- A state House committee pondered legislation that would toughen Michigan’s weakest-in-the-nation dam safety standards
- More frequent inspections would be required and dams would have to be able to pass more water
- One lawmaker questioned who would pay for the costly upgrades that would be necessary under the proposal
Using terms like “long overdue,” “grave situation,” and “desperate need,” state lawmakers on Wednesday held their first deliberations about dam safety reforms after spring floods triggered failure scares at old, undersized dams across the state.
During a state House Natural Resources & Tourism Committee hearing in Lansing, dam safety officials warned that unless Michigan strengthens its weakest-in-the-nation dam safety laws, the state will remain vulnerable to dangerous, costly failures that put people and the environment at risk.
“We just witnessed one of — if not the — largest flooding event in Michigan’s history,” said state dam safety chief Luke Trumble. Five small dams failed and multiple others “were very, very close.”
“The reality is that it’s not a question of if” another such emergency will happen, he said, but “will we be prepared?”
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House Bill 5485, sponsored chiefly by state Rep. Bill Schuette, R-Midland, would enact reforms first recommended years ago by independent experts in the wake of the 2020 Edenville dam failures.
Among the proposed reforms: Strengthen flood control standards at Michigan dams, require greater assurance that owners can afford to maintain the expensive structures, increase inspection frequency and require federal regulators to coordinate more closely with their state counterparts on dam safety.
High-hazard dams — those that could kill people if they fail — would be inspected annually and required to pass the so-called “probable maximum flood,” or the worst flood that could be expected in the surrounding area.
Currently, they’re inspected every three years and required to pass half as much water.
Dams with lower hazard ratings would also be subject to more frequent inspections and higher standards.
“We won’t be able to predict when the next 50-, 100- or 500-year flooding events will be,” Schuette said. “But we can update our laws and provide the people of the state of Michigan accountability and peace of mind.”
The bill appeared to receive mostly positive responses from lawmakers gathered Wednesday, although some questioned how to fund expensive upgrades that are likely to be triggered by higher standards.
“How is this not just another unfunded mandate to our locals, to our counties, to our landowners?” asked state Rep. Jennifer Wortz, R-Quincy.
The proposal represents lawmakers’ second attempt at passing dam safety reforms first recommended by an independent review team in the aftermath of the 2020 Midland dam failures.
That catastrophe, which forced 10,000 people to evacuate and inflicted hundreds of millions in damage to public infrastructure, private property and the dams themselves, exposed weak points in the regulatory system governing Michigan’s 2,600 dams, from low flood control standards to a lack of staffing and poor communication between federal and state officials who split jurisdiction over dams.
Lawmakers initially vowed to enact the reforms but later abandoned the effort.
“It’s past due, in my mind,” said Dave Kepler, president of a group called the Four Lakes Task Force that has worked to rebuild four mid-Michigan dams after the 2020 failures.
The latest reform attempt follows yet another string of failure scares involving old, poorly maintained dams that weren’t built to modern flood control standards.
Committee Chair state Rep. David Martin, R-Davison, urged greater follow-through this time around.
“We can’t afford to be sitting here and having this discussion and another rainstorm comes through, a dam fails and we haven’t taken any action,” Martin said.
As rainfall and snowmelt caused water levels to surge across Michigan this spring, several small dams failed and multiple larger, more hazardous dams came within inches of disaster.
Among them, taxpayers footed the bill for emergency repairs at a privately owned hydropower plant connected to the publicly owned Cheboygan Lock & Dam, averting overtopping with little time to spare. In circumstances mirroring the Midland dam failures, federal regulators who oversee the dam had been aware of deficiencies for years but granted owners repeated extensions to make repairs.
Some two-thirds of the Michigan dams have exceeded their lifespan of 50 years and many haven’t received adequate investment to keep them working safely. Those older dams also generally weren’t built to withstand modern floods and, unlike neighboring states, Michigan’s standards generally don’t require upgrades.
A report last year from the Association of State Dam Safety Officials estimated that state dams need at least $1 billion in investment.
Funding a concern
Higher dam safety standards would almost certainly push many Michigan dams out of compliance, forcing conversations about who pays to either repair or remove the structures.
Most dams are privately owned but provide public benefits such as flood control, stable lake levels and recreational value at the reservoirs they impound, prompting debate about who should pay for repairs.
Many others are owned by local or state government entities that frequently lack funding to maintain them.
Following the Midland failures, lawmakers authorized nearly $50 million for grants to repair, rehab or remove problem impoundments across the state, but that money has since run out.
The latest dam safety bill would codify the funding program into law, but adding more money to the fund would require a separate budget vote.
“I again have serious concerns about the cost to do this,” Wortz said Wednesday. “I don’t argue the need.”
Kepler, the Four Lakes Task Force chair, offered his community’s experience as a possible blueprint.
There, a levy on lakefront homeowners is helping cover the roughly $400 million cost to rebuild the Midland-area dams. The rationale is that those homeowners directly benefit from the reservoirs so should shoulder the responsibility of maintaining them.
“That was not easy to do, but that’s the discussion that has to happen,” Kepler said.
Trumble, the state dam safety chief, acknowledged that higher standards would force tough conversations about investing in unsafe dams. But the financial, public safety and environmental costs of accepting more failures at unsafe dams, he said, would be far higher.
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