I looked at the video and seen the Edenville dam at the moment before collapse. The downstream slope appears to be 1.5H:1V with a vegetative cover. It looks like a shallow failure occurred likely due to the high phreatic levels in the dam causing an elevated seepage emergence at the toe of the dam. This then allowed for an internal erosion mechanism to erode the core of the dam and finally cause a collapse of the crest to allow for continued erosion of the dam and large release of the upstream reservoir. From the video the Sanford Dam has a working spillway which was probably inundated to quickly to dissipate the surge of water and over topped, where it likely did not have an emergency spillway to protect from a large release.

The video states the last assessments gave them a unsatisfactory and fair condition for the upstream and downstream dams. As tragic as this is I believe that both dams failed because of a reliance of previous track record, a lack of a emergency spillways, relying on outdated hydro-logical and stability modelling and lack of real time instrument monitoring. This could have been prevented if the Edenville dam downstream slope was flattened slightly and if both dams had emergency spillways.

https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo...

I recall discussions about these dams when I lived in MI 45 years ago.
It must be a real mess up there.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy

I found this article from the detroit news and it has a nice commentary of the life of the dam which was built in 1925 as a hydro power dam and the flood risk was identified in 1999 by FERC. I find it odd that the owners were unable or unwilling to increase the spillway capacity for 20 years. The article states the dam is set to be sold in 2022 so $100 million dollars in upgrades can happen but the current upgrade plan is in court for being insufficient to provide probable maximum flood protection.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michi...

Has anyone seen a video of the failures? I'm surprised I can't find one considering how closely they were being monitored.

The Edenville dam lost its license 2 years ago https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/20...

Quote (charliealphabravo)

Has anyone seen a video of the failures? I'm surprised I can't find one considering how closely they were being monitored.

Here is one of Edenville Dam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc3u_CHVHJ8

As far as I am aware the Sanford Dam hasn't failed yet. But it is overtopping so it is likely a matter of time...
https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2020/0...

The technical failure of the dam is of nearly no interest. It's an old earth dam, operated by a financially failing company that is desperate for a buyout and it rained a great deal. Earth dams blow out. It's what they always do if they are poorly maintained and this dam was already on the list as being poorly maintained. However it wasn't under government control to demand it be repaired so the owners blew off repairs. It's a minor echo of the Johnstown Flood.

There was no surprise in this failure and, in fact, a large number of people were there to photograph the breach as it happened.


I expect the cleanup to involve throwing paper towels again.

Quote (human909 (Structural) 21 May 20 00:48)

As far as I am aware the Sanford Dam hasn't failed yet. But it is overtopping so it is likely a matter of time...

The Sanford dam, for all intents and purposes, no longer exists.

Youtube

This is a global comment not to the geographical location of these two.

I don't understand why when operating licenses are removed that they are not forced to empty these dams, drain them and keep them empty until they are sorted.

Most things if it fails a safety check then it gets shut down. To leave something full and operating is just unbelievable.

I have zero clue how dams work or are constructed.

They can't see what is gone from Sanford dam until the water level drops, but this feature makes no sense. "However, Sanford Dam's "fuse plug" — a spillway feature designed to wash away in high flood conditions to keep the dam from collapsing — has been washed out."

From this drone video I rather suspect the Sanford dam is no more. Part remains, but the main section to the North west looks like it has been completely destroyed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzgu_Mnkfgk

There may be some little hump remaining, but it will be several metres lower than it once was

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Quote (Phil1934)

They can't see what is gone from Sanford dam until the water level drops, but this feature makes no sense. "However, Sanford Dam's "fuse plug" — a spillway feature designed to wash away in high flood conditions to keep the dam from collapsing — has been washed out."

Fuse Plugs are pretty common on smaller dams, but they are on larger ones too. Its usually an earthen berm across a low spot along a spillway. It acts as an automatic natural "gate" that will be "opened" (eroded) once the water either erodes internally or overtops. Then the spillway can pass more water. It's a technique to help manage outflows during larger events. Common lower rain events may not trigger the fuseplug to activate, which will spare downstream innundation when its not necessary.


I'm still wondering what the initiating failure mode is for the Edenvill Dam. The video posted earlier shows the downstream face relatively intact, with some upstream depressions. There was water running over the crest indicated some form of overtopping, but did it overtop because there was a natural low spot along the crest, or did that potion of the crest settle because there was an internal erosion feature.

90% of my projects are Dam Safety projects on Earth and Rockfill dams, and I am waiting to see what the results of the investigation are, and if it will change our dam safety programs. However, I have a feeling this was avoidable based on current practices, but I will wait on a full investigation.

