Lack of rain and low river levels have contributed to poor energy production levels for the Bowersock power plants on the Kansas River. This view looks out the windows of the south plant over the dam and to the north plant, right of center, that was completed in December 2012.

As Sarah Hill-Nelson looks out over the hydroelectric dam across the Kansas River in Lawrence, she glances at the face of her cellphone.

“I’ve got nine weather apps,” she says matter-of-factly.

She sighs.

“Where is the rain?” she asks, squinting her blue eyes.

Three years ago, Hill-Nelson, whose family owns one of the oldest power plants west of the Mississippi, was riding a wave of pure excitement.

The Bowersock Mills and Power Company, the only hydroelectric dam in Kansas, was about to triple its megawatt output.

Hill-Nelson had put together a bundle of money — $25 million, some of it from the shovel-ready economic stimulus of the early Obama era, a lot from the sale of federal bonds, and some from family money– to buy four new generators that would churn more water to produce more electricity.

Lack of rain and low river levels have contributed to poor energy production levels for the Bowersock power plants on the Kansas River. This view looks out the windows of the south plant over the dam and to the north plant, right of center, that was completed in December 2012.

The four units installed in a new powerhouse on the north side of the river were supposed to be much more efficient than the seven units in the older powerhouse on the south side of the river.

Altogether, the 11 units could produce a maximum of 7 megawatts of energy — green, renewable energy — providing electricity to 5,400 homes. The seven older generators working in tandem only produce 2.35 megawatts.

Hill-Nelson also negotiated a 25-year contract with the Kansas City, Kan., Board of Public Utilities, which agreed to buy all 7 megawatts of electricity to help with its renewable portfolio.

But after the ribbon cutting, two things happened that have made the past three years for Hill-Nelson feel as though, on some days, she has stepped into her own Doomsday machine.

That day in July 2013, when the switch was finally flipped on the four units, none worked.

The frustration over the machinery failure is so deep, Hill-Nelson still has a hard time talking about it.

But even as Hill-Nelson began what would turn into an odyssey trying to figure out the mechanical snafus, the Kansas River watershed went into a continuing drought.

Mark Smelser, plant operator at the north Bowersock Mills & Power Company, left, and Matt Marquette, operations manager, right, work in the hydropower facility on the Kansas River on Nov. 4. In the background, both in blue and orange, are two of four of the plant's turbines/generators.

To spin the turbines, the water needs to be moving at a certain speed, preferably in the 5,000-cubic-feet per-second range, Hill-Nelson said. Today, it’s moving about 3,400 cfs, allowing two of the 11 turbines to operate.

In 2013 and 2014, rain in the Kansas River watershed was sparse, and flows slowed to a speed of about 1,000 to 2,000 cfs.

But this spring, in May, the rains finally came.

“It was good for a week,” Hill-Nelson said in an interview last week. “Then we had too much rain,” moving the river into flood stage.

In early September, when the rain stopped, it really stopped, and the river sunk, revealing its rocky bottom once again.

“The single biggest challenge is the water,” Hill-Nelson said. “The river flow has been so slow, we wouldn’t be able to generate 7 megawatts even if all the generators were running.”

Back in about 2010, Hill-Nelson, one of the few women in the United States to own and operate a power plant, started shopping for the four units and found she had choices of used ones and new ones. Hydroelectric generators last a long time. The seven units in the old plant have been churning water there since they were installed in 1918 and 1922. Painted fire-engine red, the cast-iron generators were made by General Electric.

She settled on two new bright orange ones from China, and two used, American-made, sky-blue ones from Maine that had been in use there from 1928.

“Frankly, I was more worried about the Chinese units than the ones from Maine,” she said.

One of the difficulties with the orange units began with the installation and trying to interpret the translated-into-English Chinese directions.

“The plant manager made some errors in installation,” Hill-Nelson said. “It had to do with the bearing and how it fit together. I really wish the Chinese had said, ‘Here is your list of six installers, you really should use one of them.'”

Many conversations with the Chinese engineers ensued, and finally they flew halfway around the world to Lawrence to fix the problem.

“They thought they had it fixed, but they didn’t,” Hill-Nelson said.

She found a company in Idaho, Riverside Inc., whose employees were flying the world fixing seemingly impossible-to-repair engines.

Finally, last fall, the Chinese turbines started turning and the smooth vibration was sweet to Hill-Nelson’s ears. Today, the units are “significantly surpassing our expectations,” Hill-Nelson said.

But the Maine units, No. 8 and 11, remain a problem.

“In retrospect, it was a bad decision to buy them,” Hill-Nelson said. “It has caused more problems than we like.”

Putting together the two units was like working a jigsaw puzzle without the picture.

“We kept finding pieces that went to it but we didn’t know what for,” she said. “We finally trucked it all to Riverside.”

That’s 1,500 miles across plains and mountains to Parma, Idaho.

Hill-Nelson believes that a cure has been found for the No. 8 unit, and it may go online in a few weeks.

Cautiously optimistic, she says that the worst is behind her and her employees.

“Overall, things are going well at this point,” she told the Journal-World.

But the question remains: When will enough moisture fall in the Kansas River watershed to return the river to normal flows?

“I don’t need it to rain here so much. … I really need it to rain in Salina or Beatrice, Neb.,” Hill-Nelson said, checking once again one of her weather apps.