2 dam failures in MI 7

[Phil1934]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/michigan-dam-breach-10000-evacuated-state-of-emergency-declared

For those wondering if 2020 could get any worse

 

[LittleInch]

Mire like wixom river....

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[JohnRBaker]

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

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
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[LittleInch]

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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[saikee119]

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.

 

[saikee119]

Just found in Wikipedia on Edenville Dam

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edenville_Dam:-

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.

 

[dgallup]

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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[saikee119]

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!

 

[LittleInch]

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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[saikee119]

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

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?"

 

[JohnRBaker]

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/...an-dam-breach-recovery-efforts-571413921.html

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

 

[saikee119]

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.

 

[Milliontown]

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

 

[MortenA]

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?

 

[saikee119]

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.

 

[FacEngrPE]

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-museum-closed-due-to-flooding/.

After the event, funds became available to mitigate the risk.

https://wydaily.com/local-news/2019...as-been-in-the-works-for-six-years-heres-why/

https://apps.nnva.gov/ps/Project.aspx?id=492

 

[saikee119]

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.

 

[FacEngrPE]

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-dam-failure-causes-massive-damage-property-loss/,

https://www.clickondetroit.com/news...-dam-failure-that-led-to-devastating-floods/,

https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/midwest/2020/05/26/569857.htm.

 

[Spartan5]

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:

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-e...ght-midland-dams-tax-shelter-tragedy-followed

It’s a great read.

 

[Compositepro]

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

 

[LittleInch]

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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