- State lawmakers have voted to approve a long-awaited dam safety overhaul and boost funding for dam safety
- The bills require continued negotiations and votes before they can head to the governor’s desk
- It’s the first major progress on reforms that experts first recommended after the 2020 Midland-area dam failures
Both Michigan legislative chambers have voted to overhaul dam safety laws and funnel millions of dollars toward fixing decrepit dams, marking bipartisan progress on reforms first pitched after the 2020 Midland dam failures.
The votes came amid a flurry of activity late Thursday and early Friday as lawmakers worked through the night to advance policy and pass a state budget before the holiday weekend.
Major tenets of the House and Senate bills are identical. Both would upgrade flood control standards for the most hazardous dams, increase inspection requirements and require dam owners to prove they’re financially capable of maintaining the expensive structures.
But the bills differ in their treatment of registration fees paid by dam owners, language dictating how the state and federal governments would share authority over federally regulated hydropower dams, and other details.
They will likely face months of continued debate before any possibility of reaching Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s desk, said state Rep. Bill G. Schuette, R-Midland.
“You never count your chickens before they hatch,” Schuette said, but “I’m very encouraged by the progress.”
Lawmakers also sent a $75 billion budget to Whitmer’s desk that includes $4 million for emergency repairs on problem dams, $5 million for repairs to state-owned dams and a four-person staffing boost for the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy dam safety unit.
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A Schuette spokesperson said another $20 million is set to be transferred into a state dam safety fund from the Make It In Michigan Fund.
The inclusion of new funding addresses a key sticking point that bogged down early negotiations on the bills. The Michigan Association of Counties, which represents local governments that own dozens of Michigan dams, had objected to the reforms over concerns about the cost of compliance.
“It’s absolutely appropriate to bring (dams) up to those standards,” association Director of Government Affairs Deena Bosworth told Bridge Michigan earlier this week. “It’s just how do you pay for it?”
Still, those dollars pale in comparison to the estimated $1 billion in needed repairs and upgrades to the state’s roughly 2,600 dams.
The votes come more than six years after the Midland-area dam failures raised widespread alarm about Michigan’s weak dam safety laws, which require high-hazard dams to pass just half as much floodwater as many other states.
The national standard for those dams, which could kill people and inflict widespread damage if they fail, calls for them to be capable of passing 100% of the so-called probable maximum flood, or the worst-case-scenario flood in the surrounding area.
Michigan requires most high-hazard dams to pass only a 200-year flood, while a handful must withstand half of the probable maximum flood.
Those far lower standards played a key role in the Midland disaster. Soon after, multiple expert review teams called upon Michigan to upgrade its flood control requirements and make a host of other changes to dam safety laws and policies.
An initial legislative effort in 2021 went nowhere, but lawmakers were inspired to try again this spring after widespread flooding caused a string of dam failures and near-failures across the state.
As climate change fuels increasingly frequent severe weather, “we just have to accept that this is the new normal,” said state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak, chief sponsor of the Senate proposal. “That we are going to see very heavy rains, we are going to see very heavy floods, and our infrastructure needs to be prepared for it.”
Bridge Michigan reporter Simon Schuster contributed to this report.
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