• Six years after cataclysmic floods in mid-Michigan, experts worry that other dam failures are inevitable
• Records show dozens are in poor condition and owners have little incentive to make repairs
• Michigan has 2,600 dams, the majority of which are well past their 50-year lifespan

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CALEDONIA TOWNSHIP —- Jonathan Korbecki was relaxing at home on the Thornapple River one rainy February night when the fire marshal knocked on his door, warning the nearby Labarge Dam may fail and send a wall of water his way.

Hundreds of yards of trucked-in sand prevented disaster that 2018 night at the high-hazard dam, where a failure could have killed nearby residents, washed out a bridge and potentially triggered downstream dam breaches.

But eight years later, federal records show lingering risks.

Water seeps through the dam’s embankment, the spillway is too small to pass a major flood and the gates controlling water flow past the dam are in a “deteriorated condition,” according to an April 27 report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates hydropower dams like LaBarge.

Like more than 100,000 other Michiganders living downstream of potentially hazardous dams that are often aging, undersized or neglected, Korbecki is left to wonder how long LaBarge will hold.

“It makes me nervous,” he said. “Why should you be allowed to own a dam if you can’t maintain it?”

Six years after dam failures near Midland prompted unsuccessful efforts to boost oversight of Michigan’s dams, safety shortcomings were laid bare in dramatic fashion again this spring as floods triggered another spate of failures and near-misses that cost taxpayers at least $5 million and likely far more.

Related:

• Federal policy shields safety details of many Michigan dams. Foes demand change
• Sell out or repair? Homeowners torn after Michigan’s historic flooding 
• Michigan floods expose lack of information, preparation in many rural areas

Like LaBarge, dozens of other dams deteriorate out of the public spotlight, thanks in part to federal policies that let owners shield safety records and state laws that deem Michigan dams safe when other states would consider them dangerous.

Meanwhile, Michigan’s 2,600 dams keep getting older, with the average now three decades past the standard 50-year lifespan and floods grow increasingly severe due to climate change.

Experts say Michigan must update its weak regulations, assume greater control over federally regulated dams like LaBarge and intervene more quickly when dam owners cannot or will not make fixes.

“With inaction, we’re not doing anything to reduce the risk,” said Denver-based dam safety expert John France. “Other dams will fail. It’s just a matter of when.”

Private dams, public risks

Experts have warned for decades that poorly maintained dams pose an unacceptable risk to Michigan, issuing report after report that urged lawmakers to free up more funds for repairs or removals.

Last year, the National Association of State Dam Safety Officials put the statewide price tag at $1 billion.

On paper, most of those costs should fall on private parties, who own some three-quarters of Michigan dams. But shifting financial realities and poor budgeting have left many owners struggling to fund repairs.

“The financial viability of these small hydro projects is really tough,” said France, who led an investigation into the 2020 Midland failures. “They don’t produce a lot of power. They do create hazards, and they just don’t generate a lot of money to help take care of them.”

With little public money to proactively help (the state has exhausted a $50 million dam repair and removal fund and federal dam safety programs routinely go unfunded) taxpayers often inherit the costs and risks when deferred maintenance leads to crisis.

By that time, said state dam safety chief Luke Trumble, “you can pretty much add another zero” to the bill.

Look no further than the Cheboygan Dam, which nearly failed in April as long-festering problems at an adjacent private hydropower plant left it struggling to pass floodwaters. 

State taxpayers spent more than $5 million to avert disaster by reinforcing the dam and repowering the plant. It’s not clear whether they will recoup the money, and FERC has repeatedly given plant owner Hom Paper XI LLC more time to explain how it will safely operate the facility moving forward.

Taxpayers also appear destined to inherit repair or removal costs at the AuTrain Dam, a century-old, high-hazard dam in the Upper Peninsula whose owners declared bankruptcy after years of putting off FERC’s ordered fixes. Last winter, FERC terminated the dam’s federal power generation license, handing responsibility over to the state.

Fears of similar inherited risks prompted a judge last month to recommend denial of Consumers Energy’s plan to sell its 13 aging dams to a private equity firm. Although all of the Consumers dams are in fair or satisfactory condition now, Judge James Varchetti concluded the deal fails to ensure new owners will keep them that way.

It’s a concern shared by Newaygo resident Cindy Atkinson, one of tens of thousands of people who live downstream of three Consumers dams on the Muskegon River. 

By the company’s estimate, up to 3,800 people could be impacted if the largest of those dams — Hardy — were to fail. One analysis found a 52-foot wall of water would swallow Atkinson’s home then barrel downstream, ripping out buildings, roads and bridges all the way to Muskegon.

“We’re at their mercy,” said Atkinson, and the idea of leaving maintenance in the hands of out-of-state owners is “very scary.”

Consumers officials, who have urged regulators to approve the sale despite Varchetti’s recommendation, say they believe the new owners would be good stewards.

The risks of Michigan’s problem dams are compounded by climate change, which is making intense storms more common, further testing structures that could barely handle old weather patterns.

Since the LaBarge Dam’s 2018 emergency, Korbecki has taken to tracking nearby river flow gauges. Water levels have repeatedly neared or exceeded record highs. 

“Anybody who says there’s no such thing as climate change, they’re smoking something I’d like some of,” he said.

Representatives for the dam’s owner, Commonwealth Power Co., canvassed the neighborhood a few years ago with promises to fix its deficiencies. Until a Bridge Michigan reporter knocked on their doors this spring, several neighbors said they assumed it had been done.

Reached by Bridge, Commonwealth CEO Dwight Bowler said the dam is “fully capable” of passing a 500-year flood and “significant upgrades” are planned. He declined to share specifics, citing a FERC policy that exempts certain records from disclosure in the name of security, but that critics see as an excuse for dam owners to conceal risks.

