Officials push for $15M Edenville Dam fine, cite ‘blatant’ safety disregard
Updated Feb 04, 2021;
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WASHINGTON, DC Senior investigation and enforcement officials with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) are urging the agency to follow through with a proposed $15 million fine against the former owner of mid-Michigan dam that collapsed last spring and unleashed catastrophic flooding.
In a Feb. 3 filing, five top FERC officials, including LarryParkinson, Office of Enforcement director, argue that former dam owner Lee Mueller and his company, Boyce Hydro, deserve the huge fine and that complications caused by a bankruptcy case can be easily sidestepped.
“There is no excuse for Boyce Hydro’s lengthy disregard of its dam safety obligations and the safety of its dams’ neighbors,” they wrote, adding that arguments raised by Boyce attorneys against the fine in January are “either irrelevant to this proceeding or wholly without merit.”
$15M fine for Edenville Dam owner proposed by federal regulators
Updated Jan 27, 2021;
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BAY CITY, MI Federal regulators want to levy a $15 million civil fine against the operator of a failed hydroelectric dam that unleashed flooding in mid-Michigan last spring, but creditors and a bankruptcy case trustee are pushing back, arguing such a large penalty would upend proceedings and jeopardize a settlement fund for flood victims.
Mark H. Shapiro, a Southfield attorney who is trustee in the Boyce Hydro bankruptcy case, warned the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) earlier this month that imposing such a penalty against the beleaguered dam operator would “wreak havoc” on its plan to exit bankruptcy and pay off creditors and victims of the May 2020 flood.
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The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has issued an order proposing a $15 million civil penalty in response to the failure of a licensee to respond to FERC dam safety orders in the wake of the failure of the Edenville dam and downstream FERC-licensed Sanford Dam (Project No. 2785) in Michigan in May 2020 (
see
June 1, 2020 edition of the WER). The December 9, 2020 Order to Show Cause and Notice of Proposed Penalty followed months of FERC orders and directives to the licensee related to the catastrophic failure of the two dams, which resulted in the evacuation of 10,000 people, an estimated $190 million in economic damages to local residents, and $55 million in response costs, prompting Governor Gretchen Whitmer to request a disaster declaration from the federal government.
It s official: Four Lakes Task Force acquires mid-Michigan dams
Transfer includes more than 6,000 acres of land
Jan. 21, 2021
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Dam properties previously owned by Boyce Hydro have been officially transferred to Four Lakes Task Force.
FLTF is the delegated authority working on behalf of Midland and Gladwin counties to oversee the dams and lakes along the Tittabawassee River system.
According to a FLTF newsletter released on Jan. 14, the Boyce properties are now under the ownership of FLTF, with the transfer including about 300 parcels/lots of land, with a total of more than 6,000 acres. Everything that was historically operated and maintained as part of the lake system was included in the transfer, including the lake bottoms, the newsletter stated.
Nine months after devastating flooding, Central Michigan residents are left abandoned
It has now been nearly nine months since the breaching of the Sanford, Smallwood, and Edenville dams and subsequent dike failures along the Tittabawassee River in Central Michigan. Boyce Hydro LLC was the private owner of these dams and was responsible for the state of disrepair that led to their breaching in May.
State authorities were intimately aware of the decaying and dangerous state of the dam, as shown through decades of safety violations and the revocation of Boyce’s electric production license by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in 2018. Even so, they chose to do nothing to prevent a disaster. The WSWS has published extensive reports detailing the events of the flooding, its effects, and its aftermath.