Date: Fri 10-Jan-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: DOTTIE

Quick Words:

schools-CL&P-science

Full Text:

CL&P Engineers Talk With Students About Power And The Future

B Y D OROTHY E VANS

The most significant problems we face

cannot be solved by the people that created them.

- Albert Einstein

CL&P Senior Scientist Rick Larsen is an evangelist for environmental

responsibility in industry.

He also looks for continued change in consumer attitudes about how companies

of the future should be run, and he knows it is the next generation - today's

high school students - that will be the architects of that change, for good or

ill.

Cooperation as well as competition; global awareness of ecological

consequences when industries knowingly pollute; citizens willing to pay a

little more for cleaner electrical power: these are the ideals that Mr Larsen

and his colleagues, the environmental research scientists and engineers who

work for the giant utility company, are hoping to pass on.

To jump start the process, CL&P scientists and engineers have participated in

the company's model "Partners in Science" program, meeting with area high

school students in a series of workshops, lectures and on-site demonstrations.

Beginning in early November, 30 junior and senior science students and their

teachers from Newtown, New Fairfield, New Milford, Ridgefield and Shepaug

schools have been meeting after school with the CL&P professionals, learning

about diverse subjects related to the generation and distribution of

electrical power.

"These are kids and students that are doing something for themselves. It's not

a part of the school day," said Newtown High School physics teacher William

Smith.

"The people who have put on this program have been well-spoken and well

prepared. This has been most worthwhile - not a willy-nilly operation," he

added.

Dr Smith and several Newtown High School Science Club members, Lee Norton,

James Gulalo, Garrett Denniston, Alex Kosowski and Eric P. Dawe, have been

attending the CL&P program sessions, following interests already shown by the

students.

Newtown junior, Eric Dawe, for example, was most intrigued by the Rocky River

tour in December, and seeing what happened to the huge underground turbines at

the Rocky River pump station when 40,000 gallons per second of turbulent water

from the Housatonic River rushed around and through the giant generators.

"The sound of the water was awesome," Eric recalled.

Alex Kosowski, a senior, was more interested in the way that electrical power

is transported, as was demonstrated during a tour of the company's Berlin

facility. He has already been admitted to Pennsylvania State University and

plans to major in engineering.

The Newtown students spoke Tuesday following an environmental lecture at

CL&P's Newtown headquarters, during which they heard Housatonic System

Engineer Gary Smolen speak about environmental management issues, and

Millstone Environmental Lab Aquatic Services Senior Scientist Don Landers

speak about the ecological well-being of animals that are commonly found in

the waters of Long Island Sound.

Opening a large Igloo cooler he'd brought to the lecture, Mr Landers pulled

out his live exhibits: starfish, clams, oysters, green crabs, lobsters and a

horseshoe crab.

All are affected by changes in water temperature, he said, and showed the

students different ways the Millstone engineers were able to measure

temperature fluctuations over time.

During dry spells in the summer months, for example, there is more demand for

power - especially Monday through Friday around the middle of the day, Mr

Landers said.

To meet this demand, the company had been releasing more water from its dams

at noon, flooding the small pools and deep water canyons normally inhabited by

cold water-loving fish and animals.

When they found that fish kills resulted from the noonday release of water

already warmed by the sun, the CL&P scientists decided to delay the releases

until late afternoon whenever possible, as an effort at compromise.

"The boaters loved the early releases, so they could zoom down the river. But

the anglers didn't," Mr Landers said.

Mr Landers added that he was not optimistic about the future of the

environmental testing programs sponsored at the Millstone plant, in the face

of the phasing out of nuclear power and deregulation in the power industry

over all.

But like Mr Larsen, he hoped the next generation of scientists would lead the

way for increased environmental consciousness in industry and among

stockholders alike.

"Keep hitting the books, get to college and stay in school," he advised the

students.

His message may have hit home to an already receptive audience.

Increasingly, secondary school science students and their teachers are looking

for ways to integrate their textbook knowledge with the "real world" in

research and industry.

And at the same time, major industries are concerned with a national decline

in the numbers of students committing themselves to careers in science and

technology. Now, they are reaching out to the students, as well.

In conclusion, Mr Larsen shared a glimpse of the changing ways that a senior

scientist might view his career over a period of years.

You might start off in graduate school studying the life history of a sunfish,

he said.

Then, as you got older, you'd consider how that sunfish fit into larger

ecological units.

The next phase ("Where I'm at right now") was the one where you might lie

awake at night and say to yourself, "Why the heck am I doing this?" and you're

looking to make the world a better place.

He spoke with such conviction that the boy in the back row who had been

napping off and on, sat up straight and hung on every word.