Michigan’s Dam Debate: Politics Should Not Decide the Future of Our Rivers
Why dam removal—not another ownership deal—should be the long-term solution for Michigan’s aging dams
By Brad De Young | Michigan Watershed Watch
Michigan is once again debating who should own its aging hydroelectric dams.
There are bills moving through Lansing. There are private companies seeking to acquire dams. There are lobbyists and industry organizations weighing in. There are regulators trying to determine who will ultimately be responsible for billions of dollars in aging infrastructure.
And there is a much bigger question that deserves to be asked:
Why are we continuing to debate who should own aging dams instead of asking whether these dams should still exist at all?
For many of Michigan’s aging, obsolete dams, the answer should be dam removal and river restoration.
Not another ownership transfer.
Not another corporate structure.
Not another legislative workaround.
And certainly not a political deal that leaves Michigan communities responsible for infrastructure that should have been removed decades ago.
The timing raises questions
Michigan Senate Bill 627 would establish additional requirements for prospective owners of hydroelectric dams, including financial requirements related to maintenance, catastrophic failure and eventual decommissioning or removal.
Those requirements may sound reasonable.
But the timing deserves scrutiny.
The legislation is advancing while Michigan regulators are considering Consumers Energy’s proposed sale of 13 hydroelectric dams to Confluence Hydro, an affiliate of Hull Street Energy.
The Michigan Association of Counties specifically noted the relationship between the legislation and the pending dam transaction.
At the same time, an administrative law judge recommended that the Michigan Public Service Commission reject the proposed transaction, citing concerns surrounding the proposed transfer.
That doesn’t prove that SB 627 was written for Confluence.
It does, however, raise a legitimate public question:
Why is Michigan changing the rules governing dam ownership while a major dam sale is sitting before state regulators?
Follow the lobbying trail
There is another question that deserves answers.
Who is influencing this legislation?
Hull Street Energy has documented relationships with professional lobbying and public-affairs firms in other jurisdictions. Public lobbying records have identified Hull Street Energy as a client of The Roffe Group, while other public records identify the company as a client of GSL Public Affairs and Communications.
That establishes that Hull Street Energy has used professional lobbying services.
It does not, by itself, prove that Hull Street Energy or its lobbyists wrote SB 627 or directed Michigan lawmakers to advance it.
That distinction matters.
But it is precisely why Michigan’s lobbying records should be examined.
Michigan residents deserve to know whether Confluence, Hull Street Energy, Consumers Energy, HPPA or other organizations with financial interests in hydroelectric infrastructure have lobbied Michigan lawmakers regarding this legislation.
If they did, the public should see those records.
If they didn’t, that should be clear too.
But here’s the bigger problem
Even if every lobbying question were answered tomorrow, we would still be asking the wrong fundamental question.
The debate is being framed around:
Who should own the dams?
Michigan should be asking:
Which dams should still exist?
There is a profound difference.
A century-old dam doesn’t become good infrastructure simply because another company is willing to buy it.
A new owner doesn’t make a failing dam young.
A new corporate structure doesn’t eliminate downstream risk.
And a legislative change doesn’t restore a river.
Dam removal restores what dams destroy
Removing obsolete dams can reconnect rivers, restore fish passage, improve water quality, restore sediment movement and return natural ecological processes to rivers that have been artificially impounded for generations.
Instead of permanently maintaining a concrete or earthen barrier, Michigan can invest in restoring the river itself.
That is the infrastructure Michigan should be thinking about.
The river is the infrastructure.
The dam is often the obstruction.
Michigan has already seen what dam removal can accomplish
Michigan has increasingly recognized that removing obsolete dams can be an effective form of infrastructure investment and environmental restoration.
Across the state, communities have removed dams that no longer provide sufficient public benefit to justify their safety, maintenance and environmental costs.
The result isn’t the loss of a river.
It is the return of a river.
That distinction needs to become central to Michigan’s dam policy.