The issue about lowering the lake which has built up behind the edenville dam is now evident after its failure - huge mud flats and lots of no doubt expensive lake side properties with jetties now several metres above water level and a long way from the shallow river in the middle of the valley. The residents would not have been happy.

Lowering a lake that big would take a very long time to not flood the downstream areas.

The dam which nearly burst in yorkshire this year was a small fraction of the size and it took days to drain it with huge pumps and the drains fully open.

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This article seems to cover the history - https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2020/0...

I suspect the fuse plug was that concrete structure but it only works if it is not completely destroyed by the water.

It's not clear if the mass of timber and debris is cause or effect in terms of blocking the main sluice gates, but any dam which is already high from rain to contain an upstream dam failure is asking rather a lot.

The initial edenville dam failure looks like a slope failure to me - see the video earlier posted by human909

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Here's an image from Google Earth showing the Sanford Dam taken in June 2018. I assume that the circled area is this so-called 'plug':



Compare this with the pictures posted by LittleInch. BTW, my wife has an Aunt who lives less than 3/4 mile Southwest of the dam and a 1/4 mile from the river. We tried reaching her yesterday but got no answer on either her cell or landline. If we don't reach her today, we'll try calling her son.

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Quote (LittleInch)

The initial edenville dam failure looks like a slope failure to me - see the video earlier posted by human909

That was what caused the breach, the loss of downstream slope. However what caused the slope failure is what will be the initiating failure mode. If the video was a little longer before the slope failure, there could be a little more info. I am starting to think it was an internal erosion failure mode. This failure event tree shows how this would happen. A void was formed within the embankment from erosion, which then lead to a collapse crest when the void collapsed. This also gave a seepage path along the base of that slope failure; you can see the water flowing out just at the bottom of the mass of soil. The slope then failed, leading to breach.

Interestingly, both dams were rehabilitated with a toe drain system to help prevent internal erosion. However, it appears from historic aerial imagery on Google Earth that the portion of Edenville dam that failed did not have this toe drain system installed.

This is all purely speculation and my personal opinion, and I am waiting for more facts and investigations to come out.

Quote (LittleInch)

I suspect the fuse plug was that concrete structure but it only works if it is not completely destroyed by the water.

Concrete cannot effectively erode, so it was not the fuseplug. The concrete spillway appears to have a soil cover based on aerial imagery. This soil would act as the fuseplug. On-the-ground photos will help establish that. I'm sure some of this is available through FERC.

Sorry for the multiple messages, but I'm still thinking this through. It is possible this was purely a slope failure due to the increased seepage and rain saturation. In that case, the slope was not stable during an unusual event and should have been rehabilitated. As I said before, this portion did not have the toe drain. Looking at the other portions that did have this toe drain, an additional berm was constructed at the toe. This berm could have helped with slope stability, but again this is all purely speculation.

Well I didn't mean it was concrete but you seem to be correct. The plug idea looks like it was designed to go once over topping occurred and result in washout of maybe a metre or so of earth on top of the concrete spill way.

This is a rendered gE impage but seems to show the detail you describe.



I suspect the remains of the concrete spillway is the disturbed water area you see on the drone footage.

However if the water level is so high and the flow so massive that you over top the entire earthen bank on its far side then the fuse plug is irrelevant as there is now nothing to stop virtually the entire lake from draining.

It's only because the downstream river has backed up so much that the lake isn't already empty now.

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Here's a video report from our friend Juan Browne, of Orville Dam fame, with a report on the failure of the Edenville and Sanford Dams (I guess he's now considered an expert on dam failures):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpZMb5TR-hU

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Quote (LittleInch)

However if the water level is so high and the flow so massive that you over top the entire earthen bank on its far side then the fuse plug is irrelevant as there is now nothing to stop virtually the entire lake from draining.

Yes, you are correct. I was being overly semantic, my apologies. The whole reason this dam, the Sanford dam, had its license revoked was because it would overtop during the PMF, about a 1/10000 annual chance of exceedance storm. While this storm was not that event, the upstream failure released more water. This dam did fail from overtopping with inadequate spillway capacity, fuseplug or not. Interestingly, we can see the two most common failure modes between these two dams.
Also going through aerial imagery, the concrete spillway wasn't even original, and was added after a FERC order in 1999. Who knows what the damage would have been without the spillway.

I don't think it's so much that the downstream rive has backed-up as it's just that the Sanford Dam is the LAST of four dams on the Tittabawassee River and from there on down, it's all just a big flat flood plane that has basically filled-up. If you watch the Juan Browne video that I posted it kind of shows that near the end of the video when he shows that last section of the river as it flows through the city of Midland.

Here's a news report from a local (Saginaw) TV station from yesterday afternoon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCOrAaaSuA0

Note that my wife and I used to live and work in Saginaw, until we moved to SoCal in 1980, and before we were married, my wife used to live in Sanford with her aunt, whom we're now trying to get in contact with.

