![The Cheboygan River Dam's sea lamprey trap can hold up to a thousand lamprey. When sea lamprey are returning to the river to spawn in the spring, the trap needs to be emptied multiple times a day. The blue crane [on the far left] by the dam is used to lift the trap out of the water.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/63ad147/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3474x2246+0+0/resize/840x544!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F39%2F3c%2F81307d274e889e4b036955cbea28%2Fimg-1299.jpg)
A state grant program that gave funding to assess, repair and remove dams considered at high risk will no longer receive funding at the start of the new year.
In May, the state announced that it would allocate the last $14.9 million to the Dam Risk Reduction Grant Program to assess, repair or remove 19 dams statewide. Seven of which were in central and northern Michigan.
The dams include:
- Tyler and Beyer Dam in Ypsilanti
- Sanback Dam in Rose City
- Albion Dam in Albion
- Elsie Dam in Elsie
- Baldwin Fish Hatchery Dam in Baldwin
- Lake Shamrock Dam in Clare
- Rugg Pond Dam in Kalkaska
- Sunset Lake Dam in Vicksburg
- Lake Sally Dam in Ishpeming
- Nartron Dam in Reed City
- Daylighting the Penoyer Creek in Newaygo
- State Street Dam in Alma
- Erity Dam in Beverly Hills
- Lake Somerset Dam in Somerset
- Liberty Dam in Liberty
- Big Mosherville Dam in Mosherville
- Portage Plant Dam in Three Rivers
- McMillan Dam in Marcellus
- Blackhawk Dam in Coldwater
“We think that the dam risk reduction grant program was very successful,” Luke Trumble, the supervisor for the Dam Safety Unit said. “There’s a little bit of disappointment that it wasn’t funded this year.”
In 2022, the state allocated $44 million to the Dam Risk Reduction Grant Program; a three-year grant made after the Sanford and Edenville catastrophe in 2020.
The grants are used to give dam owners the resources needed to pay for dam assessments, repairs and removals. Over the three years, the grant program has helped owners repair and remove 57 dams, according to Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy.
Though the three-year grant program will be expiring, Trumble said the funding is still needed.
“The thing is that a lot of the dams were built 50 plus years ago and so they’re at the point where they will need investment and to maintain them in a safe condition,” Trumble said. “A lot of single dam owners, small municipalities, even large municipalities … they don’t always have a large pot of money that they’ve been saving up for eventual rehabilitation or repair of the dam.”
The state has over 2,500 public and privately owned dams, with 1,000 of them state regulated, according to EGLE. The website also states that 160 of the state-regulated dams are also classified as having a “high hazard potential.”
Owners have always been responsible to maintain and repair their own dams, Trumble said, but the grant provided another resource for funding. He said owners will have to look elsewhere for funding assessments, repairs and removals.
“A grant program is never going to cover all the costs for rehabilitation of all the dams in the state of Michigan,” he said. “We were able to kind of help the worst of the worst through the grant program, so without that, we just won’t be able to do that anymore.”
Trumble said he hopes to talk more with state officials to recontinue state investments towards dam infrastructure, whether it be through the Dam Risk Reduction Grant Program, or through another program.
“We’re very hopeful that (state investments) will happen again in the future,” Trumble said.
