This is an appeal of a ludicrous evasion of the “Transparency” objective of the Freedom of Information Act.

 

Objective and Reason for Appeal

The “determination” is not the issue, it is that the responsive agency is simply saying that they are all “too busy” to write a couple of sentences to complete the HOT Meeting minutes so they can be distributed.

 

There is no applicable criteria for redacting the information they do not wish to share, so they are simply refusing to prepare the report, deeming it as “inchoate,” and therefore I cannot know what happened in the meeting.  This appeal anecdotally explains what happened and provided links to documents posted on-line that back-up my claims that explain the situation and why this information is needed.

 

These links will bring up the FOIA documents with a single click:

018-01-04_BPA-2017-00310-F-Albright-FOIA_Records_Release_and_Closure

2017-10-26_HOT_Meeting_DRAFT_Agenda (1)

2017-10-26_HOT_Meeting_DRAFT_Agenda (2)

 

This link is to a thread communication with James King about the evasive behavior of the agency. Tomorrow is the 90th day after the Release and Closure letter was sent so I’m sending this one off tonight to have a day to spare...

 

 Problem with the FOIA Response

The FOIA response above has everything that such responses should have except for the actual record of what happened - or didn’t happen that I am looking for. They’re hiding something. This is unacceptable stalling technique for a simple record of the communication between government employees in an unclassified interagency government meeting that moves large sums of money around. What ever happened to “Transparency in Government?”

 

The following background information explains how we got to this juncture, why this FOIA information is needed and why I believe the government is reluctant to release it.

 

At Issue

The information I want to know is whether or not DOE Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is continuing to fund USACE Hydro Design Center’s (HDC) Gate Blade Optimizer (GBO) project, or has this project been canceled due to lack of progress or perhaps the responsible parties became aware of its illegitimate nature?

 

Background

From the FOIA responses to date little to no real progress has been seen over the last 11 years since HDC’s government engineers commandeered my Index Test Box project and claimed it as their own work-product. Apparently I made it look too easy…

 

Add this wasted time to the 5-years that Tom Thorsen of HDC spent tried to duplicate my successful Index Test Box after Woodward’s first successful demonstration of it at Bull Run in 1987 (see below) and HDC’s 25 years of failed attempts to create their own automatic Kaplan optimizer prior to 1984 (that Lee Sheldon 503-356-8302 told me about it the first time we spoke). That’s a combined 41 years of government engineers working to come up with an automatic index testing device for Kaplan turbines with no success. I offered to sell my software source code to HDC in 2006 for $750k, but government engineers thought they could do it better.

 

The previous 3 FOIA responses received from BPA over the last 2 years contained HOT Meeting Minutes that indicated that HDC was having difficulty securing additional funding to continue with their GBO project, seemingly because they can't make it work and decision-makers are getting tired of funding a loser project.

 

It seems that the time is right for the only proven, working automatic Index Test Box technology from the private sector that BPA has already purchased, tested and proven to work successfully thrice (Bull Run in 1987 and McNary and Ice Harbor in 2005 and 2006 all 3 are elaborated on below) to get a fair and unfettered chance. What I'm objecting to now is how the current state of affairs came into being.

 

In 1985, I invented the Automatic Index Test Box for Kaplan Turbines, while working at Woodward Governor Company. The instrument was simply called the Index Test Box (ITB). It didn’t take off for Woodward and was abandoned so I separated from Woodward to take it forward as my own enterprise in 1992. While waiting out the 17 years until Woodward’s Patent expired, I built my own version of the Index Test Box to have it ready when the market opened up for it.

 

In 2004 (the very week the Patent expired due to GE’s failure to pay the 3rd Patent fee – it’s a long story…) I got a call from HDC wanting me to tell them how to make the Index Test Box so they could own the technology. I declined this offer, telling them that I planned to sell the Index Test Box as my own product, but offered to sell them to the government at deep volume discounts. HDC bought only one with an option for 320 more on a $3.4-million contract, saying that when they tell the World that they got it from me my market would be assured – too late I learned that they were lying all the time.

 

HDC purchased one of my Index Test Boxes on contract in 2004. Because the Patent had expired that very week it provided no further protection for my Intellectual Property so I got a US Copyright to further protect my Software Source code before signing their government contract.  It took a year and a half for us to get the Index Test Box configured and adjusted to work with HDC’s GDACS system.

