Floodwaters pushed Michigan’s Cheboygan Lock and Dam to the brink of collapse Thursday — climbing within five inches of the crest — threatening downtown Cheboygan with potential evacuation while evidence emerged that local, state and federal officials had known for years of critical safety deficiencies at a privately owned hydroelectric facility connected to the public dam. The hydroelectric plant — which the Michigan Department of Natural Resources said accounts for about 30% of the Cheboygan River’s flow to Lake Huron — has been nonfunctional since a fire closed it in September 2023.
The crisis echoes the 2020 Midland dam failures and raises questions about oversight capacity across Michigan’s complex network of privately and publicly owned dams. Officials at the state and federal level say they lacked the regulatory tools to compel repairs at private facilities, yet the stakes for communities downstream are severe.
The facility, once a Charmin toilet paper mill, is now owned by Hom Paper XI, LLC, a business controlled by former NFL linebacker Thomas Homco. Local and state officials say they lacked the regulatory authority to compel repairs at the privately owned facility despite years of warning signs from the federal government.
Residents in the floodzone have been urged to prepare for evacuation in case of dam failure. The crisis echoes the 2020 Midland dam failures, raising questions about oversight capacity across Michigan’s complex network of privately and publicly owned dams.
Years of Unheeded Federal Warnings
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission sent warning letters to the hydroelectric plant’s owners for years, citing missing inspection records and malfunctioning equipment crucial to passing floodwater downstream. As far back as 2019, FERC warned about cracked concrete and damaged retaining walls and gates that could help the dam manage flooding.
In 2021, FERC told the plant’s owners that “multiple items are overdue and completion dates are rapidly approaching,” according to records examined in an investigation. The plant was cited 16 times for safety violations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 10 months before the September 2023 fire, records indicate.
“Safety concerns have been raised many times,” Richard Sangster, a Cheboygan County commissioner and former Cheboygan mayor, said Thursday. “In my eyes, it appears like total neglect on their behalf” regarding FERC’s oversight. He said he was “very concerned that this was not handled properly,” noting that federal regulatory actions over several years had failed to produce results before the crisis.
The Regulatory Tug-of-War
Local officials and the state Department of Natural Resources warned that closure of the hydro plant would make it harder to manage water levels in the Cheboygan River. But neither state nor federal officials said they could force the private owner to complete repairs.
“We didn’t wait ‘til the last minute,” Cheboygan County Sheriff Todd Ross said Thursday. “It’s privately owned. There’s only so much we can do.”
The property changed hands repeatedly over decades. In 1983, Procter & Gamble took over the hydroelectric side of the facility. After shuttering its Cheboygan operation in 1990, the plant was eventually taken over by Great Lakes Tissue Company, which was ordered by FERC in 2022 to ensure the facility’s gates were functioning properly before a June deadline. It’s unclear whether the work was completed, and it’s unclear whether federal regulators knew of subsequent ownership changes. Great Lakes Tissue Company remained listed as the owner on FERC’s license exemption into 2025.
Homco’s company lawyer, Tyler Tennent, initially told FERC in August 2025 that operating the hydroelectric machinery was “no longer economically feasible” for Hom Paper XI, LLC.
Emergency Repair Effort Underway
By Thursday, Hom Paper had found a potential buyer: HydroMine Cheboygan LLC, spearheaded by Roy Davis, a self-proclaimed “blue-collar mechanic that fixes things” who has restarted hydroelectric operations at aging dams. Davis has worked to restart facilities at dams in Eaton Rapids and Hubbardston, Michigan.
In January, Hom Paper’s lawyer told FERC that HydroMine was “very near to having a signed agreement” and was negotiating water management agreements with the state Department of Natural Resources and working with Consumers Energy to repower the site.
Three months later, approximately 75 Consumers Energy workers were at the dam Thursday attempting emergency repairs. By Thursday evening, signs indicated that restoration would be imminent, said Bruce Straub, Consumers Energy’s incident commander.
Questions About Broader Oversight
State Senator John Damoose, after touring the dam with Governor Gretchen Whitmer, said the crisis reflected deeper failures in dam safety oversight.
“A solution keeps getting kicked down the road,” said Damoose, R-Harbor Springs. “Now we’ve got a whole community in peril because it was mismanaged by private owners. This is a problem that could happen all over the state.”
Whitmer said “there’s no simple answer” to the dam safety challenge, citing the “complicated web of privately owned and publicly owned” dams across Michigan. She noted that the state has “made some long overdue investments in some of our infrastructure.”
The crisis mirrors events six years earlier. In 2020, two privately owned dams near Midland, Michigan, failed after similar patterns of regulatory delay and ownership neglect, forcing thousands to evacuate and causing hundreds of millions in damage. Following those failures, Michigan lawmakers said they would prioritize dam safety reforms, but ultimately did not act on the proposed changes.
Business owner Sharen Lange, active in Cheboygan economic development, said the emergency had prompted community reflection on dam ownership. “We know that it being in private hands has produced a really bad result,” Lange said.
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