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Quote (Milliontown)

Sorry for the multiple messages, but I'm still thinking this through. It is possible this was purely a slope failure due to the increased seepage and rain saturation. In that case, the slope was not stable during an unusual event and should have been rehabilitated. As I said before, this portion did not have the toe drain. Looking at the other portions that did have this toe drain, an additional berm was constructed at the toe. This berm could have helped with slope stability, but again this is all purely speculation.

Don't apologize. You seem to be one of the more knowledgeable on dams here. I'm pretty rusty.

The original video was slightly longer. I've seen it elsewhere but I can't find it again. The original video showed significant water seeping through especially towards the top though it did not seem like it was overtopping. From my limited knowledge, it seems like a slope failure from a saturated dam wall.

I saw a few photos of the broken dam and it looked like a clay plug but not all the way to the top. So the earth mound gets saturated with a high level and then slides down fatally weakening the dam wall which breaks through moments later.

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I had a closer look at the video posted by Human909

The google earth shows there is a road or path at the crest which is 6m or 20 feet at least.


The video image shows water up to the downstream berm, roadway is flooded and that is not 6 m or 20 ft of crest.
Water is overflowing
Sinkhole on crest


Shallow circular failure occurs


Water eroding circular failure


I am not familiar with fuse plug spillways but if the goal was to have the spillway erode down to below the elevation of the working spillway then it worked. If it was only supposed to erode a minimal height but maintain the reservoir to the working spillway elevation than it did not work. The fact that a circular failure occurred instead of a erosion rill which expands shows the downstream slope is over steepened. When the water subsides it will become evident as to how much of the spillway remains and if a channel formed lower than the intended spillway crest.

Quote:

I don't understand why when operating licenses are removed that they are not forced to empty these dams, drain them and keep them empty until they are sorted.

Lake Wixom was lowered and the plant idled after they lost their license however the governor and state attorney general filed a lawsuit after residents complained about property values and loss of marine wildlife. The state purportedly recently forced them to increase the water levels again nearly to capacity for summer recreation, which isnt surprising as this hasn't been an overly wet spring.

This is edenville on 22nd May

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yuVaZFBGG8

Basically the dam has ceased to exist and water level would be lower if the downstream system could accept more water.



What's left of the concrete "fuse plug"

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Crazy that you have a dam, feeding a dam, feeding a damn! And, that if the first one craps-out it's automatically going to kill the next one, that's going to wipe-out the third one! It's insanity.

Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com

I think it's fairly common - you just don't want the first one to fail.

Does give you a bit more time to prepare the downstream locations for the rise in water.

The dams don't look very deep though (apparently about 40 foot or 12m of normal water height from the base river elevation) - it takes up a lot of square area for not much depth of water which accounts for the small power generation plants that exist. That part of the country must have been very sparsely populated when they dammed the rivers.

All four of these seem to have been built in the 1920s by Boyce hydro power. Generating capacity is about 5MW on the edenville site apparently. It's no wonder that the plant lost money if this was their main income when also having to maintain / repair the dam, gates etc.

It's also a way of controlling peak water flows without having to create a massive single dam.

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Quote (itsmoked)

Crazy that you have a dam, feeding a dam, feeding a damn! And, that if the first one craps-out it's automatically going to kill the next one, that's going to wipe-out the third one! It's insanity.

It is normal. You build damns not to fail. Failure should not be an option. You build them to safely release water in extreme weather events. The insanity is the politics that can allow a dam with known safety risks to continue operation for so long.

Here is the Shiawassee River the partner river, count the dams...
https://web.archive.org/web/20110827043034/http://...


Here is the colorado:

Strings of dams make lots of sense, when you wish to capture the potential energy change not captured by any single dam, particularly when a single dam can't possibly deal with higher potential energies.

Nevertheless, the fact that the dam's level is so high, even after failure of the dam suggests a water event exceeding its design parameters.

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Here's that map showing the Shiawassee River and its system of dams (courtesy of human909):



Also note that, particularly in the southern part of the state, around Detroit and down near the Ohio border, many of these small dams, with power plants, were build by people like Henry Ford to supply power to the various small towns where he and other early auto manufacturers were moving some of the production of components and auto parts out away from the big cities.

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When the water drops, history is revealed:

Wixom Lake steam shovel unearthed

https://nbc25news.com/news/local/wixom-lake-steam-...

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So if the state told them to raise water level that means that the state accepted the liability I guess.
In WI the state has seized some dams where owners wouldn't/couldn't do the maintenance.

