Dark smoke success fail

In only the latest of a long line of self-authoring punch lines to come out of our fine city, the Sewerage and Water Board issued a public notice yesterday assuring us that the plume of dark smoke is normal.

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) -  Residents may see dark smoke rising from The Sewerage and Water Board's Carrolton Power Plant Thursday.

The smoke is part of a test for the board's recently-repaired power turbine.

Turbine #5 is one of the main turbines that runs the city's drainage pumps.

The result of the test is even more confusing than that. It says here that the test failed.  But it also says that means the turbine works.

A newly repaired turbine at the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board's Carrollton Plant failed a test run using diesel on Thursday, though it is still "fully functional" when using natural gas as its fuel, the utility announced Thursday.

The Thursday test was aimed at seeing whether the repairs would allow Turbine 5 to be switched to diesel in case its main natural gas fuel supply was interrupted during a storm. But officials concluded that "additional repairs are needed" before it'll be able to switch to that backup fuel supply, according to a news release.

After the diesel test, the turbine was tested with natural gas and "continued to show strong performance," according to the release.

Okay, well, good. Congrats on your auspicious, dark smokey failure.  They're still working on the six year money pit that is Turbine 4, by the way. 

Officials had hoped that Turbine 4 would be brought back online by the start of hurricane season on Friday. The current schedule calls for it to be fully tested later in June, though the S&WB may be able to use it if necessary before the tests are complete, Rainey said.

Sure, give it a whirl if you're feeling lucky.  I wonder what color smoke that will make.