{"id":13731,"date":"2017-10-11T13:29:06","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T17:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/?p=13731"},"modified":"2017-10-23T14:32:23","modified_gmt":"2017-10-23T18:32:23","slug":"mill-of-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/2017\/10\/11\/mill-of-dreams\/","title":{"rendered":"Mill of Dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sustainability entrepreneur Tony Grassi brought an historic Maine mill back to life<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the first things Tony Grassi will do when he gives his Monday, October 23 Mitchell Center Sustainability Talk is make a slight adjustment to the talk\u2019s title, \u201cBuild it and they will come<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Renovated Mill at Freedom Falls.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to start my talk with a disclaimer,\u201d says Grassi, who led the effort to save and restore the nearly 200-year-old Mill at Freedom Falls<\/a>, Maine that was teetering on the verge of collapse in 2004 when he first encountered the granite and timber frame structure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the Mitchell Center folks and I were trying to think of something catchy for the title, we felt most people would recognize a modified version of the famous line from the movie Field of Dreams\u2014’If you build it, he will come,”” Grassi says. \u201cBut, in fact, the story of the mill is actually ‘if you rebuild it, they will come.’ The whole idea was to not<\/em> build something new.\u201d<\/p>\n

And come they have. The restored, water-powered grist mill, which had been vacant and decaying for more than four decades, has become a showcase of sustainability and has helped drive the revitalization of the Village of Freedom.<\/p>\n

Grassi will talk about sustainability in practice as he and his wife, Sally, rehabilitated the mill, restored hydropower at the old dam using cutting-edge turbine technology, and, inside the mill,\u00a0became\u00a0home to\u00a0an innovative, hands-on school\u2014The Mill School\u2014as well as\u00a0Belfast’s\u00a0Lost Kitchen restaurant,\u00a0which shuttered its doors in 2011.<\/p>\n

In his talk, Grassi will detail what he learned during a process that spanned over a decade from his initial vision to the mill\u2019s transfiguration in late 2014. He will talk about the complications, pitfalls and rewards of investing in sustainability.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the process of revitalizing the old mill I learned a number of things,\u201d Grassi says, \u201cI learned that local support is critical and that if you are what I would call \u2018well-intentioned,\u2019 the regulators can be incredibly supportive and creative in helping you think through and resolve the various issues that inevitably arise. That has been a very pleasant revelation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another pleasant lesson learned, Grassi notes, is that well-intentioned efforts can be well rewarded.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe we\u2019re just lucky,\u201d Grassi says of he and Sally, \u201cbut over the years I\u2019ve found that doing good has in fact resulted in doing well financially. And that I think includes a willingness to accept other measures besides return on investment. By not pushing to maximize every nickel, it made the project doable. We may have sacrificed a little bit of financial return, but in this case it enabled us to do significantly better on the non-financial rewards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those rewards, Grassi notes, include enhancement of community, and in this specific case support for the farming community and the educational community, and incorporating developing technologies for use of hydropower in an environmentally friendly way.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Mill at Freedom Falls in 2004.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sustainable, run-of-the-river hydropower<\/strong><\/p>\n

In an effort to use the Freedom Falls watershed as sustainably as possible, Grassi partnered with California-based Natel Energy<\/a>, developer of a state-of-the-art hydropower turbine designed to more economically generate electricity with lower flow rates of water compared to conventional turbines. The company was founded by a brother and sister team of MIT engineers. Its first commercial customer was Apple Computer, which is using Natel\u2019s \u201cFree-Jet hydroEngine\u201d turbine to lower its carbon footprint and help power one of its data centers.\u00a0The company\u2019s second commercial customer was The Mill at Freedom Falls.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted hydropower that didn\u2019t adversely affect the local stream and watershed environment so we designed the system to be run-of-the river, Grassi says. \u201cWe are not managing the water flow and here\u2019s an example of not<\/em> maximizing every nickel. If we\u2019d tried to step up the hydropower values we would have done a variety of things, including perhaps expanding the pond behind the dam to its old foot print, fixing an intermediate upstream dam and managing the water in the 15 acres above the dam. We could have done a lot to increase the financial returns.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in the end, such an approach wasn\u2019t worth it and it certainly didn\u2019t fit in with the spirit of the project. \u201cWe thought we could encourage the development of new technologies and the potential replication of this concept in other locations around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, Grassi adds, Natel has been in conversation with cabinet-level representatives from the Kingdom of Bhutan on the eastern edge of the Himalayas about using the turbine technology to harness the power of Himalayan streams and rivers.<\/p>\n

