Michigan Dam Failures and Climate Change

Precipitation warning for residents of Michigan.
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/sat/satlooper.php?region=us&product=wv-mid

One of the problems with blaming “climate change” for everything is: when you misdiagnose a problem you’re much less likely to arrive at a proper solution. Even if that area of Michigan is getting wetter, the real issue is our failure as a society to maintain critical infrastructure. The problems with the dam had been noted for years; the proper corrections are well within current engineering capabilities. The inaction was due to disputes over who should pay.

If there is a revenue stream from operating a physical plant, the owner of that cash flow has an incentive to maintain the plant and continue enjoying the income. If other forces combine to reduce or eliminate the revenue, then the plant stops being an asset and becomes a liability. Companies and individuals will always seek to reduce or eliminate uncompensated liabilities; maintenance is one of the first to suffer.

When operating, the dam was trying to please three masters: the power company, recreational users of the lake, and environmental interests. Only one of those activities generated revenue, but the other interests were able to use the courts and other state agencies to gain a measure of control without contributing to offset the resulting diminished income.

In the US the courts are completely shielded from liability for damages and injuries caused by their decisions. This may be necessary to the proper function of the courts, but it lends itself to abuse in the hands of activists. Courts in general have no more competence in the disciplines relevant to dam construction and maintenance than the average person, but they gain authority to make these decisions under the legal fiction that the process is itself omnicompetent — capable of deciding all questions. It isn’t, but we pretend otherwise because alternative methods such as trial by combat have fallen out of favor.

The mismanagement of critical infrastructure happens routinely even without interference from the courts..

Take for example the 1983 collapse of the Mianus River Bridge on I-95 in Connecticut, where I was living at the time. 3 people were killed, but it happened very early in the morning with light traffic; it could have been much worse. Granted, the bridge was an older, no longer used design. But the real cause of the collapse was neglect and inadequate or improper maintenance, which was Connecticut’s responsibility. After the collapse the state sued the engineering firm. The defense was able to show Connecticut had not followed the recommended inspection and maintenance schedule they were given when the bridge was completed. Having one of the state inspectors falsify back-dated inspection reports after the disaster did not help the state’s case.

The reason for the collapse was simple: some years prior Connecticut changed the law so gasoline taxes, vehicle registration fees and road tolls went into the general fund rather than being diverted to a restricted account that could only be used to maintain roads and bridges. Inspection and maintenance became underfunded and bridges in particular became neglected. No money, no maintenance and no chance something won’t fail eventually.

Another example which happened just after we moved to Atlanta: the 1993 sewer sinkhole. A 70-year old storm sewer failed and opened up a sinkhole over 200 feet long, 50 feet wide and over 30 feet deep. A parking lot collapsed completely taking several cars with it. As I recall it was either a 10 or 12-foot diameter pipe and repairs were delayed because that size pipe wasn’t made any more and replacement sections had to be special ordered.

The statement from the Atlanta Mayor at the scene is classic:

Mayor Maynard Jackson, who rushed to the scene to review the damage, said it was too early to blame the city or any one individual.

‘We do not know what caused this,’ said Jackson. ‘There’s no way to ascertain accountability at this point.’

Atlanta had been collecting water and sewer fees for all the 70 years that pipe had been in the ground, but had no adequately funded inspection and repair program to prevent catastrophic failures. And they knew that particular section had a problem; they didn’t know how bad it was and apparently felt no need to investigate further.

Pretty much everybody does the same thing: they build something and forget about funding a capital maintenance and replacement program. Instead they wait until something fails then float a new bond issue or put their hands out to the federal government to rescue them from a “disaster”. Something you know will fail eventually and can see deteriorating years in advance isn’t a disaster; it’s negligence. And it’s what we do routinely.

There is a decommissioning fund for commercial nuclear reactors that is paid into by a tax on each KWH generated. So far it has proved adequate to cover expenses. Perhaps something similar needs to be instituted for dams. If they generate power, tax the sales. If they create lakefront property, tax the property owners. Likewise charge a fee for recreational use. That way there is a fund to pay for necessary repairs, or safe deconstruction if nobody wants to maintain it. And if the courts over-rule the professional dam management regarding releases to maintain safety, make the plaintiffs put up a bond to cover liability.

The problem here as with nearly every infrastructure “disaster” is inadequate or improper maintenance. Climate change, even if real, contributed basically nothing.

I’m just another Dam engineer. . .

The Michigan Dams failed because the spillway gates were closed, NOT because of excess rainfall and NOT because of insufficient spillway capacity.

Do you want to know why?

The dams were delicensed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) which prevented the dam owners from having kilowatts generated from the dam dispatched onto the grid. FERC delicensed the dams because of inadequate spillway capacity, which is defined as the capacity to flow 100% of the PFM (probable maximum flood). At both of the dams, the upstream basins would need to see 19 inches of rainfall in a 24-hour period to achieve PFM. According to NOAA data, only 6 inches of rain fell in the 72 hours preceding the dam failure. Way short of the PFM.

When FERC delicensed the dam for electrical generation (and subsequently recommended lowering the water levels in the lake by 8 feet), the State of Michigan stepped in and forced the owners (Boyce Hydro Power, LLC) to raise the lake levels to protect a certain species of freshwater mussel. At that instant the State of Michigan assumed responsibility for the operations and maintenance of the dam, but did not provide oversight to ensure public safety of the people downstream.

I guess they were too busy busting errant barbers.

If you watch the videos very closely, you can see that very little water (relative to the upstream head conditions) was passing through the spillway or the overflows, and if you a really observant you can see the spillway gates were closed, which makes no sense when you’re had 6 inches of rain.

Now that the dams have been breached, my guess is that the mussels Governor Whitmer was trying to protect are now going to die. The people who own property on the lakes will not see water at their boat docks for many years to come, as somebody will need to buy the dam from Boyce Hydro, pull permits to rebuild the dam, do the construction and refill the reservoir. The people downstream probably did not have flood insurance, so they will never be made whole from their loss.

This is another real tragedy that was unnecessarily caused by a tryannical government.