Michigan’s latest dam safety crisis has revived calls for reforms and funding as waters recede from another period of dam failures and emergency work, and state lawmakers prepare to revisit proposals meant to prevent similar disasters. Next week, a state House committee is expected to take up a bill aimed at tightening flood control standards for dams and requiring additional steps for inspection and maintenance. The proposal also would ask for greater assurance that owners can afford to keep expensive structures in working order, and would require federal regulators to coordinate more closely with their state counterparts on dam safety.
The renewed momentum is coming from people who previously urged similar changes after the 2020 Edenville dam failure, when lawmakers pledged action but did not move the proposals far enough to secure committee hearings. Dana Infante, who chaired the Michigan State University Department of Fisheries and Wildlife and sat on the Michigan Dam Safety Task Force, said lawmakers and regulators had not followed through on earlier recommendations quickly enough. “We’ve been kicking a can down the road, and that’s not a good strategy,” Infante said, according to the report.
Rep. Bill Schuette, R-Midland, said the latest dam safety scare showed why leaders should prioritize strong, sustainable water infrastructure. “It shows you that the need for strong, sustainable water infrastructure is more important than ever,” Schuette said. But advocates and officials described the policy moment as more complicated than a straightforward push for tougher safeguards, pointing to simultaneous efforts to reduce EGLE, the agency that regulates dam safety in Michigan.
They said the risk is that safety reforms and staffing decisions are being made on different tracks. The AP report describes how House lawmakers also are considering steep cuts to EGLE’s budget, with an EGLE spokesperson arguing that reductions would hinder monitoring and response capacity. Last Thursday, a House budget subcommittee advanced legislation that would roughly halve EGLE’s budget to $470.6 million, according to the report, and EGLE spokesperson Dale George said the plan would cut positions in the dam safety unit. George said dam safety staffing currently stands at eight and that the proposed reductions would eliminate dozens of filled positions and cut funding for staff actively responding to flooding and dam safety issues statewide.
The policy fight over staffing mirrors a regulatory system that, after the May 2020 Midland area dam failures, was criticized for weak flood control standards, limited staffing and poor communication between federal and state officials who split jurisdiction over dams. The Midland area failures exposed what the report describes as multiple weak points governing Michigan’s 2,600 dams, including that some dams were old and undersized, privately owned and poorly maintained. In that event sequence, a spring flood destroyed structures, forced 10,000 people to evacuate, and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, much of it paid with taxpayer money for repairs.
In the aftermath, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ordered state officials to investigate and recommend solutions, with two separate task forces attributing part of the catastrophe to weak dam safety standards and other regulatory shortcomings. The earlier failures also were tied in the report to concerns that spillways were too small to handle a major flood while owners pressed for upgrades as regulators pushed for changes. Lawmakers at the time vowed swift action, but the measures never reached a committee hearing, and limited repair funding did not address experts’ assessments that Michigan needs far larger investment to modernize and secure its dam infrastructure.
Liesl Clark, who directed EGLE during the 2020 failures and served on the dam safety task force, said dam safety problems often get attention only when a crisis makes them highly visible. “Policy often moves in Lansing when there is visibility to the issues, and dams aren’t super visible until there’s a big challenge,” Clark said. She also warned that as memories fade, the likelihood of another incident does not necessarily shrink without sustained changes to standards and funding.
As the House considers next steps, state officials remain on alert while floodwaters recede. “The crisis is still very much ongoing,” said EGLE dam safety chief Luke Trumble, adding that his team was “breathing a little bit of a sigh of relief.” The report says that during the height of the flooding, Trumble’s unit was monitoring about 40 dams that threatened failure, and that floodwaters destroyed several small, low-hazard dams in Michigan’s northern Lower and Upper Peninsula while larger dams in and around multiple communities came within inches of disaster.
In Hesperia, the report quotes Village President Mike Farber describing one of the local structures as too old and undersized, saying the dam “has got to be replaced.” The report also describes the financial uncertainty around that work, noting it was not clear how the village, with roughly 1,000 residents, would come up with $20 million for a replacement project. In Cheboygan, emergency crews worked to repower the privately owned hydro plant adjacent to the state-owned Cheboygan Lock and Dam, a step taken to increase the complex’s ability to pass floodwater that had crept within inches of overtopping the dam.
Crews remained onsite 24/7 to monitor the dam’s condition and clear debris from its gates, the report says, while also monitoring upstream privately owned dams including Alverno, Tower and Kleber. Beyond on-site preparations, a Michigan Department of Natural Resources spokesperson, Patrick Ertel, said officials were “watching the weather,” warning the region remained at risk of another large rainfall event that could force emergency response again. Trumble said it would be days before the water level dropped enough for officials to inspect dams across the region for lingering damage.
Officials also said they had not begun discussing how to resolve longer-term repair costs after taxpayer-funded emergency work at the privately owned hydro plant. The report says the repairs were temporary, and that further action would likely be needed to bolster the facility against future floods. The report adds that the Cheboygan dam’s spillway is too small to pass a probable maximum flood and that upgrades could cost millions, reinforcing a key question for lawmakers: whether they will pair any new safety legislation with sustained and adequate funding.
As legislators weigh both reforms and budget decisions, Michigan’s experience with earlier dam failures continues to shape the debate. Clark described the latest incident as the kind of predictable event that could become more common as climate change intensifies Michigan’s cycles of rain and drought, and she said a failure to strengthen dam safety standards and adequately fund repairs would leave residents vulnerable when waters rise again. “Thank God we haven’t had a fatality,” she said.