December 16, 2022

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Hoot Lake Hydro Cropped

Otter Tail Power Company began the five-year process to relicense its five hydroelectric plants along the Otter Tail River in 2016. For more than a century the Fergus Falls community has grown and thrived alongside the plants. Dayton Hollow (1909), Hoot Lake (1914), Pisgah (1918), Wright/Central (1922), and Taplin Gorge/Friberg (1925) are valued for their longevity, reliability, and ability to create electricity from water, which is a renewable resource. The company has proposed to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to relicense the plants as they are today because relicensing is more cost effective for Otter Tail Power Company’s customers than other options—and because doing so would maintain reservoirs near where customers and community members have built their homes. “Fergus Falls is our headquarters community,” said Cris Oehler, Vice President, Public Relations. “It’s with that hometown knowledge and understanding of the people we serve that we’re navigating this relicensing process. We’re balancing our community, economic, and environmental commitments in our own backyard.”

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