 

My Index Test Box was demonstrated successfully at McNary dam in Dec. 2005 and again at Ice Harbor Dam in Feb. 2006 as reported by HDC engineers to BPA’s HOT Committee meeting in a 2006-03-03 PowerPoint Presentation. After my Index Test Box was successfully demonstrated BPA was going to start releasing the bulk of the funds in the Contract (>$3.2million) via the HOT committee to buy my Index Test Boxes for every USACE Dam on the Columbia River - but that’s not what happened. Instead, BPA and HDC personnel diverted these funds to another vendor, Automated Control Systems Incorporated (ACSI) for a project to duplicate my Index Test Box there instead of buying them from me. They did this by making false claims that the Index Test Box technology was developed by government engineers at HDC. An Email from Tom Murphy, Chairman of the BPA HOT committee to his confederates at HDC ties them all together and identifies ACSI while indicating that OMB (the Office of Management and Budget interceded, most likely in response to my earlier DOE IG complaint about this chicanery).

 

To bring this about, as soon as the two Index Test Box demonstrations (with and without fish-screens) specified in my contract were successful USACE personnel jumped in front of me in the HOT Meetings (that I could not attend), telling lies to DOE personnel by claiming that the Index Test Box was their invention, not something they had purchased from the private sector (me). I got little satisfaction by my complaints about this “bait and switch” scheme and the chicanery BPA and HDC personnel employed to pull it off - a lawsuit against them was out of reach for me at the time so I switched my efforts to starting over with a new dialog with DOE seeking another grant opportunity and test site.

 

In subsequent conversations over the next 3-years with DOE’s contracted agency, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Wind and Waterpower heads; first Mike Sale Ph.D. and later Brennan Smith, Ph.D., both were convinced that my Index Test Box was worth DOE engaging with me for another demonstration, this time at Kentucky Dam with TVA.

 

But – just before the $12-million grant that Brennan was going to work my Index Test Box into was released to ORNL, DOD Headquarters directed Brennan to speak to HDC about their HydroAMP hydro-power assessment program to avoid duplicating too much of their prior effort. In those conversations HDC engineers told Brennan that the Index Test Box had been developed by HDC personnel under a "prior contract," and that I had only done minor prototyping work for them and purloined their Index Test Box designs - and if ORNL purchased an Index Test Box from me they would be buying stolen government technology – a blatant lie - but who was Brennan to believe? Or should he just decide not to decide and buy nothing to play it safe?

 

To back this claim up, HDC engineers gave Brennan a copy of an HDC Job Posting that made this claim in writing. Brennan gave this document to me in our last conversation as his reason for dismissing me.

 

Neither Brennan nor anyone else from DOE has ever discussed this project with me ever again because my reputation has been sullied by false allegations by HDC personnel that I stole it from the government with their false claim that, “A ‘proof of concept’ test has been successfully completed. A device known as an Index Test Box was developed under a prior contract and demonstrated that automatic, unattended index tests can be successfully conducted.” (3rd paragraph in the Job Posting)

 

I responded to this with a flurry of FOIA requests to HDC seeking this “prior contract.” Finally, HDC’s FOIA officer stepped aside and turned this over to a government lawyer to respond. (excerpt inserted below, letter is attached at this link. )

 

 

Note that Tim says the Index Test Box contract was with my company because it was the only one – but by this time it was a year later and any deals with ORNL were long-gone.

 

The purpose of my FOIA inquiries into the USACE activities with their Gate Blade Optimizer project is to demonstrate that 1.) HDC was lying about where the Index Test Box (ITB) technology (later renamed Gate Blade Optimizer [GBO]) came from, and 2.) to prove that I am the true inventor of this technology, primarily because I’ve got it and they don’t.

 

What better way to prove this than to compare, side by side, the two technologies developed by the two sides? I’m ready – are they?

 

Index Test Box Legacy

My name is on the original US Patent for the Index Test Box and I have a US Copyright on the software source code.

The government purchased one Index Test Box from me on a sole-source contract in 2004.

Here are the sole-sourced solicitations, the first one makes too much of a grab for the source code, so it was revised for #2.

2003-09-06 USACE ITB Solicitation #1 (HDC)

2003-09-12 USACE ITB Solicitation #2 (HDC)

2004-05-26 USACE Contract W9127N-04-D-0009 for Type-1 Optimizer (Ebner)

 

But these arguments didn’t win the day for me because I didn’t have another commercial application of my Index Test Box to show my ownership of the technology – at that time. In my parting conversation with Ralph Banse-Fay, the head Contracting Officer at HDC, he said, “If you ever get a commercial application under your belt to show me, call back. It took 10 years, but I’ve got it now and am seeking that conversation.  