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P.E. Metallurgy

Politicians accept liability? Good luck with that, that would be like them admitting they were ever wrong. Per the local media, the MI governor has said she intends to pursue legal action to seize the dams and sue the operator for the cost of damages. There is also conjecture as to whether/not it makes sense to spend the money to rebuild the dams or find better/cheaper means to control the two rivers. The primary purpose of these apparently was flood control, not power generation so safety might be a bigger factor than money. To be fair tho, there are many summer homes/cottages in the area for wealthy Detroiters.

The original purpose of the Edenville dam was power generation; not sure about the others. As people built homes along the lake it also became a source of property taxes and seen as a recreational use. I don't see evidence they had flood control as a main use; in fact it seems like they were known to be vulnerable to failing in this use as they had insufficient spillway capacity. One article suggests this has been a known issue for 20 years.

The reason it hasn't been adequately addressed seems to be a competition between moneyed land owners unhappy at losing their summer fun and their property values and a late participant, the Natural Resources Department, that wanted to keep fresh water mussels healthy by keeping the water levels up.

The people who really suffered from this are the ones downstream who had no direct economic connection to back any complaints.

The ones that WI has seized have usually been removed as parts of river renewal projects.
Property owners just have to suck it up, unless they really want to shoulder the costs of the project themselves.
There have been a couple of re-builds (The Dells) but those have been rare.

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Here's a video, posted yesterday, showing what's left of Wixom Lake, after the Edenville Dam failure:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa7tacsTLK0&fe...

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Mire like wixom river....

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Actually it's the Tittabawassee River, and now it's back to what it was like a hundred years ago.

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Interesting to see just how shallow a lot of the lake must have been. But now what?

Let the bare earth regenerate?

Fill the lake back in so that all the "lakeside" houses get their lake back?

for 5MW it isn't a commercial venture.

I wonder how the flood modelling works now without those dams.

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A few of my observations:-

(1) Edenville has two 3-bay spillways, at each side of Highway 30, and Sanford has one 6-bay spillway. By inspection the spillways in Edenville looks underdesigned at a "Y" junction of the wide Wixom Lake. It might have a chance if the hydro plant was operational to dispose the water continuously before the Lake level was allowed to build up.

(2) Failure of Sanford Dam is likely consequential to the upstream failure of the Edenville Dam. My guess the design of Sanford is unlikely to have included a sudden and total dam failure upstream at Edenville as the design is very old and such extra condition could be prohibitively expensive.

(3) If the power plant Owner lost the license to operate the hydro plant then the turbine units would not be operational, valves shut and water was allowed to build up. The manitenance and control of the infrastructure was passed to a Michigan State agency which was interested in raising the water level for recreation purposes. Thus there had been zero consideration of flood control on the dam which was not designed for such purpose. It was known to everybody that the dam needs to be strengthened but nobody seems to understand it is out of the scope of a hydro power plant license to raise the dam for the recreational purposes. Interestingly the Owner had agreed to sell the asset to the State but the deal has not concluded for another year or two.

(4) The failure occured when the water level overtopped the emabnkment south of the hydro plant/spillway. This could possibly due to a sudden huge influx of precipitation when the river level was already higher than the top of the spillways.

(5) The Youtube video shows that the south embankment has no erosion protection at all and as such it cannot possibly be used as an emergency spillway. There could be some parts of the Edenville dam able to function as an emergency spillway on the west side of Highway 30, at the east side of the second 3-bay spillway that has no power plant, but no video footage is available to show if water was overtopping elsewhere when the earth embankment failed. Thus the design limit of the dam was exceeded if water could overtop the earth embankment as captured in the Youtube video.

(6) Hydraulically the failed earth embankment is perpendicular to a long and wide Wixom River from the north east direction. The water level in the lake might not be static and dynamically higher locally to the failed embankment where the momentum of the travelling water could easily run up and overtop the embankment slope.

(7) The preliminary findings of the Edenville Dam could be (a) Edenville was subjected to condition to impound water outside its design limit or (b) The emergency spillway, if exists, was ineffective or underdesigned and caused water locally overtopping the south earth embankment.

Just found in Wikipedia on Edenville Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edenville_Dam:-

Quote:

The dam's operator said it began to raise the lake's water level in April 2020, under threat of being sued by Michigan's EGLE, and that it reached "normal pond level" in the first week of May. Michigan's Attorney General confirmed EGLE had directed the operator to raise the water level, stating: "Michigan EGLE directed Boyce to follow the court-ordered lake level requirements," but challenged that the operator had lowered it for safety reasons.

Jusr curious, does EGLE employ professional hydraulic, river or dam engineers? It better hires some mechanical engineers to weld some decent thickness boiler plates to protect its backside now. The writing on the wall seems to indicate EGLE single handedly arranged the two dams to fail.

