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. 🤮

Dam Failure

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.

It looks like the AG, Dana Nessel, is already focusing on the next big threat.

Michigan AG: If Trump 'fails to wear a mask, he's going to be asked not to return to any enclosed facility inside our state

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-...wear-a-mask-hes-going-to-be-asked-not-to

10-4, that's what I thought.

If it was built 100 years ago the dynamics of the drainage may have changed radically with development. With development comes roofs and concrete, the water of which is not allowed to be absorbed by the soil. Farm fields may have been increased and drainage improved, all increasing not just the volume that reaches the river but decreasing the time. If the structure is not updated to allow for those changes the safety margin is lost. That results in eventual failure.

Save the Mussels!

good grief

I'm a little slow, so help me out. Did Boyce Hydro operate the dam? Did Boyce Hydro try to alleviate the flood threat by lowering the lake? Did the state under the pretext of protecting mussels cause Boyce Hydro to refill the lake? Was the real problem that well off homeowners pressured politicians into forcing Boyce Hydro to create an unsafe situation that they didn't want to create?

I can see that kind of mistake in 1924, but find it perplexing that some of the recent failures such as the "engineers" mistaking English pound of force for newtons and loosing a 125 million dollar Mars space craft or the "engineer" who created the little "oopsie" on the Hubble mirror. Or the ones who couldn't figure out o-rings got hard at low temperatures, though granted, their supervisors ,who were engineers, decided to launch the Challenger anyway.

The mud is too deep now....

3-5 inches there in 2 days. But there has been quite a bit of wet weather in the last month

Answers are Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. FERC, the federal dam regulators, ceded control and responsibility for this dam to the State of Michigan, who were then free to make an unsafe, but politically popular decision. It is common for FERC to require the operator of a dam with safety problems to severely lower the water level until upgrades are completed or the dam is permanently taken out of service. FERC had been demanding that Boyce Hydro make spillway upgrades to the dam. Due to the small amount of hydropower produced, it was not economic to spend many millions of dollars to upgrade this dam.

In 20/20 hindsight, the best decision would have been to permanently drain the lake in 2018. It is likely that a new ownership group could have been formed to finance the repairs and refill the lake after a couple of years. Now the homeowners and the community have no lake and nothing left of the dam to upgrade.

Yes Boyce Hydro operates the dams. The state (DNR) dictates the level of the lakes, they are normally drawn down in late fall to prevent flooding during the spring thaw. Lakeside residents are warned to get their watercraft off of the lake prior to the draw down. Some residents aren't happy with the draw down. Apparently Boyce drew down Wixom Lake an additional 9' below the level the DNR dictated to facilitate dam repairs that were scheduled for this past winter. Lake front owners weren't happy, half-whit and nessel used the mussel excuse to damage Boyce.

No idea why she didn't fix the dam, but you can bet your ass that she will blame President Trump.

"He took away our funding", "His tax cuts caused us to run out of money", "He is a big meany",

Pick any scenario you like, but mark my words this will be blamed on President Trump.

When you have a Marxist lesbian Attorney General on a power trip, she thinks she can boss the President around like she bullies senior citizen barbers trying to earn a living. Trump should defy her just to call her bluff.

Sounds like the system was fine if one managed things. Eliminate control, and one is begging for disaster.

The Lake probably drained down pretty good now, Them folks ain't gonna have no lake behind their homes for a good spell.
They can put the ski boats away for this summer anyway....
It'd be hard to sell a home on that lake for a while too.

Are these the same orders that are null and void because her emergency powers expired at the end of April ?

Most farm fields around lower Michigan are tiled. Water hits the fields and it immediately goes to the ditches and the rivers. Always thought it might hurt water tables due to the lack of seepage? The area in the upper stretches of the lakes had near 8" of rain in a short time.

They need to tar and feather those two idiots and run em out on a rail.

Thanks Ken.

I bet there was a hydrologist already packing his bags when he saw the forecast.

I'm trying to figure out where they think the money was going to come from for improvements once they pulled the generation permit?

Lowering water levels seemed prudent but the courts and lawyers know more about running a dam than the operators.

https://www.mlive.com/news/2020/05/...over-wixom-lake-levels-before-flood.html

I believe there was an effort to sell the dam and provide taxing authority to maintain it. Maybe if that water was a bit lower, the dam would have made it long enough to for the effort to come to fruition.

I feel sorry for the people down stream of the dam.

Couple this boondoggle with the nursing home beatings and their has to be a schitload of folks just shaking their heads. I hope every bit of is laid at her door step.

So much for the rest of the endangered mussels.

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