MIDLAND, Mich. (AP) — Floodwaters surging through Central Michigan on Wednesday were mixing with containment ponds at a Dow Chemical Co. plant and could displace sediment from a downstream Superfund site, though the company said there was no risk to people or the environment.
Dow said the ponds held only water, and it has detected no chemical releases from the plant in Midland where the company was founded, though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said state officials would evaluate the plant when they’re able. Once the flooding recedes, Dow will be required to assess the Superfund site — contaminated with dioxins the company dumped in the last century — to determine if any contamination was released, the EPA said.
Meanwhile, the Tittabawassee River crested at just over 35 feet (11 meters) in Midland, about 3 feet (90 centimeters) below the forecast level.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had warned that the city of 42,000 people could end up under 9 feet (2.7 meters) of water by Wednesday evening after floodwaters overtook two dams and forced the evacuation of about 10,000 people from their homes.
But the danger isn’t over, and Midland officials asked that residents not return yet. The National Weather Service said communities farther downstream were bracing for flooding in the coming days.
No injuries or fatalities related to the flooding have been reported, Midland spokeswoman Selina Tisdale said.
Residents near the river were urged to seek higher ground following what the National Weather Service called “catastrophic dam failures” at the Edenville Dam, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of Midland, and the Sanford Dam, about 8 miles (13 kilometers) downriver.
Midland City Manager Brad Kaye said Wednesday that the Sanford Dam is overflowing but that the extent of structural damage isn’t yet known.
If the entire dam structure were to fail, “there would be a much higher surge that will come down the river and that could raise the level much more quickly than what we’re seeing right at the moment,” Kaye said.
In nearby Edenville, Bob Yahrmarkt, 79, evacuated his home along the river on Tuesday afternoon. He said he couldn’t believe what he saw when he returned Wednesday. “Just devastation,” said Yahrmarkt.
His garage, which housed tools and equipment he amassed over 70 years, was swept away. His home was heavily damaged by water: It has three levels — two beneath the main floor, which itself was more than a foot underwater.
“I’m looking at a sand pile and concrete where the garage was,” Yahrmarkt said, noting that floodwaters also pushed his antique 1953 Ford sedan and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle around in his yard.
His neighbor, 58-year-old Dan Dionne, returned home to find everything beneath his home washed away.
“I never saw nothing like this,” Dionne said. “We had a flood before, but nothing like this. It’s like someone picked up my garage and shook it. There’s a freezer, refrigerator in my backyard. I don’t know where it’s from.”
The river topped a previous record of 33.9 feet (10.3 meters) set in 1986, the National Weather Service said. Its flood stage is 24 feet (7.3 meters), and it had been expected to crest at about 38 feet (11.6 meters).
Whitmer declared a state of emergency for Midland County, and the towns of Edenville, Sanford and parts of Midland were evacuated, Tisdale, the Midland spokeswoman, said. Midland is about 130 miles (210 kilometers) north of Detroit.
The governor said her office had been in touch with federal officials and would ask the Federal Emergency Management Agency for support.
“This is an event unlike anything we’ve ever seen before,” she said.
President Donald Trump tweeted that he was closely monitoring the situation and praised first responders. But he also took a jab at Whitmer, whom he has criticized for her stay-at-home orders to prevent the spread of the coronavirus: “We have sent our best Military & @fema Teams, already there. Governor must now ‘set you free’ to help. Will be with you soon!”
The state has been a national hot spot for COVID-19, with more than 52,000 cases and 5,000 deaths, but Midland County has had fewer than 80 cases and under 10 deaths. Still, residents were advised to take precautions and schools set up as shelters spaced cots to adhere to social distancing guidelines.
Whitmer said the state would investigate the operators of the dams and “pursue every line of legal recourse we have.”
“The initial readout is that this was a known problem for a while and that’s why its important that we do our due diligence,” Whitmer said.
In 2018, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission revoked Boyce Hydro’s license to operate the Edenville Dam due to non-compliance issues that included spillway capacity and the inability to pass the most severe flood reasonably possible. That year, the state rated the dam, built in 1924, in unsatisfactory condition.
The Sanford Dam, which was built in 1925, received a fair condition rating. Both are in the process of being sold.
The commission said it has directed Boyce Hydro to establish an independent investigation team to determine the cause of the damage to Sanford Dam, and that it would reach out to state officials regarding the Edenville Dam. It will send an engineer to assist with the investigation when it’s safe to do so.
Dow Chemical has been headquartered in Midland for more than 120 years, and its main plant sits on the city’s riverbank. It is a quintessential company town: One high school is named after the company’s founder, the other high school’s mascot is the Chemics. A Dow foundation has funded many community amenities including a botanical garden, and the city is known for midcentury modern structures first introduced by architect Alden B. Dow.
The company, with 9,000 employees and contractors in Midland, on Tuesday shut down all operating units except those needed to contain chemicals, spokesman Kyle Bandlow said. No chemical releases have been detected, he said.
But the flooding likely will pose a significant setback to the Superfund cleanup, said Allen Burton, a professor of environment and sustainability at the University of Michigan. Dioxins released by Dow contaminated sediments and floodplains along 50 miles (80 kilometers) of the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers to Lake Huron’s Saginaw Bay. The federal Superfund program investigates and cleans up toxic waste sites.