All the property owners that didn't want to lose property value or lakefront footage should have been made to pony up the cost of maintenance. Nationally there are a lot of dams in very poor condition. This is going to happen over and over. We have one near me that has millions of tons of toxic mill residue in the sediment. When the dam goes it is going to take out a lot more value down stream than the cost of building a new dam slightly downstream of the existing dam. But no one wants to foot the bill.

----------------------------------------

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Let's talk common sense.

The dam owner got a license to generate electricity from 2x2.4MW unit, right? The avaerage cost of electricity from the generator is about $0.2 to $0.3 per kwh in USA. So 4,800x0.3x24 = $34,560 income. Normally the price paid by domestic dwelling is about three times higher because about 1/3 to the distributor and another 1/3 to the transmission people. The hydro power should attract other incomes as it is green and rapid in its delivery. In fact in UK I know hydro companies can earn more money several times over by just having the plant on standby and not generating. However the money that can be squeezed out of a 4.8MW little hydro will not fire up the imagination of any financial people.

The dam is 16m high, according to Wikipedia, so at 100% efficiency it will discharge about 30 m3/s or 30 tonnes of water per second. Let's say the top of spillay way is 1m below top of dam so the turbines could be rated at about 14 to 14.5m head and still able to generate a decent amount of power when the water level drops to 10m. Thus it would be in the owner's own interest to keep the lake level no more than 14.5m because at higher levels he lose water and at lower levels the turbines operate at poor efficiencies.

The State's EGLE on the other hand likes to see a higher water level to increase the scope of water spor/recreations which could idrectly add value to the properties and surrounding land. The drained Wixom Lake reveals it is remarkably shallow at many locations. To get a larger lake the water level has to be increased but the amount of investment is possibly hundreds times more than the income from the license to generate the 4.8MW power plant. Thus the owner for decades refused to modify the dam height quoting financial difficulties.

Prior to the failure EGLE had instructed the Owner to increase the water while his license to operate had been withdrawn two years ago.

Here we are with a decommisoned hydro plant no long able to do any flood regulation. Due to conflict of interest the water level has been instructed to raise to a level the dam had not been designed to withstand and the rain was the last straw that broke the back of the camel.

I am sure the actual situation could be many times more complicated than what I outlined above but it appears one party has been flogging a dead horse for years and has ignore the fundamental engineering!

Saikee.

I think your numbers are out be a factor of 10.

It looks like whole sale price of electricity in the US is about $40/MWH. So one day is about $4600, $1.7 M max for the year. So in reality maybe $1.3 to 1.5.

Take off staff costs and some maintenence and you're not left with anything.

The big issue across the US though is that there are hundreds of such structures all needing reinforcement and no money to pay for it.

Draining them creates issues of waste land/mud/ toxic residues, loss of amenity and loss of flood control. But the alternative isn't very pleasant either.

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LittleInch,

Thanks for the correction.

The electricity price I quoted was the average figure from Google. Comparing with your figure my previous figure could be the consumer has to pay and not what the generator gets. Had I used the lower figure of $2/kWh and divid it by 3 the $0.066/kWh would be a lot close to your $0.04/kWh. The factor of 3 is just a rule of thumb from my own experience in the UK power industry wher consumer typically pays 1/3 to generator, 1/ to transmission company and 1/3 to distrubtutor.

One web page return Boyce Hydro Power details

Quote:

Boyce Hydro Power, LLC is located in Edenville, MI, United States and is part of the Electric Power Generation Industry. Boyce Hydro Power, LLC has 7 total employees across all of its locations and generates $1.44 million in sales (USD).

The Federal Register took away the license in 2018 after the owner failed to carry out the demanded directives of
(a) Increase the spillway capacity by 50% to meet the new PMF. EXisting capacity has two spillways; one at Tobaco River 72' wide x 72' long x 40' high and one t Tittabawassee spillway 69' long x 39' high.
(b) Modify the project to meet the full 100% Probable Maximum Flood (PMF). That means strengthen the dam.
(c) To construct recreation facilities at Tittabawassee side - A parking lot for 15 cars off of State Highway 30, a parking lot with two handicapped spaces, a barrier-free restroom, a railed handicapped-accessible fishing pier next to the powerhouse, two canoe portages, access paths, and signs that identify the recreation facilities.
(d) To construct recreation facilities at Tabaco River side - A parking lot for 15 cars off of State Highway 30, an access path, stairs to a railed fishing pier, and signs that identify the recreation facilities.

It is obvious to anyone that the owner has no financial ability to meet the Federal demands. He gave up the license and Michigan State can do what it likes, including allowing the disaster to happen.

As a reired engineer my life experience of the root cause for most of our engineering problems at the end of the day boils down to just two words - "Who pays?"

