Consumers Energy’s 13 hydroelectric dams are aging, expensive and increasingly difficult to justify. For Michigan’s rivers, taxpayers and ratepayers, removal offers a permanent solution instead of another generation of repairs, subsidies and deferred liabilities.
By Staff Writer
September 3, 2026
For more than 100 years, Consumers Energy’s hydroelectric dams have reshaped Michigan’s rivers.
They have generated electricity, created reservoirs and become familiar landmarks in communities across the state.
But the conditions under which those dams were built no longer exist.
The facilities are now aging infrastructure. Their environmental impacts are increasingly understood. Major repairs can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Several facilities have documented water-quality compliance problems.
And Consumers Energy itself has concluded that operating the 13-dam system is financially burdensome.
The company is now seeking to transfer ownership.
That proposal should force Michigan to confront a question that has too often been postponed:
Why should Michigan continue investing in century-old barriers when removing them could permanently eliminate their safety, maintenance and ecological liabilities?
For many of these structures, dam removal is not the most convenient option.
It may be the only responsible long-term option.
The $350 million warning sign
Hardy Dam on the Muskegon River provides the clearest example of the financial problem.
Consumers Energy has identified a need for a major spillway replacement estimated at approximately $350 million.
The company originally planned the project, subsequently changed the construction schedule and later sought permission to delay the project while the future ownership of its hydroelectric facilities was being determined.
Consumers told federal regulators that proceeding with the project while the ownership issue remained unresolved was not feasible or prudent.
That is an extraordinary amount of money for one component of one aging dam.
And Hardy is only one facility.
The question Michigan should ask is not simply how much it costs to repair this dam today.
It is how much Michigan will spend maintaining all 13 dams over the next 25, 50 or 100 years.
Every major repair postpones the same decision.
Repair it again—or remove it.
At some point, continuing to repair obsolete infrastructure becomes more expensive than restoring the river.
Consumers has already told Michigan the economics don’t work
Consumers Energy’s own argument for selling the dams is based substantially on economics.
The company has said the hydroelectric facilities are costly to operate and that transferring ownership would reduce the financial burden on its customers.
Bridge Michigan has reported Consumers’ estimate that the 13 facilities lose approximately $152 million annually.
That figure is central to the debate.
If Consumers Energy says the dams are no longer economically attractive to own, Michigan should not automatically assume another private company can make the problem disappear.
Changing ownership does not change the age of the concrete.
It does not change spillway requirements.
It does not remove sediment.
It does not restore fish passage.
It does not eliminate maintenance.
And it does not make future decommissioning costs disappear.
A sale changes the owner. It does not change the underlying liability.
The environmental cost is already documented
The financial cost is only one side of the equation.
The environmental record provides another reason to consider removal.
Regulatory filings in the current MPSC proceeding document temperature and dissolved-oxygen problems downstream from several Consumers Energy facilities.
The facilities identified in the filings include Croton, Tippy, Hodenpyl, Mio, Alcona and Foote dams.
A 2026 filing analyzing data from 11 downstream monitoring locations reported that monthly average water temperatures exceeded applicable standards during approximately one-third of the months examined.
The same analysis reported dissolved-oxygen readings below the applicable standard at 10 of the 11 monitoring locations at least once during the period studied.
A separate filing cited Consumers Energy testimony acknowledging temperature and dissolved-oxygen compliance problems at Hardy Dam and historical temperature-compliance problems involving six dams.
These findings do not mean that Consumers Energy is deliberately violating environmental laws.
They demonstrate something more important for the removal debate:
The dams fundamentally alter river conditions, and engineered mitigation does not always produce the conditions required downstream.
A free-flowing river solves what a dam cannot
A dam can be modified.
A spillway can be rebuilt.
A turbine can be replaced.
A gate can be repaired.
A reservoir can be managed.
But none of those measures changes the fundamental fact that a dam interrupts the natural movement of a river.
Removing the structure does.
Once a dam is removed, the river can once again transport sediment naturally.
Water can move through the system without being held behind a barrier.
Fish can access habitat that was previously blocked.
Temperature regimes can move toward natural conditions.
River channels can reconnect.
And the permanent dam-maintenance obligation disappears.
That is why dam removal is fundamentally different from another round of repairs.
Repair preserves the liability. Removal eliminates it.
Michigan has already paid the price of waiting
Michigan does not have to imagine what can happen when aging dam infrastructure becomes a crisis.
The Edenville Dam failure in 2020 demonstrated the consequences of inadequate dam infrastructure and extreme flooding.
The failure caused catastrophic flooding downstream and resulted in enormous public and private losses.
The Edenville dam was not owned by Consumers Energy, and its regulatory violations should not be attributed to Consumers.
But the disaster demonstrated a principle that applies to every aging dam in Michigan:
The cost of a dam failure is not confined to the dam owner.
Homeowners pay.
Businesses pay.
Local governments pay.
Emergency responders pay.
Taxpayers pay.
Communities pay.
And rivers pay.
Waiting until infrastructure becomes an emergency is the most expensive possible way to address the problem.
The public-safety argument for removal
Every dam represents a permanent piece of infrastructure that must be inspected, maintained and operated.
As structures age, the consequences of inadequate maintenance become increasingly significant.
Michigan’s dam-safety laws recognize this by imposing inspection and maintenance obligations on dam owners.
But regulation cannot make an old dam new.
Nor can regulation eliminate the financial cost of maintaining it.
Removal offers something maintenance cannot:
A permanent reduction in dam-related structural risk.
Once an obsolete dam has been safely removed and the river restored, there is no spillway left to collapse, no gate system left to maintain and no reservoir whose water level must be managed behind an aging structure.
