MIDLAND, MI — The Four Lakes Task Force found itself at a stalemate in 2024.
The organization in charge of restoring the dams destroyed in the 2020 mid-Michigan flood celebrated a number of milestones, but was unable to carry out some plans due to a slew of court cases delaying proceedings.
“This year we made significant progress in construction, but unfortunately, by mid-year, we lost momentum in our mission to restore the Four Lakes because pending litigation over the lake level assessment rolls has hampered our ability to obtain financing,” Four Lakes Task Force Chair and President Dave Kepler wrote in a year-end statement.
“We know how disappointing it is to end the year with work suspended on three of the four dams and suspension looming on the fourth.”
Boyce Hydro, an insolvent company, owned the dams until they were condemned following the Edenville Dam collapse and flood in May 2020, which caused $200 million in property damage and forced 10,000 people to evacuate.
In 2018, the organization began taking steps to acquire the former Boyce Hydro dams after federal energy regulators revoked the Edenville Dam’s power generation license.
The Four Lakes Task Force was granted taxing authority in 2019 after legal levels were established for Tittabawassee River impoundments Wixom, Sanford, Smallwood, and Secord lakes.
The group was negotiating with former Boyce Hydro owner Lee Mueller to buy the dams and perform long-deferred upgrades when a May 2020 rainstorm overwhelmed the Edenville Dam, causing it to collapse and unleash the combined waters of the Tittabawassee and Tobacco rivers in a 500-year flood that inundated downtown Midland.
The floodwaters drained the Wixom and Sanford Lake impoundments. The task force later purchased all four Boyce dams in bankruptcy for $1.5 million and has since been working to rebuild the damaged Edenville and Sanford dams, as well as upgrade spillways and embankments in Secord and Smallwood.
Construction of the auxiliary spillway at Smallwood Dam was completed in March. Construction on the auxiliary spillway and chute at Secord Dam was completed in June. In July, the Edenville Dam embankment was finished.
However, work on the dams was halted due to ongoing legal challenges over whether residents of a special assessment district should be required to contribute to the dam repairs.
On December 11, the Four Lakes Task Force and the Heron Cove Association, which represents residents living in the special assessment district, appeared before a panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals in connection with the challenge. The following day, attorneys for Gladwin and Midland counties, as well as the task force, appeared in federal district court in Detroit to request that two HCA lawsuits be dismissed.
Neither court has made a ruling.
“We have legal and contractual obligations to restore the lakes and the financial capacity and permits to do so,” according to Kepler. “The FLTF board and staff are committed to getting the project restarted as soon as we can in 2025 to fulfill our mission of restoring the lakes so property owners can enjoy them long into the future.”
