Man Reflects on Rocky River History

Reprinted from The Spectrum, 2004

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Photo: The News-Times/Wendy Carlson

Charles Aldrich, 80, spent 34 years working at the Rocky River power plant in New Milford.

NEW MILFORD - When Charlie Aldrich saw newspaper stories about Candlewood Lake and the Rocky River power plant a few weeks ago, it brought back memories of a lifetime working in that plant. Aldrich began as an electrician at the Route 7 plant after he left the Navy in 1948. He worked there until he retired 34 years later. "I enjoyed it," said Aldrich, who worked his way up to chief electrician, supervising Rocky River and its sister plants at Bulls Bridge and Shepaug in Southbury. Today, Bulls Bridge and Shepaug are automated plants run through controls at Rocky River. But decades ago each plant was manned 24 hours a day, Aldrich said. If Aldrich's name sounds familiar, it might be because two roads - Aldrich Road and Old Aldrich Road - are named for his family, which operated a farm in southern New Milford. Old-timers will remember the Aldrich Farm roadside produce stand on Route 7 near Candlewood Lake Road South. Aldrich spent nearly 15 years on the town's Board of Education and was on building committees that oversaw construction of Northville and Hill and Plain schools, as well as additions to the high school and to Pettibone School. He was on the Planning Commission and on the building committee for the fire station on Lanesville Road. And at age 80, he's still an active member of the town's volunteer firefighter corps. But even Aldrich is too young to remember construction of the Rocky River plant, the first U.S. electric plant that pumped water into a reservoir (Candlewood Lake), then used the stored water to produce energy. Economics made the idea work. The water to create the lake was pumped from the Housatonic River at night when Connecticut Light & Power could buy power from other utilities for a song. The water was then used to generate electricity when demand was high. The idea was so revolutionary that the plant has been named a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark. "It's like an enormous storage battery," Aldrich said, adding that pumping water into the lake is like charging the battery. When it's released, the water turns turbines which generate electricity. There have been more pumped storage plants built since Rocky River went on line in 1929, but few are quite like the New Milford plant. "They're called day-night pumped storage," Aldrich said, referring to their discharge and recharge schedules. "But Rocky River is a seasonal pumped storage." The lake is refilled when the Housatonic River is running high in spring. Aldrich may not remember Rocky River's birth, but Roger Munch, who worked at the plant in the late 1940s, recalls seeing the construction project as young child. He remembers an earthen dam stretching across the Housatonic at Rocky River. The dam was built to move the gigantic rotors and generators across the river. The equipment was built in New York state and shipped by rail through Albany and Pittsfield and eventually to the rail line that still stretches on the eastern side of the river in northern New Milford. "I remember seeing the dam at night and the whole place was lit up. I must have been 6 or 7 years old," Munch said. Munch said he always wondered how they got those big machines into the relatively small building. The answer, of course, was that the building was built around the machines.