That does not eliminate every flood risk.
Natural rivers still flood.
But it eliminates the risk associated with failure of the artificial barrier itself.
The ratepayer question
Consumers Energy’s customers should also be asking who ultimately pays for the next generation of dam repairs.
The proposed transaction would transfer ownership to Confluence Hydro.
Consumers would continue purchasing electricity generated by the facilities under the proposed long-term agreement.
Consumers has proposed a $270 million safety fund to address future dam-related expenses.
That proposal is intended to address concerns about future safety, remediation and decommissioning.
But $270 million is less than the estimated $350 million cost of the Hardy spillway project alone.
That comparison does not establish that the fund is inadequate because the two figures cover different obligations and time periods.
It does, however, demonstrate the scale of the financial challenge.
Michigan should not approve a transaction without determining whether the available financial resources are sufficient for the actual life-cycle costs of the entire system.
Why should Michigan pay twice?
There is another economic question that deserves attention.
Michigan has already received decades of electricity from these facilities.
If the dams have now reached the point where maintaining them is financially unattractive, Michigan must decide whether continued investment represents responsible use of public resources.
The state could spend hundreds of millions of dollars repairing aging infrastructure.
Or it could spend money removing selected dams and restoring the rivers permanently.
The second option produces an asset that does not require another century of dam maintenance.
A restored river does not need a replacement spillway.
It does not need turbine maintenance.
It does not need a dam operator.
It does not require a corporate owner.
Removal is not free—but neither is keeping the dams
Critics of dam removal are correct about one thing:
Removing a dam costs money.
Reservoirs must be managed.
Sediment must be evaluated.
Infrastructure must be removed safely.
Road crossings and utilities may require modification.
Communities surrounding reservoirs must be considered.
Property owners may be affected.
Those costs must be honestly calculated.
But the comparison cannot be between the cost of removal and zero.
The real comparison is:
Removal versus another century of maintenance, repairs, environmental mitigation, safety oversight and eventual decommissioning.
Once the full life-cycle costs are included, removal can become the more financially responsible option.
The ecological case is even stronger
Michigan’s rivers are natural infrastructure.
They transport water.
They move sediment.
They provide habitat.
They support fisheries.
They support recreation.
They contribute to tourism.
They provide economic benefits to communities throughout the state.
A free-flowing river performs these functions without requiring a century-old concrete structure to remain operational.
The state’s river systems also provide benefits that cannot easily be assigned a dollar value.
A restored river is habitat.
It is recreation.
It is fishing.
It is paddling.
It is tourism.
It is wildlife.
It is water quality.
And it is a natural system capable of functioning without constant mechanical intervention.
Michigan should stop treating every dam as permanent
The biggest mistake would be assuming that because a dam has existed for 100 years, it must exist for another 100.
That is not how responsible infrastructure planning works.
Roads are replaced.
Bridges are demolished.
Buildings are torn down.
Power plants are retired.
Infrastructure is removed when its useful life ends.
Dams should be treated the same way.
The question should not be:
How do we keep this dam forever?
The question should be:
Does this dam still provide enough public benefit to justify the cost and risk of keeping it?
Where the answer is no, removal should be the default solution.
The Consumers Energy question
Consumers Energy is entitled to seek the most economically advantageous solution for its company and its customers.
But Michigan regulators have a broader responsibility.
They must consider the public interest.
That includes downstream communities.
Ratepayers.
Property owners.
Fisheries.
Recreation.
Water quality.
Public safety.
And future generations.
If Consumers Energy no longer wants to carry the financial burden of its aging hydroelectric system, Michigan should not simply allow that liability to be transferred and forgotten.
Instead, regulators should require a comprehensive evaluation of each facility.
Where a dam can clearly demonstrate a long-term economic and environmental justification, it can remain.
Where the costs of continued ownership exceed the public benefits, Michigan should begin planning its removal.
A permanent solution instead of another delay
Michigan has an opportunity that comes only once.
The state can continue a cycle that has lasted generations:
Repair. Maintain. Monitor. Re-license. Repair again.
Or it can begin a deliberate transition toward free-flowing rivers.
Consumers Energy’s proposed sale has forced this issue into the open.
The company has acknowledged the financial burden of the dams.
The regulatory record documents environmental compliance problems.
Hardy Dam demonstrates the enormous price of major infrastructure replacement.
And Michigan’s experience with other aging dams demonstrates the consequences when safety problems become emergencies.
These facts justify a serious examination of dam removal—not as an environmental slogan, but as an infrastructure strategy.
Michigan’s rivers deserve a future, too
The 13 Consumers Energy dams were built for the needs of another Michigan.
A century later, Michigan has different energy sources, different environmental knowledge, different engineering standards and different expectations for public safety.
The state now has an opportunity to make a different choice.
Instead of asking how much more money can be spent keeping aging dams alive, Michigan should ask how much value can be created by restoring the rivers they interrupt.
Dam removal will not be appropriate for every structure.
But for dams that are economically marginal, environmentally damaging and approaching major capital requirements, removal may be the only option that permanently resolves all three problems.
Repairing a dam gives Michigan another repair bill.
Selling a dam gives Michigan another owner.
Removing an obsolete dam gives Michigan back a river.
For Michigan’s ratepayers, taxpayers, communities and ecosystems, that distinction matters.
The state should not wait for the next failure, the next massive repair estimate or the next ownership transfer before deciding what the future of its rivers should look like.
The time to plan for the end of these dams is before they become a crisis.
And for dams whose costs can no longer be justified by their benefits, the responsible future may be removal.
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