 

While HDC was tapping the funds in my contract for their "bait and switch" scheme they continued to call their project, "Index Test Box” until the contract’s funds were exhausted. Later on, when my complaints about their chicanery to DOD IG and DOE IG brought investigations - and after the BPA funds earmarked for the Index Test Box contract had run out the name of HDC's project was changed to Gate Blade Optimizer (GBO) to obfuscate what had happened. I'm sure you've heard the phrase, "A rose by any other name..." It was the same project by the same people but the IG was fooled, for a while. Later, DOD IG initiated a formal CID investigation and today the monopoly that had been enjoyed by ACSI is broken-up. HDC’s turbine control work is now being distributed throughout the industry by competitive bids - as it should be – but my Index Test Box was still in the clutches of HDC engineers and they were getting about $1-million annually from the HOT committee to continue work on it for another 7-years, and all of this happened after I offered to sell the source code to the program that they needed to make an Index Test Box in 2006 for $750k.

 

Hydro is a small world. Everyone important in the business knows everyone else that is important in the business, and they love to gossip. I’ve been bad-mouthed from one end of the hydro industry to the other by the HDC engineers and their friends i.e. the vendors that want more lucrative contracts from HDC that would to anything to get them. (I could tell some stories about this but not now.)

 

For 11 now years I’ve tracked the government engineer’s progress, or lack thereof with their GBO project while seeking a commercial application for my legitimate Index Test Box project. I finally got a field test suitable for this demonstration 2-years ago at a dam located about 2-hours south of Portland, Oregon but I had to go to Canada to find a customer that was far enough out of reach from HDC’s personnel and their friends in the American hydropower industry. For that 11 years - every time I found someone interested in my Index Test Box technology - somebody with an affiliation to HDC would get wind of it and bad-mouth me to the customer and my deal would go cold.

 

Today I’m seeking a day of reckoning with HDC engineers on what happened to my Index Test Box project and where their Gate Blade Optimizer project came from.

 

I’ve got my Index Test Box ready to demonstrate over the Internet via Skype right now.  I’ve got a 4-head index test series on a 5MW Vertical Kaplan turbine and the 4-th test was run concurrently with another commercial index test by Hatch Inc, one of the most reputable index testing consulting companies in the world. These data show very nicely how well my Index Test Box works. I want to see what HDC has got for comparison, but they’re obfuscated and hiding everything – which is in conflict with the Freedom of Information Act..

 

The main problem I need to deal with is defamation of character. In March of 2006, HDC made false claims to being the creative minds behind the Index Test Box technology and accused me of stealing it from them and have slandered me in the public square over it. I made counter-claims that I invented the Index Test Box and HDC engineers stole it from me, but nobody ever believes me in public. They are the government and everyone just automatically believed them - I believe it may be just sucking-up to them to get lucrative government contracts. Today, I’ve got a demonstrable Index Test Box ready to go – what has HDC got?

 

the proof is in the puddin’.

 

The day of reckoning is here - it’s time to put-up or shut-up.

 

But back to my appeal -  what I want to know now is whether or not if HDC has succeeded in building an automatic index-testing device for Kaplan turbines with their GBO project? Are still working on it? Or, have given up and ceased work on the GBO altogether and want to just walk-away and forget the whole thing ever happened like they’ve done many times before with technical projects? Or, perhaps BPA has finally wised-up and stopped funding their nefarious scheme.

 

What usually happens with a “bait and switch” scam like this is the vendor just goes away to focus on other business and the funds diversion continues until the contract is exhausted; but this time the lies and slander about me stealing government technology have always preceded me or caught up with me a short time later. I haven’t been able to escape it for 11 years.

 

I've got my Index Test Box working and finally got that commercial application to show and want another chance to demonstrate my technology to BPA’s higher-ups, but first I need to clear the air with the government personnel to erase the stigma of HDC’s slander and defamation of character against me. I need to know if they've failed to make the GBO work and if so, I want to take issue with it to repair my company’s and my personal reputations.

 

Field Test Demonstration

The demonstration site is at the Dorena Dam about 2-hours South of Portland, Oregon near Cottage Grove. Very convenient for HDC and BPA personnel to go see it if they want to. Or, in the short term, I've got recordings of the data we collected from many days of running time on the Kaplan turbine there and can play it back through my Index Test Box as a simulated live demonstration of how my Index Test Box works. It is a simple matter display it over Skype on another person’s computer desktop using Skype’s "Desktop Sharing" function. A Skype hookup makes it easy to show this to interested parties on the other end. The presentation over Skype takes about 15 minutes to show the main features of the Index Test Box.

 

Or, in the immediate term several of the index-testing runs are documented in short videos on my website page:

http://www.actuationtestequipment.com/Dorena/5MW_Kaplan.html

 

Thanks,

Doug Albright

Actuation Test Equipment Company