Tippy Dam or Tippy Hydro was built 1918 and is a

hydroelectric dam Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...

operated by

Consumers Energy Consumers Energy is an investor owned utility that provides natural gas and electricity to 6.7 million of Michigan's 10 million residents. It serves customers in all 68 of the state's Lower Peninsula counties. It is the primary subsidiary of CMS ...

. The original name of the dam was Junction Hydro, but it was renamed to honor a Consumers board of directors member, Charles W. Tippy. The dam spans the

Manistee River The Manistee River ( '), seldom referred to as the Big Manistee River, runs U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed November 21, 2011 through the northwestern Lower Peninsula of ...

about 170 miles from its headwaters which include Manistee Lake, on the river's way to

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...

.Consumers Energy, Hydroelectric at Manistee River
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Recreation uses

Tippy Dam State Recreation Area is managed and operated by the

Michigan Department of Natural Resources The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is the agency of the state of Michigan charged with maintaining natural resources such as state parks, state forests, and recreation areas. It is governed by a director appointed by the Governor a ...

as a

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural ...

. Just below Tippy Dam is one of the finest

trout Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', ''Salmo'' and ''Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-salmoni ...

steelhead Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the common name of the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or redband trout (O. m. gairdneri). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific basin in Northeast Asia and N ...

, and

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...

fishing areas in

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

. During the fall

salmon run ''Salmon Run'' is a 1982 video game for the Atari 8-bit family created by Bill Williams and distributed via the Atari Program Exchange. ''Salmon Run'' was the first game in Williams's career, followed by a string of successes noted for their o ...

anglers line the banks shoulder to shoulder trying to catch

king salmon The Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') is the largest and most valuable species of Pacific salmon in North America, as well as the largest in the genus ''Oncorhynchus''. Its common name is derived from the Chinookan peoples. Other ve ...

that can weigh well over 20 pounds.

Environmental

The hydro

spillway A spillway is a structure used to provide the controlled release of water downstream from a dam or levee, typically into the riverbed of the dammed river itself. In the United Kingdom, they may be known as overflow channels. Spillways ensure tha ...

chamber at Tippy is used by about 24,600

bat Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most bi ...

s during the summer for roosting, swarming in the fall, and

hibernation Hibernation is a state of minimal activity and metabolic depression undergone by some animal species. Hibernation is a seasonal heterothermy characterized by low body-temperature, slow breathing and heart-rate, and low metabolic rate. It most ...

in the winter.

Statistics

*Electric Power produced by the

water turbine A water turbine is a rotary machine that converts kinetic energy and potential energy of water into mechanical work. Water turbines were developed in the 19th century and were widely used for industrial power prior to electrical grids. Now, t ...

s: 20,000 kilowatts

References

Consumer's Energy at Manistee River

External links

Michigan Department of Natural Resources: Tippy Dam Recreation AreaHawkins fishing reports at Tippy Dam
{{Protected_areas_of_Michigan Hydroelectric power plants in Michigan Dams in Michigan Buildings and structures in Manistee County, Michigan Consumers Energy dams Dams completed in 1918 Energy infrastructure completed in 1918 1918 establishments in Michigan