Menominee River Hydro Facilities

Menominee River Hydro Facilities

Eagle Creek owns three facilities on the Menominee River on the border between Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The Little Quinnesec Facility is licensed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC Project No. 2536) through April 2037.  The Park Mill and Menominee Facilities are jointly licensed (FERC Project No. 2744) through May 2058.

Eagle Creek, in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, River Alliance of Wisconsin, and Michigan Hydro Relicensing Coalition, recently finished a project to restore habitat for the Great Lakes lake sturgeon. Phase I, downstream passage at Park Mill, was completed in January 2015. A time-lapse video of construction is available by clicking here. Phase II, an upstream elevator and sorting facility at Menominee, was placed in service in 2016 and Phase III, the downstream passage at Menominee, began operating in 2017.

Little Quinnesec
Little Quinnesec

The Little Quinnesec hydro facility is a 9,100-kilowatt hydroelectric generating station in the town of Niagara, Wisconsin.  It was originally built to power a pulp and paper mill that operated on the site from the 1898 through 2012.  The station contains six total units.  Five of the units are horizontal, double-runner Francis turbines that were installed between 1900 and 1911 to provide mechanical power for pulp grinders.  Motors were added between 1920 and 1960 to provide supplemental power to the grinders.  In the 1980s, the grinders were removed, and the motors were reconfigured as generators and have produced electrical power since then.  The sixth unit is a vertical Francis turbine installed in 1916 to provide electrical power to the mill.  Since 2009, all electrical power has been delivered into the regional electrical transmission grid.

Park Mill
Park Mill

Park Mill is a 2,274-kilowatt hydroelectric generating station in Marinette, Wisconsin. It was built in 1920. Park Mill produces approximately 16 million kilowatt-hours of clean energy each year.

Menominee
Menominee

The Menominee power station is a 2,074-kilowatt hydroelectric generating station in the town of Menominee, Michigan. The facility is equipped with two Allis Chalmers turbine units and two Leffel Vertical turbines. It produces approximately 15 million kilowatt-hours of clean energy in a typical year. The Menominee facility began commercial operation in 1925.