Asked what assurances FERC officials have that Commonwealth will make required fixes, agency spokesperson Celeste Miller noted that FERC recently accepted the company’s repair plan and an upcoming inspection will identify next steps.

Miller would not say whether downstream residents can be assured that the structure is safe in the meantime.

National Hydropower Association President Malcolm Woolf called dams like LaBarge “the exception that proves the rule” that most hydropower dams meet safety requirements.

Still, he said, it’s fair to question whether FERC acts fast enough to force fixes at noncompliant dams.

Locals struggle to force fixes

Even when dams are publicly owned and state-regulated — giving Michiganders more control over their fate — finding money and political will to maintain them can prove challenging.

Antrim County officials have known for years about extensive repair needs at two county-owned dams that were built more than a century ago to generate electricity, but now exist primarily to boost water levels on several Up North lakes.

One of them — the Elk Rapids Dam — has cracks in its emergency spillway so wide a person could stick their hand inside. The other — the Bellaire Dam — nearly failed this spring as floodwaters simultaneously seeped through its earthen berm and threatened to overtop it. 

Failure would be a potentially deadly scenario, severely damaging some 50 downstream properties and lowering water levels along the Elk River Chain of Lakes by as much as 10 feet, affecting thousands of landowners across four counties.

But tasked with establishing a special assessment district to split $13 million worth of repair costs among roughly 7,000 waterfront landowners who benefit from the dams, Antrim County Dam Operator Leslie Meyers has been unable to get required signoffs from every affected county.

She had hoped this spring’s near-failure would spark new momentum, but the sense of urgency appears to have receded with the floodwaters.

“Every day we kick the can down the road, we kick the price up,” Meyers said.

The Bellaire Dam is one of several high-hazard dams that fail to meet Michigan’s flood control standards. In the years since the Midland failures, state regulators have gotten more aggressive about requiring upgrades and ordering water drawdowns if owners don’t comply.

As a result, several of the most dangerous dams in Michigan’s inventory are due for removal or repair in the near future.

But the state doesn’t have authority to force fixes at Michigan’s 98 federally-regulated dams, nor at hundreds of state-regulated dams that comply with Michigan law but fall short of modern flood control standards.

Many other states and the federal government require high-hazard dams to be capable of withstanding the so-called probable maximum flood, or the worst-conceivable flood in the surrounding area. 

The vast majority of high-hazard dams regulated by Michigan need only be built to last a once-in-200-year flood, while a handful that are taller than 40 feet must withstand half of the probable maximum flood. 

Trumble, the dam safety chief, sees those as dangerously low bars.

“A piece of infrastructure that can kill people should be designed to withstand a flood that’s very, very infrequent,” he said. 

Slow enforcement, low standards

The risks of slow federal enforcement and low state standards were laid bare in the Midland dam failures of 2020, which forced more than 10,000 people to evacuate and caused more than $200 million in property damage.

Federal regulators in charge of the Edenville Dam had spent decades warning it wouldn’t pass a major flood, but struggled to force fixes that dam owner Boyce Hydro argued it couldn’t afford.

Ultimately, FERC’s solution was to pass responsibility to Michigan. But lacking access to safety records that FERC keeps hidden, regulators struggled to discern whether the dam met Michigan’s lower bar. 

Soon after they determined it did, spring floods destroyed the Edenville Dam and triggered a second failure at the downstream Sanford Dam. 

In the aftermath, expert panels advised lawmakers to boost Michigan’s dam safety standards, require greater transparency from FERC and create a long-term funding source to repair or remove problem dams.

A 2021 effort to enact some of those reforms never got traction, but near-identical bills under consideration now in the state House and state Senate aim to try again.

The bills cleared their respective chambers last week, alongside a state budget deal that would funnel millions of dollars toward fixing decrepit dams.

But months of continued negotiations are likely, as some groups argue the money isn’t enough to fund repairs and upgrades that would be triggered by higher standards.

The concern is particularly great for local governments, which own some 275 Michigan dams and fear inheriting more through tax foreclosure if private owners can’t afford the cost of upkeep, said Deena Bosworth, director of government affairs for the Michigan Association of Counties.

“It’s absolutely appropriate to bring (dams) up to those standards,” Bosworth said. “It’s just how do you pay for it?”

The Michigan Chamber of Commerce also objects to bill provisions that would give the state shared authority over FERC-regulated dams.

Advocates for the change say it would empower the state to step in when FERC is slow to enforce at problem dams like LaBarge, but Chamber Legislative and External Affairs Director Mike Alaimo argued it would create “another layer of government without really improving standards of performance.”

Changes are likely as negotiations continue, said state Rep. Bill G. Schuette, R-Midland, the chief sponsor of the House version. 

“I know the price tag that’s associated with appropriately maintaining our dams is significant,” Schuette said, “but it’s a lot cheaper than the repair after a disaster.”

Dams rebuilt, trauma remains

Sanford resident Thomas Perrin is familiar with the cost of inaction.

He and his wife, Haley, lost everything when the Edenville and Sanford dams failed, destroying their home and 94 others, damaging another 1,300 and leaving taxpayers with a multi-hundred-million-dollar cleanup bill.

They spent more than two years “essentially homeless,” living first in a hotel room, then a family member’s garage, then a friend’s house.

Six years and one rebuilt house later, Perrin still experiences paranoia with every rainfall. The sound of a sump pump kicking in is enough to make him panic.

He is furious that the Edenville dam’s problems went unaddressed for decades  — and that safety concerns still linger in plain sight at many other Michigan dams.

“Our infrastructure needs to be repaired, and it needs to happen yesterday,” Perrin said. “Continually kicking the can down the road isn’t a solution.”

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