The Mill School, too, could be said to take a \u201crun-of-the-river\u201d approach to part of its curricula. The school was founded by Grassi\u2019s daughter Laurie Grassi Redmond, who serves as one of two teachers for the 20 students who attend three days a week in grades one through eight. Its place-based or experiential educational style seeks to connect learning with local history, environment, and culture.<\/p>\n

Notes Redmond in the film \u201cReviving the Freedom Mill<\/a>\u201d by Compass Light Productions, \u00a0\u201cBased on the notion of place-based education, (at the Mill School) children can connect to themselves and to each other and their family and the community sort of going out in concentric circles\u201d like ripples in water in the wake of a tossed stone.<\/p>\n

Says Grassi, \u201cThere\u2019s no question this is a magical environment for schooling. I haven\u2019t had an adult walk through who didn\u2019t say \u2018I wish I\u2019d gone to a school like this.\u2019 And the curriculum is very much centered around the pond, the stream, the Mill as a laboratory, if you will, for the kids.\u201d All five of Grassi’s grandchildren have attended The Mill School.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Tony Grassi with the oldest of his grandchildren, Joseph, now in high school.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Creating a sustainability vision for rural communities<\/strong><\/p>\n

Based on his experience in Freedom, Grassi believes the way towards creating a sustainability vision in a rural setting is for \u201cpeople to come together in a forward-looking way and think about what they want to be when \u2018they grow up.\u2019 What are their strengths and weaknesses, what are the natural resources available to them, what will lead to a sustainable community model?\u201d<\/p>\n

That said, he notes that in his case with the Mill, the process was a bit backwards\u2014he showed up as an outsider with a sustainability project in mind ahead of any broad community discussion about crafting a sustainable future.<\/p>\n

And did he encounter a lot of initial resistance to his \u201coutsider\u201d vision? Not so much.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there are two reasons for that,\u201d Grassi says. \u201cThe most important is that while I was an outsider, my son Prentice and daughter-in-law Polly Shyka were a significant presence in the community<\/a> so in that sense maybe we got a pass. And the other reason was that I wasn\u2019t preaching a vision to the community, I was saying \u2018You have an incredible asset, an incredibly beautiful building here, and we want to save it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The effort also saved The Lost Kitchen, the acclaimed locavore restaurant formerly in Belfast established by chef Erin French who grew up in Freedom just two miles from the mill. The Lost Kitchen in Belfast shut down in 2011 and opened again as a \u201cdestination restaurant\u201d in Freedom in 2013. Grassi credits French and her restaurant with \u201chelping put the town of Freedom on the map.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe provided the vehicle, the restored mill building, and I think Erin would be the first to say this could not have worked without the vehicle, that a part of her success is the place itself. But it\u2019s because of her vision and her farm-to-table approach that this works so beautifully,\u201d Grassi says. He adds, \u201cAnd her sense of style \u2013 like the way she decorates with local flowers, herbs and vegetables – really is a perfect mesh with this restored stone and wood structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The final chapter in the story of the rebirth of the Mill at Freedom Falls has not been written, according to Grassi.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s yet to be told whether this investment is like a rising tide that will lift more boats in Freedom and beyond with respect to sustainable growth, community resilience, renewable energy and the like. We don\u2019t know the answer to that yet,\u201d Grassi says. He adds, \u201cBut I guess I believe that if that\u2019s not the case in my lifetime that\u2019s okay. We\u2019ve taken an incredibly beautiful old building and given it another 200 years of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014David Sims<\/p>\n

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Sustainability entrepreneur Tony Grassi brought an historic Maine mill back to life One of the first things Tony Grassi will do when he gives his Monday, October 23 Mitchell Center Sustainability Talk is make a slight adjustment to the talk\u2019s title, \u201cBuild it and they will come.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m going to start my talk with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":963,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"3","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","spc_primary_category":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":3,"label":"News"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"","author_link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/author\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":3,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":613,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":3,"category_count":613,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/963"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13731"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13936,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13731\/revisions\/13936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mitchellcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}