Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Michigan Gov't forced dam owner to refill dam to max before collapse

Michigan Attorney General Nessel and Governor Whitless have their fingerprints all over the massive dam failures that destroyed so much of the Midland area.

Excellent article in Detroit Free Press. (Having problem loading link)

Federal regulators revoked the operating license for the Edenville Dam in September 2018 due to having inadequate spillway capacity, only able to safely pass 50% of the Probable Maximum Flood event. (PMF) The dam owner prudently lowered the lake level by 8 feet to provide storage capacity to "protect employees and downstream residents." At same time, Federal regulators ceded control and responsibility for the dam to the State of Michigan.

In April of 2019, the Michigan AG sued the dam owner for lowering the lake level without state permission, and illegally killing millions of endangered mussels. Dam owner refilled lake to full capacity. Back story was that thousands of upscale lakefront homeowners and the local county governments wanted the lake refilled to "Save Our Summer" and restore property values and tax revenue. The huge lake was quite shallow and the 8 foot drawdown created wide mudflats along all the shorelines.

May 2020 - the Probable Maximum Flood event occurred and without the extra storage capacity, the Edenville Dam overtopped and collapsed. Released flood waters destroyed the downstream Sanford dam and waters from both reservoirs raged downstream to Midland and on down the Saginaw River.

"We're from the government - and we're here to help you!"

Oops!

I see lots more lawsuits in Whitless & Nessel's future.................I hope they get held personally responsible.

What a couple of bad jokes they are at trying to rule a state.

MM

You have to wonder why the engineers designed the spill ways too small in the first place. Not sure when these dams were built, but you would think that they would have taken a hundred year flood into account. Maybe they downsized it to save money or maybe they just screwed up and it was just under built. Witmer and the government will never be held accountable.

I wish; I think we have as much chance of seeing them held personally responsible as we do of seeing bathhouse Barry & Hildog behind bars but we can hope...

I believe they were built in 1924 and 1925. A lot has changed in a century.

These dams were built 90 to 100 years ago. Design standards were more informal. Most of our current increased design standards are in response to dam failures somewhere in the world.

Pretty simple. The "engineers" were given a design basis and that is what they designed too.

Lawsuits are a coming!!

Michiganders continue to vote for these Demonrats and they surely deserve the government they elect.

It's too bad each state doesn't have their own electoral college,so the high density populated Demonrat cities couldn't control the whole state.

Money talks!

Why didn't she fix the damn dam?

Would be interesting to see the connections between expensive lake house owners, and the governess... Personal friends? Campaign contributions? Back scratching favors?

once more the owners around the lake -er mud - witll sue because they have no water.

Reports here are saying it was a once in 500 year flooding event. How much rain did you get, anyway?

All of the above. She’s working as hard as she can to do her backer’s and the DNC’s bidding. All in hope to climb the ladder to President. 🤮

I wonder which came first, the lakeside homeowners complaining about the mudflats in front of their houses, or the State finding damage to endangered species of mussels? Wouldn't surprise me if the homeowners complained first, then the State conveniently found an excuse to compel the dam operator to refill the lake. In which case the homeowners might also be sued by those downstream.

But hey, let's give credit where credit is due: The Feds had it right for once.