Apparently they're going ahead with plans as to recover the lakes and rebuild the dams:

Rough timeline released in Mid-Michigan dam breach recovery efforts

https://www.abc12.com/content/news/Rough-timeline-...

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So the hydro company worths 8 millions but the infrastructure re-build costs 250 millions.

A rebuild, with water fully drain, should be cheaper than the strengthening/modification to the original dams when they were still impounding water.

The reality is that there was never any chance of success to squeeze a small company to come up with capital over 30 times of its worth to modernise the dams to suit today's usage of flood control, power generation, recreation and amenities when its revenue comes from just 4.8MW hydro generation.

Quote (saikee119)

The reality is that there was never any chance of success to squeeze a small company to come up with capital over 30 times of its worth to modernise the dams to suit today's usage of flood control, power generation, recreation and amenities when its revenue comes from just 4.8MW hydro generation.

That is doubly true when the dams were bought by the heirs of the Boy Scouts as a tax shelter. There was never any intent on spending any money on these dams. This is negligence.
Link

Not knowing the area at all - but could the river be brought back to its original flow w.o. any dams? I know the lakes now most likely have a lot of recreational value - but if thats the case then i guess that the users would have to pay as well as the power companies?

The hydro units can be used as a flood control. By discharging water in controlled volume the lake level can be drawn down to a safe level to receive more precipitation.

The original hydro units were Francis machines. It would be prudent to have a bypass fitted to each unit so that in the event of machine malfunction the excess water can still be dissipated to ensure the safety of the dam.

The new rules require dams to be safe with passive measures. This does not interfere with active measures like management of power production, but it does reduce risk of catastrophe if the active measures fail (or are not applied as intended).

Even dams having relatively small impoundments with no downstream risk like Lake Murry in Newport News VA can create trouble - this event occurred on (Aug 25, 2012). An unusual rain event, combined with upstream urban development occurring during a weekend when the grounds keeper was not on site to open the spillway resulted in the lake level increasing to the point where upstream facilities flooded resulting in considerable damage (not nearly as significant as the event under discussion) https://wtkr.com/2012/08/25/photos-virginia-living.... After the event, funds became available to mitigate the risk.
https://wydaily.com/local-news/2019/07/24/city-pro...
https://apps.nnva.gov/ps/Project.aspx?id=492

When a hydro unit is selected the rated condition is to get the best efficiency available to operating the amchines at most of the time. Therefore the rated head would be unlikely selected at the lake level when the spilway has to be open to release the flooded water.

The license to operate the hydro plant was withdraw in 2018 so water was allowed to build up for a couple of years. The hydro owner was even instructed, by legal papers from the local agencies, to raise the dam level apparently for recreational purpose prior to the dam being overtopped.

The video footage showed the spillway was in fulll blast prior to the dam collapse.

Just about everyone knows the dam needs to double the spillway capacity to cope with current design requirements but the water level in the dam was allowed or insisted to reach the dangerous level it was never designed for. Thus it is true to say this dam collapse is self-inflicted.

Did the local agency accept the liability for the disaster when they served the legal papers that required the unsafe pond elevation?? If the local agencies hide behind immunity is the Hydro Owner liable for actions of the state agencies? I see legal sparing ahead. https://lansing.legalexaminer.com/legal/michigan-d..., https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/defenders/2020..., https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/midwest/2020....

FacEngrPE: You’ve got a warped view of what actually transpired.

Boyce periodically drew the lake down three feet. As a cost saving measure to save money during winter operations, they lowered it eight feet without seeking permission from or notifying the state, or the homeowners for that matter. This left boats hanging in the air and caused damage to their property. Boyce had not lowered the lake out of concern for the dam’s integrity.

Boyce was ordered to restore the lake to its normal level. Not to some elevated stage above its operational limits.

Is there some chain of documents out there, say a report from Boyce’s PE, that the normal operating level of the lake had become unsafe and that it was urgent that it be lowered?

From within the very links you provided:

Quote:

According to a counter lawsuit filed against Boyce by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel in Ingham County Circuit Court, the 8-foot drawdown was larger than the typical 3-feet and the exposed bottomlands resulted in the “death of thousands, if not millions, of freshwater mussels.”

Boyce claims it raised the lake this spring “under pressure" from the shoreline residents and state regulators.

“The state agencies clearly care more about mussels living in the impoundment than they do about the people living downstream of the dams,” said Lee Mueller, part owner of Boyce Hydro LLC, which owns the Edenville Dam.

On Thursday, EGLE disputed Boyce’s claims and said Mueller wanted to lower Wixom Lake over the winter to prevent ice build-up on dam equipment without having to pay for heated power washing and labor; not to prevent a spring flood.

