallon tank in winter. The 110VAC electricity is stored in 16 huge storage batteries set up in series/parallel to 48 volts and then inverted back to 110VAC. That’s so the generator runs minimally–usually 3 hours a day which eats up about 1 gallon ($3.90) of diesel. The inverter is real smart–we have a dashboard 100 feet away in the house and can monitor everything from there. Here’s the battery bank:

I’m building a box around them to vent off the hydrogen gas which is a byproduct of lead/acid battery charging–it’s also very explosive so out it goes. I’ve spent all fall rewiring the well house, installing insulation around all pipes with heat tape, etc. And I built stairs up to the top–the old vertical ladders would have challenged the Ringling Brothers aerialists.

Speaking of aerialists, below is an aerial photo of Petersburg showing our property and muskeg on the left, Petersburg Creek at 11 o’clock (Coho Creek between us and P’burg Creek) and the north entrance to the Wrangell Narrows about 2 o’clock–north is up. To add another energy dimension, we’re thinking micro or pico-hydro electrical generation now:

Here’s a zoom in:

Our goal is to capture water from the two horizontal ‘arms’ of forested creeks that merge together 23 vertical feet above our proposed hydro system. Twenty three feet of head pressure is considered low but with high volume flow we can generate power with one of these Kaplan turbines:

But it’s still 300 feet to transport water through a 6′ pipe which equals 463 gallons per minute to this puppy. To measure the potential flow, I’ve built a weir which is 48″ across and 8″ deep which measures out to 3250 gallons per minute when full–lots of water. Here’s the weir running at nearly capacity of 3200 gallons per minute:

I’ve put a gauge 4 feet behind the aperature which can be read from my dining chair–300 feet away–pretty slick! I only need this to fill to about 2″ X 48″ to get the flow to run this Kaplan turbine. There are other systems available if the water runs lower–which it undoubtedly will in winter. Here is a great website with several types of micro-hydro turbines. The stream engine is at the bottom of the page.

To learn about Mercury outboard engines and lemons (that’s Lemons and Mercury Marine, lemon, lemon, mercury…scroll down)

(The Press Release originally posted here will be reposted on Tuesday as a separate link.  There were conflicts with the Word and Wordpress programs)

Dear Terry:

I just got a nice email from your former partner, Sam Ware, who wants to buy me a beer in Dallas.  I thought I would offer to buy you a beer in Jackson and we can settle this road thing in about an hour.

In spite of what you have heard about me, I am a reasonable person.  In fact, I’m the only reasonable person on Saddle Butte at this time.  As you know, I was the only one of 20 landowners to give you a piece of my property, absolutely free.  I did this because Matt Ostdiek told me I would get a better road.  Well, the road is a disaster and Matt Ostdiek is a goddam liar. 

In fact, you and I are on the same side of this issue.  We both got a bad road.  This is because Seaton Construction couldn’t follow plans, and Matt Ostdiek of Rendezvous Engineering designed a one lane road past my house to appease my pit-bull neighbors, the Fergusons, who have sued you for the past two years, and whose utility service boxes still sit 5 feet into your road easement.  Finally, your attorneys forgot to record my easement to you, which has now expired, limiting you to a one lane road to a multi-million dollar development.   If any of these people worked for me, I would fire them instantly. 

In short, you have to deal with me and you are lucky because I’m going to give you that easement back if we can agree on a few simple points: returning the road back into it’s original easement.  As I told Sam Ware, I have no problem with development, per se.,  only bad neighbors.   Looking forward to hearing from you. 

Doug Leen, 907.209.1691 or mail@dougleen.com

How would you like this right in front of your view?  Phase III kicked in today, Monday, with more signs, a visit to the local sheriff, newspapers, a land-use attorney and best of all–an 11 foot helium blimp.  It’s tethered on the top of my house and I’ve set it so it’s right in front of the Ferguson’s view.  The development in the distance is another example of ridgelining done by the Amangani corporation of Singapore.  Jackson Hole is being raped by developers–this view used to be Senator Hansen’s land; he gave it to his son who immediately sold it to the highest bidder–what do you expect?  I look at this every day–but then again, they look at us and my red blimp!!! 

The Fergusons spent two years and about $25,000 of our Association money sueing Amangani to limit the size of their outdoor lightbulbs; yes, lightbulbs!  Amangani’s attorney, Mike Hammer is no fan of my next door neighbor, and neither am I.  After all of Jean’s lawsuits, I managed to get these developers and several other owners of large properties (Mike Halpern, Mike Hammer to name a few) on the butte together to open their road to us so we could take our ugly road out. (the ugly road NW of the town of Jackson); only to have the Fergusons kill it.  You can google Saddle Butte or my name and find the public hearings.  On top of this, Jean Ferguson wanted to know what color of roof I was going to put on my house–well, now she’s got a red blimp! 

Here’s a close-up of it with the banner still attached.  It was too heavy making my precious blimp flounder, so I’ve pasted it up between two trees in front of their driveway.  I’m making lighter weight banners–perhaps a Ronald McDonald face and a couple of golden arches??  Any ideas, send me a suggestion below.  Here’s the banner:

“BAD FENCES MAKE BAD NEIGHBORS”  Kind of has a nice ring to it, huh?  See those boulders to the left?  Guess where they came from? 

From here.  These idiots from Seaton Construction dumped these four huge 3 foot diameter boulders right against my trees–and this was after I confronted them last season in the presence of the county sheriff.  I again called the sheriff and he’s going to try to get criminal charges filed.  So far we’ve lost about 39 trees although I’m losing count.  We found three more complete buried on Saturday.  Be sure to read the press release and initial excavation report below.;   Stay tuned….