5 things to know as Michigan lawmakers try again on dam safety reforms

After trying and failing to pass dam safety reforms following the 2020 Midland disaster, lawmakers have launched a new effort
A bipartisan House bill would require registration, force owners to prove they have money to maintain their dams, and upgrade Michigan’s weak flood control standards
Here are five things to know about the bill

Years after experts recommended strengthening Michigan’s dam safety laws to prevent catastrophes like the 2020 Midland dam failures, lawmakers will once again consider whether to act on the advice.

A bipartisan group in the Michigan House is sponsoring legislation that would upgrade Michigan’s weakest-in-the-nation flood control standards and expand state regulatory authority over dams while requiring more frequent inspections and proof that owners can afford to maintain the structures.

Those proposals, contained in House Bill 5485, come six years after the dam failure outside Midland that flooded a vast swath of mid-Michigan, forcing more than 10,000 people to evacuate and causing $200 million in damages to 2,500 properties.

Taxpayers have spent hundreds of millions more rebuilding the dams, whose former owner declared bankruptcy.

“It was also a clarion call,” said state Rep. Bill Schuette, R-Midland, a key sponsor of the legislation.

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Two separate investigations attributed the catastrophe partly to weak dam safety standards, which allowed owner Boyce Hydro to operate the mid-Michigan dams with insufficient spillway capacity while refusing regulators’ calls for extensive maintenance work.

In the aftermath, lawmakers vowed to make reforms, but the first attempted legislation died without a committee hearing.

The latest attempt has support from the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, a national dam safety group that investigated the Midland disaster, and Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, which regulates dams.

State dam safety chief Luke Trumble said it would “bring Michigan into alignment with national design and performance standards for high- and significant-hazard dams,” which could kill people or inflict major damage if they fail.

The reform effort comes as state officials warn that taxpayer money to fix the state’s aging and inadequate dams is running out, increasing the risk of failures.

The state is already navigating safety issues at the AuTrain Dam in the Upper Peninsula, whose private owners spent years delaying needed safety upgrades and then declared bankruptcy, likely leaving taxpayers to foot the bill. Some fear a similar outcome as Consumers Energy seeks state permission to essentially give away 13 century-old hydropower dams to a private equity firm.

Bridge Michigan spoke to John Roche, president of the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, about how the bills aim to address Michigan’s dam safety issues. Here are five takeaways from the conversation:

State dam safety programs tend to be under-resourced. Michigan is no exception.

Before the 2020 failures, Michigan had just two state employees responsible for the safety of more than 1,000 dams. Staffing has since quadrupled but remains short of the 11 recommended by experts.

Michigan is also running low on funds to repair dangerous dams.

In the wake of Edenville, lawmakers authorized nearly $50 million for grants to repair, rehab or remove problem impoundments across the state, plus another $6 million for emergency failure response. But the first pot of money is now empty and the second is set to sunset in September.

The new legislation would codify both funds in law. Filling the coffers with money would require a separate budget vote.

“Hopefully the Michigan Legislature can find some appropriations to help,” Roche said.

Stronger dam safety regulations would put Michigan on par with other states.

Michigan’s dam safety standards are among the weakest in the nation.

Among the most glaring examples is Michigan’s standard for the most severe flood a so-called “high-hazard dam” must be capable of passing.

In most states, those dams — which can kill people if they fail — must be capable of passing the “probable maximum flood,” or the worst flood that could be expected in the surrounding area.

Roche called that metric “the industry standard.”

Yet Michigan law allows dams to pass just half that much water.

The reform legislation under consideration in the House would reform Part 315 of the state Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act to require that all high-hazards dams can pass the probable maximum flood. Design standards for less-hazardous dams would also get a boost.

Roche said that would put Michigan “generally in alignment with the state of practice in adjacent states and throughout the country.”

Beyond that, the bill would create a statewide dam registration system through which owners would need to prove their dams are in good working order and that they have adequate finances to pay for maintenance or removal. The most hazardous dams would need to maintain emergency action plans, while regulators would gain new authority to act on problem dams, among other reforms.

The financial provisions are particularly important, Roche said.

“It happens all too frequently — with privately owned dams in particular but not exclusively — that, firstly, there’s no awareness of the costs of operating and maintaining their dams,” he said. “And, secondly, there’s no incentive or mechanism to build that rainy-day fund.”

Climate change is making dam safety issues more acute.

As Earth’s climate warms, the Great Lakes region is seeing more frequent, more severe bouts of extreme weather. Floods once considered so extreme they might happen only once a century are now happening more often.

Because of that, Roche said, “you can’t equate past performance with future performance.”

He said that makes it all the more important for dams to have adequate spillway capacity to endure a large flood.

Getting Michigan’s dams up to snuff could cost nearly $1 billion.

That’s according to a 2025 report from Roche’s group.

In some cases, removal may be a cheaper and more logical option for dams that are no longer needed.

“Ultimately, it is a good investment to put money into these structures, if for nothing else than it prevents the 10 times worse devastation that happens when a dam fails,” Roche said.

Reform efforts struggle because dam safety is an afterthought until disaster strikes.

When roads, bridges or electricity systems begin to falter, you know it. Potholes multiply. Guardrails crumble. Lights flicker.

Dams, on the other hand, “are a little more invisible to most people,” Roche said.

That makes it easy for policymakers to ignore calls for investment or policy reforms. Most of the time, their constituents aren’t clamoring for solutions because they don’t know a threat exists.

“We have such a tendency as people to jump to address the thing that’s seemingly most urgent,” Roche said. “Is the house on fire? We’ve got to put it out right away, right? Is the dam slowly deteriorating over 50 years? It just lends itself to less sense of urgency.”

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