“There has been some misinformation about what transpired between Boyce and the state,” said EGLE spokesperson Nick Assendelft. “The narrative by Boyce that somehow when the state was handed regulatory authority we pivoted from concerns about the infrastructure to concerns about clams is neither accurate nor fair.”

“Boyce Hydro’s desire to save money did not outweigh the natural resource damage an extended, winter drawdown would cause,” Assendelft said.

I think this link from Milliontown above really lays bare what actually was transpiring:
https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-environment-watc...

It’s a great read.

I wonder who is concerned about how the mussels are faring now? It was so important at one time.

But tbf, there's not anything, anyone can do about now there is no dam in place.

Having read the link by milliontown on this Mueller chap, it sounds about right that he was trying to save a few dollars here and there. Very odd sounding man.

A lowering of 8 feet is huge in context of the lake, especially as much of the outer sections appears now to be really quite shallow. The lake would have shrunk in square area by a huge amount.

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So the people worrying about the fresh water mussels in the Wixom Lake and the ability of running boats in their back garden called the shot and might have caused the dam to collpase. They probably know more about the dam saftey than the party who operates it. Whaterever the arrangement it was reported Boyce the hydro owner was instrcuted to raise the lake to a specified level with court papers.

It is evidently clear that the interest of the dam owner was in a planet different to that of the local residents so it was a time bomb waiting to be set off.

If the dam has now been sold for 8 millions then Boyce has done everything right. The generration only earned revenue of 1 million each year. After the licence was revoked 2018 Boyce lost $6000 per day according to court papers. Thus the best way out isfor a sucker come along legally instructed the Wixom Lake level to raise and the dam failed.

There was a video footage based on which the local agencies decided to ask the residents to move out. In it the two sets of spillays of Edenville were seen operational. I could not detect if the hydro units were letting out water or not. It the hydro units were passing water through they might have bought more time.

In theory to generate 4.8WM with a 16m head the discharge would have been around 30m3/s or 30 tons of water every second pushing through the tailrace of the hydro. The Francis machines there would have to be a free spinning mode (not generating or sychronzing).

Can anyone here who is crying foul at the local/state agencies show anything substantial that indicates that Boyce lowered the water level due to safety concerns?

Is there a report somewhere I’ve missed that details what the structural deficiencies were that required Boyce to immediately lower the water 8 feet without any notification to regulators or residents?

Legal posturing aside, all indications are that Boyce took it upon themselves to lower the water level to save money on winter operations costs; at great expense to environment and economy of the region. Of course the state made them put it back to the NORMAL operational level.

Absent some report detailing the reasons the water level had needed to be lowered for safety, the state’s requirement that they keep the lake at the level it had always been kept at was not a proximate cause of the failure.

The state had already identified the dam as deficient; any ordering of increased water level was irresponsible for the state to mandate regardless of the dam operator's motives; in fact, the state should have been demanding the water be drained earlier for concerns over insufficient spillway capacity. The state already had information that the normal level was unsafe.

You’re talking about the deficiencies that the federal regulators had identified in 1999, right? And had not required any lowering of the water levels to mitigate the issue? Those deficiencies? FWIW, the state was working to complete their own engineering analysis when the dam collapsed.

Well most things it was a balance of issues and risk. At the time no one j=knew what the rainfall was going to be, but the immediate crisis was a relatively sudden lowering of the lake level resulting in significant ecological damage.

The real crime here was in apparently not having a reliable emergency spillway suitably protected to avoid washing the rest of the dam away.

That bit should have been relatively cheap to do.

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I have been saying all along that everyone was flogging a dead horse.

The dam is 96 years old and its design was acceptable then.

A little guy bought the dam for $4.8 millions and got $1 million income from generating the hydro.

The state agency in 2004 found the dam unable to cope with modern flood conditions and need to double the capacity of its spillways which there were two.

As millions were involved in the modification so the little guy did nothing more than maintaining the existing system. Due to his inaction he was punished by revoking the generation licence thereby stripping off his income stream.

At the same time the regulatory power was transferred to the local agency EGLE. It demanded from the little guy more facilities for the lake like car parks, disable bays, access steps, railings etc at specified locations.

It is doubtful that the little guy could be obligated to provide the extra facilties and/or to expand the infrastructure. He could choose to drain the lake to a safe level when the hydro was not allowed to generate while waiting to find a buyer for the asset. He was apparently prevent from lowering the lake level as that could trash the property values of the surrounding houses.

After the dam failure it was eveident from the post-failure video footage that we do not have a large river here but just a modest stream. Technically if the little guy was able to call the shot he should be able to bring the lake water to a safe level or even drain it substantially using the pipework associated with the 4.5MW hydro plant which I estimate to have the flow rate around 30m3/s (or 30 ton of water in every second). This is just by opening the main inlet valve, let the water passing through the system, the generator electrically disconnected and the turbine allowed to spin freely. The little guy would minimize such operation as it wears the parts down. Based on published data the little guy should have a good chance to keep the dam safe against one in 500 years flood simply by adjusting the lake level low enough to anticipate the flood.

