The black soot billowing from the smokestack of Dartmouth College's power plant early Thursday morning did not indicate a major problem with the boiler.
Assistant Director of Facilities, Operations and Management Stephen Mischissin said the engineers at the power plant were "probably putting a second boiler on," Mischissin said. "This is typical of starting, stopping or increasing the load on a boiler."
Black ashes and soot from the smokestack fell as far as the alumni gym.
"That was not a totally unusual circumstance," he said. "A lot of soot is generated when you start or stop boilers. Usually it is not as black and concentrated but sometimes equipment malfunctions."
Associate Director of Facilities Operations Management John Gratiot said the soot was either a result of the standard cleaning of the boiler or a boiler that had shut down, Gratiot said.
Should the boiler be shut down and started up again from such an error, black smoke could also be emitted, Gratiot said.
"It is a real trick to maintain a proper fuel mixture so that everything starts up cleanly," he said.
Because all the hot water on campus is generated by the steam created at the power plant, the fact that another boiler was needed was not a surprise, Mischissin said.
"In the morning, there are lots of requests for hot water for showers and cooking," he said.
"There is usually a good reason for these isolated incidents," Mischissin said. "It is not intentional. Since the stacks are 175-feet-tall, it gets up into the air and is dispersed. Most of the time you can't even see it."
The status of the boilers and he amount of dark smoke being emitted is measured by opacity monitors, Gratiot explained.
"What happens, when that [soot billowing] happens, the boiler operator sees monitors go out of whack and, assuming the boiler did not shut down, and assuming it is a haywire control, the operator goes and gets the controls back in control," he said.