The ownership shuffle cannot solve the underlying problem
Consider the proposed Consumers Energy transaction.
The current proposal includes a $270 million Hydro Safety Fund intended to address unforeseen safety issues associated with the facilities after the proposed transfer.
That is a substantial amount of money.
But it illustrates the fundamental problem.
If Michigan needs hundreds of millions of dollars of financial protection to make an ownership transfer acceptable, perhaps we should be asking whether continued ownership is the right answer.
How much more will these dams require over the next 20, 30 or 50 years?
Who pays for major rehabilitation?
Who pays if a dam fails?
Who pays when federal or state safety requirements change?
Who pays for eventual removal?
And what happens when the private owner eventually decides that the numbers no longer work?
Those aren’t theoretical questions.
They are the liabilities that come with aging infrastructure.
Michigan taxpayers should not become the dam owner of last resort
This is perhaps the most important issue in the entire debate.
A private company can buy an asset.
It can operate it.
It can sell it.
It can restructure.
It can eventually walk away if the economics no longer work—subject to whatever legal and financial obligations remain.
The river, however, cannot walk away.
The community downstream cannot walk away.
And Michigan taxpayers cannot simply walk away from a failed dam.
That’s why Michigan should stop treating dam ownership as the ultimate solution.
The ultimate solution for obsolete dams should be removal.
Politics should never determine the fate of Michigan’s rivers
This is where the current legislative debate becomes particularly troubling.
If lawmakers are changing dam-ownership laws, the public deserves complete transparency about who is advocating for those changes.
If lobbyists are involved, disclose it.
If private companies helped develop legislative language, disclose it.
If industry associations are pushing specific provisions, disclose it.
If legislation benefits a particular pending transaction, disclose it.
But even after all of those questions are answered, one principle should remain:
Michigan’s infrastructure policy should be based on engineering, public safety, economics, environmental science and the long-term public interest—not political relationships.
Our rivers should not become bargaining chips in Lansing.
The question isn’t who gets the dams
The question is whether Michigan wants to spend the next century maintaining yesterday’s infrastructure.
We have a choice.
We can continue transferring aging dams from one owner to another and repeatedly create new rules determining who is responsible for them.
Or we can begin systematically identifying obsolete dams, securing the necessary funding and removing them.
For dams that no longer provide a compelling public benefit, removal should be the long-term objective.
Dam removal isn’t abandoning infrastructure.
It is replacing obsolete infrastructure with functioning river systems.
Michigan needs a dam-removal strategy
Rather than creating increasingly complicated rules for transferring aging dams between private owners, Michigan should develop a statewide strategy that identifies:
- dams that no longer serve a significant public purpose;
- dams presenting significant safety or financial risks;
- dams that are economically impractical to rehabilitate;
- opportunities for federal, state and private removal funding;
- communities that want their rivers restored;
- and facilities where removal would provide substantial ecological benefits.
That would put Michigan on a path toward solving the problem instead of continually transferring it.
The bottom line
The debate over Senate Bill 627, the proposed Consumers Energy-Confluence transaction and the lobbying surrounding Michigan’s hydroelectric industry deserves public scrutiny.
But the larger issue goes beyond any single company or bill.
Michigan should not allow politics, lobbying or corporate ownership structures to determine the future of its rivers.
Those decisions should be based on what provides the greatest long-term public benefit.
And for obsolete, unsafe or economically unjustifiable dams, the answer should be clear:
Remove the dam. Restore the river.
Michigan has spent generations manipulating its rivers.
Now we have an opportunity to restore them.
The question isn’t who should own yesterday’s infrastructure.
The question is whether Michigan has the courage to build a better future for its rivers.
Michigan Watershed Watch believes dam removal should be a central part of that future.
Michigan Watershed Watch will continue examining the Consumers Energy-Confluence transaction, Michigan’s dam legislation, lobbying records and the long-term case for restoring Michigan’s rivers through strategic dam removal.