As floodwaters rise, Michigan infrastructure on brink: Dams need $1B in repairs

Flood threats in northern Michigan expose the state’s longstanding issues with infrastructure
Two-thirds of the state’s 2,600 dams Michigan dams have exceeded their lifespan; in all, they need $1 billion in repairs
Severe, unpredictable weather brought about by climate change makes the situation worse, experts say

In Cheboygan and Bellaire, crews this week hauled sandbags, kept watch around-the-clock and urged residents to be ready to evacuate as rivers threatened to overtop old and undersized dams.

“It was not built to do this,” Deputy Antrim County Administrator Janet Koch said as the Bellaire dam struggled to pass high flows in the Intermediate River.

In Escanaba, officials ordered residents to disconnect sump pumps from overflowing sanitary sewers and instead route them into the streets as a treatment plant that typically takes in 1.8 million gallons a day found itself processing four times as much.

“We’re not designed for this flow,” city Water Superintendent Jeff Lampi said, “and we’re struggling to say the least.”

It’s become a familiar refrain in Michigan, as the state’s aging, underfunded infrastructure struggles to meet a new reality of chaotic weather made worse by climate change — blizzards in March followed by 70-degree days just weeks later.

“This event is not a one-off,” said Richard Rood, a professor emeritus at the University of Michigan who studies climate change.

Dams are especially vulnerable. Many are undersized, regulators deemed 100 in poor condition, and a report last year from the Association of State Dam Safety Officials estimated that state dams need at least $1 billion in updates.

Aging, undersized dams

Several of the dams under threat in Michigan are century or more old, too small to meet modern flood control standards and in need of repairs.

In Cheboygan, federal officials ordered repairs last year that would have helped the 104-year-old Cheboygan Lock and Dam complex pass more water, but granted repeated extensions that have left the undersized structure with less capacity to endure what may be recordbreaking floods this spring.

In Bellaire, a 120-year-old structure built to produce hydropower is now instead deployed to stabilize water levels in several Up North lakes. Officials have long known the dam is undersized, but have struggled to fund repairs.

“The gates are open, have been open, but the gates are just being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of water,” said Koch, the Antrim County official.

Water rushes through dam — Water rushes through the spillway at the Bellaire Dam on Monday, April 13, 2026. (Courtesy of IPR News)

Lately, Antrim County spearheaded efforts to impose a tax on waterfront homeowners across four counties where lakes are bolstered by the dams. But the effort is slow-going, in part because not every county has signed on.

“The time is now – the time is past, as far as I’m concerned – to address these issues,” said Koch.

It’s a frustration repeated throughout the state, where some two-thirds of Michigan’s 2,600 dams have exceeded their intended lifespan of 50 years. Like Bellaire, many weren’t built to withstand modern floods.

Michigan law doesn’t require them to do so.

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The issue briefly rose to the top of lawmakers’ priority list in 2020, after floodwaters punched through the Edenville and Sanford dams in mid-Michigan, forcing 10,000 people to evacuate and causing hundreds of millions of dollars-worth of damage.

Federal officials in charge of the dam had spent decades citing its owners for safety violations. When they finally revoked the dam’s federal hydropower license, oversight reverted to a state safety program with weaker flood control standards.

In the aftermath, lawmakers vowed to beef up Michigan’s dam safety laws.

They did not.

The new round of flooding this week “shows you that the need for strong, sustainable water infrastructure is more important than ever,” said Rep. Bill Schuette, a Midland Republican who is spearheading a new effort to pass reforms.

If the Cheboygan dam holds, state dam safety chief Luke Trumble said Michigan will need to locate millions of dollars for a spillway upgrade that would allow the structure to pass more water in the future.

If it fails, he said, rebuilding might cost “ten times that.”

Road and bridges

It’s not just dams.

Michigan’s longstanding disinvestment in public infrastructure has left the state with notoriously bad roads, a reality exacerbated by a freeze-thaw cycle that promotes potholes and frequently-wet weather that scours out roadbeds.

This week’s floods have taken out several stretches of road, including two sections of the beloved Tunnel of Trees on M-119 in Emmett county, where steep sand dunes and century-old road designs proved to be no match for a modern megaflood.

Washed out road — A creek that normally flows at a trickle exceeded the capacity of a culvert running beneath M-119 in Emmet County on Monday, souring out the surrounding soil to cause a washout. (Courtesy of Michigan Department of Transportation)

Water typically trickles through the culvert just south of Cross Village on M-119, said James Lake, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Transportation.

But in recent days, it poured down Michigan’s hilly northwest coast, filling the culvert and eroding away soil until the road collapsed.

“It’s not only aging infrastructure, which is certainly the case here, but also it was not built for a storm or cumulative rainfall and snow melt like we experienced here,” Lake said.

Multiple expert panels have warned that Michigan is underspending on infrastructure.

Among them, a commission appointed by then-Gov. Rick Snyder projected in 2016 that the state needed to boost infrastructure spending by $4 billion annually to upgrade and maintain roads, bridges, drinking water, dams and other systems.

That’s equivalent to $5.5 billion annually in today’s dollars.

Last fall, Michigan lawmakers and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer agreed to a deal to dedicate $1 billion a year — and eventually $2 billion — to roads by 2030.

Even so, the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association contended the state needs $3.9 billion more a year to cover its road needs.

It’s not just an issue for aging roads, said Lance Binoniemi, the group’s vice president of government affairs: “You could have a brand new road fail if the subsurface is deteriorated by a flood.”

Lake, the state roads spokesperson, said as officials work to repair roads destroyed by floods, they will factor modern rainfall patterns into the designs.

Climate change

Experts say climate change adds unpredictability to the state’s already-erratic weather.

This spring, some areas of Michigan have seen precipitation amounts that are up to 500% above long-term averages, said state climatologist Jeffrey Andresen.

“Those are numbers we just don’t see very often,” he said. At the same time, they’re “consistent with the long term trends” as a warming climate alters weather patterns.

While it’s difficult to tease out the changing climate’s role in any single weather event, scientists have long warned that a warming world will bring more pronounced cycles of storm and drought to the region. Long-term monitoring shows that intense storms are already growing more common.

Warming temperatures are also causing Great Lakes ice cover to arrive later, melt earlier and accumulate less thickly — factors that increase the odds of lake effect snowstorms that occur when cold air whooshes over open water in the lakes.

When heavy snowpack melts simultaneously with spring showers, floods are a given, said Rood, the U-M professor emeritus who studies climate change.

“One of the smartest things we can do right now,” he said, “is to use these events as a use case to help us think about the specifications for the infrastructure that we should build back.”

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