Cheboygan ― The level of the Cheboygan River declined early Saturday after spending much of Friday declining after crews reactivated the turbine inside the hydroelectric dam at the Cheboygan Lock and Dam Complex that hadn’t worked for three years.
The river was 7.32 inches below the top of the dam at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, .24 inches lower than the 7.08 inches at 10 p.m. Friday.
The river improved about two inches throughout the day from the mark of 5.16 inches at 8:45 a.m. Friday, according to the Michigan State Police Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division.
“They’re expected to fluctuate further as water moves into the basin from upstream. Consumers Energy, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District, state agencies and other contractors worked long hours to reopen the powerhouse,” according to Friday night post from the Michigan State Police’s Emergency Management and Homeland Security division on Facebook.
Officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District, said Friday in a Facebook statement that they worked with the state police’s emergency management division, Consumers Energy and the dam’s private owner to restart the hydroelectric plant’s turbine and return it to full capacity.
“This is intended to help move water through the dam,” Army Corps officials said. “We are also working with dam safety partners across the state to assess watershed impacts and support the evaluation and modeling of dams in Cheboygan County.”
Friday’s overall water level drop was the first decline in six days. State officials alerted the public about the dam emergency on April 10 when the river was 18 inches below the dam’s top. It then fell 2 inches to 20 inches below cresting on Saturday before starting five consecutive days of rising levels.
Richard Hill of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources’ Incident Management Team said in a statement that restarting the turbine at the Cheboygan Dam Hydroelectric Powerhouse “was technical and exacting, involving rewiring circuits, testing machinery that has been idle for years and connecting the power station to the grid.”
Residents were buoyed by the restarting of the hydroelectric turbine. The water level at the Cheboygan Dam had already dipped before the machinery came online.
“That’s good news for a change,” said Patti Stone of Cheboygan. “We needed to hear something good.”
Stone’s home was safe from flooding, but she said she knows people who live along the Cheboygan River and worried about businesses located downriver from the dam.
Vicki Alexander of Cheboygan said she’s been worried for days about the impact of a cresting dam on the city of more than 4,800 residents.
The city’s downtown is directly downriver from the structure.
“It’s a sitting duck. I mean, the city would be underwater,” Alexander said.
The seawalls armoring the riverbanks downriver of the dam would help to contain some of the water, and any flooding over those seawalls would crest at 2 feet in a limited area around the river, Department of Natural Resources senior engineer Michelle Crook said earlier this week.
The earlier dropping water level, the hydro dam coming back to life, and the 70-degree day on Friday put Alexander in a better frame of mind.
“It’s beautiful out,” she exclaimed. “If the water keeps falling, everything will be perfect.”
ghunter@detroitnews.com
fdonnelly@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Cheboygan River level dips for second straight day
Reporting by George Hunter, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
