News

Lake Summit dam remains inoperable despite repair grant

Two years after Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina the powerhouse that operates the dam on Lake Summit in Tuxedo remains wrecked.

By Amy McCraw, Published: October 6, 2026

Two years after suffering crippling damage during Hurricane Helene and despite a recent state budget allocation that includes funds for its repair, the future of the Tuxedo Hydroelectric Project and its aging dam on Lake Summit remains uncertain.

“We are going to get through this, but it’s complicated,” Henderson County Manager John Mitchell said recently.
The Tuxedo Hydroelectric Project and the Big Hungry Dam, both on the Green River in Henderson County, each could receive up to $4 million as part of an allocation of $20 million set aside for dam repair and replacement in the budget the North Carolina General Assembly passed in July.
Mitchell said he is working with the state to secure the funding for the dams in Henderson County.
“I want to make sure the citizens of the county, whose money it is, receive the benefit of it,” he said. “The situation is very much in flux.”
Mitchell credited state lawmakers from the area with coming up with the money for dam repair.
“I’m proud the legislative delegation for the county has recognized the need in Green River for this project,” he said.
State Rep. Jake Johnson worked to make sure the Legislature’s dam-repair appropriation included Henderson County.
“This is something my staff worked with John on,” he said.
The dam on Big Hungry washed away during the storm. The money from the state will probably be used to demolish and clean up what remains, Johnson said.

Confounding problem to solve

But the Tuxedo dam directly affects far more people — not only homeowners on Lake Summit but the highly skilled paddlers who revered the epic Green River Narrows. And it is proving to be a confounding problem to solve.
When it hit the mountains nearly two years ago, Helene wrecked the hydroelectric power facility, which includes the 106-year-old dam on Lake Summit and a pipe system, called a penstock, which carries water to a powerhouse.
Damage to both the powerhouse and pipe system left dam operators unable to use the dam to manipulate natural lake levels upstream of the dam or the natural water flows downstream.
Water from the 290-acre lake, which remains 3 feet higher than normal, continues to flow over the dam.
The busted powerhouse, damaged pipe system and inoperable dam triggered a new rule requiring that Lake Summit become a no-wake zone. Property owners on the lake, meanwhile, continue to contend with flooded boathouses and damaged docks.
Damage to the hydroelectric project also stifled recreation downstream, which had always depended on regular, planned water releases to support kayaking and tubing on the Green River.
And emergency officials continue to worry about what might happen both downstream and upstream of the dam if it is not repaired before the county sees another serious storm.

Repair could cost $10 million

The overall cost of making repairs at the Tuxedo project depends on whether the penstock and powerhouse are repaired or a less expensive system to siphon water away from the dam is installed, Mitchell said.
“There are a number of options for restoring flow to Green River and restoring lake levels to a usable standard,” he said. “They range from a siphon system to the repair of the penstock and replacement of the powerhouse.”
Installing the siphon system would likely cost a few million dollars while it could cost $8-10 million to repair and replace the penstock and powerhouse.
A technical problem with the wording of Legislature’s bill that allocated funding for the dam requires a fix that will likely delay dam repairs until at least November, Johnson said.
Wording in the original bill would have sent the money for dam repair to the property’s owner. But the funds were intended to go to the county “so they could negotiate a long-term maintenance deal with the property owner to make sure we are getting the biggest bang for the buck for taxpayers and ensure public safety,” Johnson said.
If no deal is reached, the correction to the bill will include a provision that the funds revert back to the state’s general fund after a certain period of time, he said.

High hazard potential

Johnson said providing state funding to repair the privately owned dam is important for the safety of the people, businesses and homes located downstream.
“From our perspective, if something happens, we are going to have a major problem,” he said.
The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality identifies the Lake Summit dam as having a high hazard potential.
The high hazard designation “includes dams located where failure will likely cause loss of life or serious damage to homes, industrial and commercial buildings, important public utilities, primary highways, or major railroads,” according to the DEQ’s website.
A national inventory of dams maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shows that the dam on Lake Summit was last inspected in June 2025 and received a fair rating.
Dams in fair condition show no existing dam safety deficiencies for normal operating conditions, FEMA says on its website. The agency also said that a fair designation “means that rare or extreme hydrologic and/or seismic events may result in a dam safety deficiency.”
High water levels on the lake pose a risk to areas upstream along Green River and to parts of N.C. 225 near the lake, firefighters in the community have said.
During Helene, the lake backed up into the Green River and caused flooding upstream, closing N.C. 225. Another strong storm could cause similar problems along the river as long as the dam remains inoperable and the water level remains high.