The interest of the little guy is different to the interest of the local residents represented by the local agency EGLE. The latter has taken upon themselves to serve written instruction to the little guy to raise the lake level to a specific level now proved to be fatal.

In my book the little guy should be off the hook now.

Quote (LittleInch (Petroleum))

The real crime here was in apparently not having a reliable emergency spillway suitably protected to avoid washing the rest of the dam away.

That bit should have been relatively cheap to do.

The Edenville had an emergency spillway comparable in size to the one integrated with the hydro. This is evident in the footage I posted on 24 Jun 20 19:22 which is possibly one of the most important piece of evidence.

The modification work could be quite substantial if the dam was still impounding Lake Wixom. Also when the dam failed it is evident the dam was just an earth filled dam without any erosion protection. The modification is likely to require extra dam height, extra widths, extensive erosion protection, rehabitation of the existing spillways and reinforcing the downstream areas with concrete apron and energy dissipators. It wouldn't be just adding 100% more spillway but bringing a 96 years design to the current standard.

Also the two existing spillways have taken up a good portion of the dam section so the addtional capacity has to be fitted in with the existing infrastructure which comprises of partially man-make dams plus natural earth mounts.

Saikee,

I watched the video listed but I would term the spillway as just that - a controlled spillway.

What I mean is a purposeful slightly lower area of the main dam which is suitably protected but allows spillage over a large length to protect the rest of the dam.

Contrast that dam with the smallwood dam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaWPQNa6OjE where although it "overflowed" and consequently did flood the downstream, but no where near as much as if the whole dam had gone.

You can see the sheet piling work around the earth core dam and the emergency spillway working as it should to reduce water level to prevent uncontrolled overtopping and complete dam failure.

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LittleInch (Petroleum),

I would agree that there were two spillways, called Tabacco River and Tittabawassee River spillways according to the Spicer Report. The emergency sections of them for overflow, if existed, were not clear.



It is interesting to note the court papers served on Boyce the dam owner was about a drawdown of 8'.

The Spcier report describes the sill level of the spillways being 667.8ft and the normal lake level of 675.8ft. Thus the difference is exactly 8'. It is possible that Boyce wanted to leave the lake at a level so that all excess water would be discharged via the spillway, as that mean no attendent would be necessary for a defunct hydro plant.

The Spicer report also described the Federal estimates of Probable Maximum Flood (PMF) being between 74,360cfs (original), 61,936cfs(2011) and 67,800cfs(2013) for the Titabawassee/Tobacco rivers. Michgan State's own standard is apparently to mandate the dam to pass 1/2 PMF.

The combined net width of the two spillways was 129ft. Since the top of the dam is 682ft so the discharge capacity of the two spillways when the water level breached the top of dam is about 21,000 cfs which does not meet either the state or Federal requirement, according to the Spicer report.

Historical peak flow rates according to this site ranged between 39,000 to 28,000cfs between 2017 to 1943. On the day of dam failure one report claimed a maximum flow of 60,000 cfs while another quoting a station further downstream at Sanford dam recorded 85,000 cfs

If the flow rate was anywhere near 60,000cfs then the dam was doomed even it has been modified to pass 1/2 PMF to satisfy the State's requirement.

Haven't heard much since June, so I guess this will have to do as a bit of an update:

Four Lakes Task Force: $338 million to rebuild dams, restore lakes

https://www.abc12.com/2020/09/11/four-lakes-task-f...

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
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Why do the dams have to be reconstructed? Can they import the hydro?

Dik

The dams are not needed for power generation, but rather to restore the lakes, as noted in the article:

“This is a 100-year-old lake system almost. It’s got a history of being lakes, it’s got a legal lake level. We see this now as an environmental restoration program,” said Four Lakes Task Force President Dave Kepler.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

What's the downside of the lakes being smaller... like they were, originally?

Dik

Environmental restoration. BS. It is simply restoration of the former “lake front property” values.

Without costly maintenance, the lake will only getting larger but shallower. I think they shall invest in building diversion channels to lessen the pressure on the lake, and start dredging.

Hence why the lake front properties are going to pay.

Don't know how many but if there were 1000 per lake, paying an average of $2500 per year for 40 years that's $100M.

Now whether the owners actually pay is another issue, but it might work.

The lake bed has now apparently re generated and starting growing so in 5 years time they'll probably find some protected creature and decide they now can't flood it and / or all the vegetation would create pollution when it decomposes under water. Or smells a lot.

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