SHAWANO (NBC 26) — During flooding on April 14, the Shawano County Sheriff’s Office said the Balsam Row Dam was at risk of failure– the dam’s generator and gates are not functional, so they couldn't control water flow. The owner of the dam says repairs will be finished by this fall.
- Charbone Corporation has owned the Balsam Row Dam, or the Shawano Hydroelectric Plant, for less than five years.
- The dam was built in 1927, and its gates and generator are in need of repairs.
Charbone is required to meet the terms of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, per Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Section 4e.
On April 14, the Shawano County Sheriff’s Office said the Balsam Row Dam in the Village of Gresham was at risk of failure.
When NBC26 arrived on scene, Chris Madle from the Sheriff’s Office Emergency Management team said the water was less than three inches away from overflowing.
By 10 p.m., however, crews had stabilized the situation.
The dam itself is not functioning– the gates and generator are in need of repairs– so crews were unable to manage water flow by using the dam’s operations. Instead, they piled sand on either side of the dam to prevent the water from sweeping away the embankment.
“That was a combination of a lot of water and just mis-operation of the dam,” Dan Pubanz, a resident who lives downstream of the dam, says.
Pubanz has lived near the dam for three decades. He says he’d rather see it taken out entirely.
“It’s been a long, interesting experience,” he says. “The ecological damage far out seeds any kind of economic benefit.”
The Balsam Row Dam is currently managed by Wolf River Hydro Limited Partnership, which is owned by Charbone Corporation, an industrial gas company.
“The plan when we started Charbone, since about, over five years now, was to acquire a couple of dams and produce our own energy,” Daniel Charette, Charbone Chief Operating Officer, says.
Charette says Charbone has owned the dam for 2.5 years– the only one in the United States owned by Charbone.
Charette says the dam’s gates are in need of repairs, and the generator broke in December 2024.
The dam was built in 1927 according to the U.S Geological Survey.
“We went to priority– priority number one was ensuring the safety of the dam and the public by repairing the gates,” he says.
According to Charette, they started repairing the gates last fall, but had to stop because of cold weather. He says the gates will be fully repaired this month.
Charette says it will take a few months to replace the generator, but he hopes the dam will be functional by this September.
“It has to,” he says. “Water is passing revenue through the dam, and not through the generator.”
Before Charbone, the dam was privately owned by an individual for 15 years, according to Doug Cox, land management and community director with the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin.
The dam impacts water flow and resources upstream on the Menominee Reservation, so the owner of the dam is required to meet the tribe's terms.
Since the early 2000s, the tribe’s terms within the dam’s license include installing a fish passage, according to Cox. The passage has not yet been constructed.
“When it comes down to dollars and cents, these licensees are just not interested in what the tribe’s wishes are,” Cox says.
The terms outlined in the license agreement are dependent on a functional dam.
“All of these terms and conditions relate to an operating dam that they’re not in compliance with,” Cox says. “When it’s not operating, they’re not in compliance.”
