A Cheboygan factory's closure is affecting a watershed that extends across four northern Michigan counties.
Since September, when a fire closed down the Tissue Depot at 502 S. Main Street in downtown Cheboygan, a hydroelectric plant on the Cheboygan River has also gone offline.
The state said the plant's closure may affect water levels on Mullet Lake and surrounding waterbodies this summer.
The hydro-facility was owned and operated by Patriot Advanced Environmental Technologies, which ran the Tissue Depot. But following the fire and unrelated lawsuit, the company shuttered its doors.
Ron Olson is chief of the parks and recreation department with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
In the event of severe storms, he said the state will now have to rely on the Cheboygan dam to manage water levels, which will draw down lake levels at a slower rate.
"There's not much we can do in the short term, but we're trying to do our best to keep the lake levels as consistent as possible," Olson said.
As part of the state's longest chain of lakes and rivers, Olson said it's complicated to keep Mullet Lake at 593 feet above sea level, which is an ideal level for boaters and property owners.
"It's a huge watershed between Mullet, Burt and Crooked Lake," Olson said. "And you have the Black River from Black Lake. There's a dam there we don't control that can affect water levels in the river too. So, there's a lot of aspects to this."
Olson said there's no telling when the hydro-facility will come back online.
Editor's note: The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is a sponsor of WCMU. We report on them as we do with any other organization.