Dow and the state Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy will have to determine where the floodwaters have moved the dioxins, Burton said.
“They knew where all that stuff was, but the power of water is unbelievable and it’s going to move things around,” Burton said.
The Weather Service issued flood warnings because 4 to 7 inches (10.2 to 17.8 centimeters) of rain has fallen since Sunday. Heavy runoff pushed rivers higher. This coming Saturday, there’s a 30% chance of rain, with more moving into the area Sunday and Monday.
“It’s going to continue downriver,” Sara Pampreen, a weather service meteorologist, said. “Just exactly how much, that’s the question.”
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This story has been corrected to show Selina Tisdale is the spokeswoman for the city of Midland, not Midland County.
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Associated Press environmental writer John Flesher contributed from Traverse City, Michigan. Webber reported from Oak Park, Illinois, and Williams from West Bloomfield, Michigan.
Michigan dam had repeated safety violations before flooding
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — A hydroelectric dam that failed to hold back floodwaters this week in Michigan was the target of lengthy investigations by federal regulators, who revoked the facility’s license over safety violations two years before the flooding that forced 10,000 people to evacuate their homes.
Boyce Hydro Power’s history of violations lasted throughout the 14 years the company was authorized to run the nearly century-old Edenville dam, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which said it repeatedly raised concerns about the dam’s ability to prevent flooding during extreme conditions because of its inadequate spillway capacity.
The dam on the Tobacco and Tittabawassee rivers, about 140 miles (225 kilometers) north of Detroit, was among several barriers overtaken Tuesday by floodwaters that chased people from communities in central Michigan. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer warned that Dow Chemical Co.’s hometown of Midland could end up under 9 feet of water. She said the state will investigate the dam operators.
The commission ordered Boyce Hydro to form an independent team to investigate three other dams it owns on the rivers that were vulnerable to a “cascading failure scenario.” Among them was the Sanford Dam, which also was damaged.
The commission planned to send a staff engineer to the site to assist with the investigation as soon as it could be done safely, Chairman Neil Chatterjee said in a statement.
The governor said the state was “reviewing every possible legal recourse.”
Lee Mueller, architect and co-member manager of the company, did not return calls for comment Wednesday from The Associated Press.
The Edenville dam, in Michigan’s Gladwin and Midland counties, includes a series of earthen embankments totaling about 6,600 feet (2,012 meters) long, with a maximum height of nearly 55 feet (16.8 meters). It forms a 2,600-acre reservoir known as Wixom Lake, a popular boating and fishing spot.
The dam has two reinforced concrete spillways to carry away excess water when reservoir levels get too high.
In its 2018 order revoking Boyce Hydro’s license, the commission said its primary concern about the dam was its inability to handle “the probable maximum flood” — the type of event that could be expected from “the most severe combination of critical meteorologic and hydrologic conditions that is reasonably possible” in the area.
Commission guidelines require that dams be able to withstand such a flood or have enough spillway capacity to prevent reservoirs from rising dangerously high. The Edenville dam’s spillway capacity was only about 50 percent of the probable maximum flood, the commission said.
Inadequate spillway capacity is a common problem for U.S. dams, an Associated Press investigation found in 2019.
The commission said it warned the dam’s previous owners of the need for improvements in early 1999, but no changes were made before the license was transferred to Boyce Hydro in 2004.
Boyce Hydro said it planned to build an auxiliary spillway on the Tittabawassee River that year and was studying the need for another on the Tobacco River, the commission said.
But the company failed to complete either project, repeatedly seeking extensions and missing deadlines, the agency said. Among its other violations: performing unauthorized dam repairs and earth-moving and failing to file an adequate public safety plan, maintain recreation facilities or monitor water quality.
For more than a decade, Boyce Hydro “knowingly and willfully refused to comply with major aspects of its license … with the result that public safety has been put at risk, and the public has been denied the benefits, particularly project recreation, to which it is entitled,” the commission’s order said.
“The record demonstrates that there is no reason to believe that Boyce Hydro will come into compliance,” the commission added. The company “has displayed a history of obfuscation and outright disregard of its obligations.”
The company twice lowered Wixom Lake’s level without permission after the federal license was revoked, said Nick Assendelft, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, which has overseen the Edenville barrier since its federal license was withdrawn.
The department was pursuing enforcement action for the violation and resulting damage to natural resources when the dam gave way, Assendelft said. A lawsuit filed April 30 says the lengthy drawdowns in 2018 and 2019 killed “thousands, if not millions” of freshwater mussels, many listed as endangered species.
The Four Lakes Task Force, an authority formed by the two counties and area property owners, agreed to buy all four dams on the rivers from Boyce Hydro last December and was planning to close the deal within the next couple of months, spokeswoman Stacey Trapani said.
The group planned to raise $32 million for the purchase and for major upgrades and maintenance, she said.
Now, the status of the deal is unclear.
“We’re still in emergency mode at the moment,” Trapani said. “As soon as we are able, we’ll start assessments so we can determine a path forward.”
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Associated Press Writer Mike Casey in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.