Outfitters need high-quality whitewater

The ability of the dam on Lake Summit to control both the level of water in the lake and the amount of water going downstream is important not only from a public safety standpoint but for the recreation economy in the Green River Gorge in Henderson County.
The Green River Narrows below the dam offer Class IV and Class V whitewater rapids — the second and third most difficult — that for decades drew expert kayakers from around the world.
“If we’re putting things back in order, putting Green River back to where we have Class V whitewater is on the list,” Mitchell said. “We are going to have high-quality Class IV or V whitewater in the Green River. It needs to be done.”
Green River Adventures owner Tim Bell said his inflatable kayaking and tubing business in Saluda relied on regular water releases from the dam on Lake Summit for his guided tours on the river. Bell knew when water would be flowing from the dam and could make reservations for people based on known flow levels.
When Helene shut down the regular releases, Bell’s outfitting business lost two-thirds of its annual income, causing his crew to drop from as many as 35 before the storm to around 20 now.
“It’s been a total change. It’s been a complete pivot,” Bell said.
Green River Adventures now offers livery service at a riverside outpost to customers who want to kayak or go tubing on the river.

A ‘magical, wonderful place’

While he questioned how a siphon system would be maintained and paid for, Bell said he is in favor of any fix that allows for regular releases from the dam.
“My primary interest is to get the recreation economy back to its full capacity. You take away recreation, you mute tourism,” he said, noting that hotels, restaurants and shops in the area benefit from paddlers and rafters drawn to the river.
John Pilson, a veteran kayaker who lives near the river, said the river’s pre-Helene regular flows from the dam releases made the steep and rugged Narrows a renowned destination for paddlers.
“It was a magical and wonderful place with all the boaters,” he said.
Pilson said Helene’s destruction and the lack of regular water releases from the dam changed the Narrows.
“I haven't run Green-2.0, post Helene,” he said. “But the general take is it is a step harder, a step more dangerous, a step less wonderful, less cool.”
Pilson said he and other kayakers would support any measures that would enable the dam to again regularly release water downstream.

Regulatory maze oversees dams

Mitchell said the process of repairing the dam is complicated in part by a tangled web of federal and state agencies that oversee dams.
The needs of businesses on the river that depend on recreation associated with the dam along with the needs of people who have homes on Lake Summit and people who live in the Tuxedo and Saluda communities must also be considered, he said.
Landslides during Helene washed away roads near the dam along with the historic nature of the dam’s penstock system and emergency management concerns surrounding the dam all further complicate the situation.
The Tuxedo Hydroelectric Project remains privately owned.
In 2019, Duke Energy Carolinas sold the dam and powerplant in Tuxedo along with four other small hydroelectric power plants in Western North Carolina to Northbrook Energy of Scottsdale, Ariz. Northbrook partnered with New Energy Capital Partners, LLC to finance the acquisition of the hydroelectric plants. A Duke Energy news release at the time described Northbrook as a longtime power producer in the United States.
“Through Northbrook's fully-owned operations, maintenance and asset management company, Northbrook Power Management LLC, the company provides turn-key O&M services to private equity and pension funds, infrastructure companies, utilities, municipalities and insurers,” Duke said at the time.

‘No plans have come together’

Northbrook Energy is the parent company of Northbrook Power Management LLC, according to the management company’s website. Northbrook operates 26 hydroelectric power plants in 12 states and has served the industry for more than 30 years.
In response to the Lightning’s questions, New Energy Partners, on behalf of Northbrook Tuxedo LLC, said the dam operator became aware of the potential for a state grant in mid-August.
“Anything we receive will advance our efforts,” the company said.
The company said that it has worked in the two years since Helene to find a way to repair the hydroelectric project in Tuxedo.
“After initial cleanup, our efforts have been focused on reviewing restoration plans and potential funding sources, including potential partners,” it said. “No plans have come together on that front yet. So, our short-term efforts have turned toward restoring some control over the flows of the river and levels of Lake Summit and preserving the hydropower infrastructure for a rebuild when plans come together.”
Recent work at the site has included clearing vegetation and surveying the site to assess what can be done to install a siphon system.
“We had an initial design for a siphon system from our engineering consultants, but needed to make some modifications after discussing the design with permitting authorities,” a company spokesman. “We need to maintain the stability of the dam itself, the terrain around the dam is steep and rocky, and we have limited space to install equipment. This has caused some delays on the engineering side to accommodate design changes, but we’re working as hard as we can to finalize a design that we can build.”