By Mark H. Stowers
After a massive rain, the Edenville Dam in mid Michigan broke on May 19, 2020. The catastrophic event damaged thousands of homes and businesses and led to a property loss of over $250 million. Several lawsuits are pending regarding the event. But it all could have been prevented, according to a 502-page report released two years after the event. The catastrophe was investigated by five engineers and their conclusion: it could have been prevented if different actions had been taken over decades, especially in the days leading up to the failure.
The report included, “If, many years before the May 2020 failure, the dams had become publicly owned or a public-private partnership had been established, sufficient funds would have been available to upgrade the spillway capacity to pass an extreme flood, and therefore the rise of the lake in May 2020 would have been limited and the failure would almost certainly have been prevented.”
When the near-century old structure collapsed, the contents of Wixom Lake rushed down the Tittabawassee River through Midland and Saginaw counties. Floodwaters overwhelmed the Sanford Dam and caused record flooding in Midland. A federal court ruled last October that the dam’s owner ignored known weaknesses that led to the May 2020 collapse and “one of the worst environmental disasters that the state of Michigan has ever experienced.” The judge also cited that the dam owner violated Michigan’s Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act. Had the privately owned dam followed guidelines under Michigan lake levels, the disaster could possibly have been prevented.
Michigan inland lakes have been a precious resource for the Mitten State for generations. According to the Michigan Lakes and Streams Association (MLSA), there are 62,798 Michigan inland lakes that measure one-tenth of an acre and larger. Of those, over 11,000 are five acres and larger and more than 6,500, 10 acres or more. Oakland County is home to 1,400 of those lakes as well as numerous streams.
But only 54 of those are mandated by the courts to have a legal “lake level.”
A lake level, as defined by law is “the level or levels of the water of an inland lake that provide the most benefit to the public; that best protect the public health, safety and welfare; that best preserve the natural resources of the state; and that best preserve and protect the value of the property around the lake."
The normal level is not defined as the highest level attainable for a lake. Lake levels move up and down according to the season and weather with rains and snowfall. To attain a lake level, a legal protocol must be followed. First, a petition signed by two-thirds of the lakefront property owners – those whose land abuts the lake, not backlot owners – must be submitted to the corresponding county board of commissioners. The board will initiate action by passing a resolution to start the proceedings to determine the normal level of the lake. This action is the preparation of a preliminary feasibility study by a licensed professional engineer. The board may require a cash payment from the petitioners to cover the cost of the study or $10,000, whichever is less.
Residents who live on the lake may also petition a circuit court judge to set a legal lake level. Once the court goes through all the proper legal protocol, it determines the normal level of the lake and the corresponding county department may maintain it. Devices like dams, weirs, barrages or augmentation wells can be used to maintain the level.
Legal lake levels can help manage water level fluctuations and have many benefits, such as recreational boating by maintaining a higher water level in the summer. Shoreline properties benefit by the reduction of ice damage in the winter. Dramatic changes in water level can also impact shoreline uses, recreational activities, erosion and aquatic plants.
To start the lake level process, a feasibility study is conducted to determine the normal level. A sample of the items the study considers include historical lake levels and seasonal fluctuations, location of septic tanks, sea walls, docks and other physical features, downstream impacts, fisheries and wildlife habitat protection and watershed hydrology.
The process of establishing a lake level can get quite expensive but part of the process is configuring the special assessment that is passed onto the lake landowners. This cost is added to winter taxes and is normally under $100.
Oakland County has a range of lakes and waterways, and managing lake levels is a key aspect of maintaining these bodies of water for ecological balance and recreational use. Lake levels in this region can fluctuate due to a variety of factors including rainfall, evaporation and human activities. Historically, lake level management in Michigan has been guided by state regulations and local ordinances. In Oakland County, many of the lakes are managed through local lake associations or property owners' associations, which often work with county authorities to monitor and regulate water levels.
At present there are 54 lakes within Oakland County that have an established normal level. The Water Resources Commissioner is the delegated authority to maintain the normal levels of these lakes. The lakes are in five watersheds: 34 in the Clinton, 13 in the Huron, two in the Rouge, three in the Shiawassee and two in the Flint.
An Oakland County staff engineer, Ryan Woloszyk, heads the lake level program, which involves the operation and maintenance of 36 lake level control structures and eight lake level augmentation pumps. In some cases, the level of more than one lake is controlled from a single structure. There are three lake level control technicians assigned to monitor the lake levels and perform the day-to-day operation of the structures.
The regulation of a lake level provides for flood control, enhanced recreational use and protection of property values. The Water Resources Commissioner's Office is available to help facilitate the process of establishing a normal lake level with literature and technical expertise.
The introduction of formal lake level management involves several steps beginning with assessment and monitoring. Local agencies or associations assess current lake levels and historical data to understand the typical fluctuations and impacts. Monitoring helps to detect any significant deviations from normal levels that might affect the ecosystem or property.
Based on assessments, regulations or control measures might be implemented. This could involve setting maximum and minimum water levels, controlling inflow and outflow through dams or weirs, and establishing guidelines for managing waterfront property.
Maintaining the infrastructure that controls lake levels, such as dams and pumps, is a crucial next stop. Regular inspections and maintenance ensure these systems function correctly and mitigate potential issues.
Local residents and lake associations often play a key role in lake level management. They might be involved in decision-making processes, report issues, and participate in efforts to protect and preserve lake environments.
In recent years, there has been increased awareness about the impact of lake levels on both the environment and local communities. This has led to more sophisticated approaches to management, including improved data collection and more collaborative approaches involving local stakeholders.
Maintaining and monitoring lake levels is crucial locally for several reasons. First is ecological balance. Stable lake levels are essential for the health of aquatic ecosystems. Many fish, plants and other organisms depend on consistent water levels for breeding, feeding, and habitat. Fluctuating water levels can affect wetlands and shoreline habitats, which serve as crucial buffers for water quality and support diverse wildlife.
Lake levels help with property and infrastructure protection, notably with flood prevention. Monitoring lake levels helps prevent flooding of adjacent properties and infrastructure. Sudden rises in water levels can lead to property damage and erosion. Lakes with controlled levels reduce the risk of damage to infrastructure such as docks, seawalls and water treatment facilities.
Stable lake levels are important for recreational activities as well. Low water levels can impede boating and fishing, while excessively high levels might lead to unsafe conditions and property damage. Next would be beach access. Consistent levels ensure that beaches remain accessible and enjoyable for residents and visitors.
Additionally, lake levels help with water quality. Proper lake levels help prevent shoreline erosion, which can affect water quality by increasing sediment and nutrient runoff. Extreme fluctuations can contribute to the growth of harmful algae blooms, which can degrade water quality and impact aquatic life. Lake levels also have a community and economic impact, as stable lake levels can help maintain property values by preventing flooding and ensuring that waterfront properties remain desirable.
Wanting a lake level is simple but establishing a lake level is a complex and legal issue. One that Stacy Hissong, attorney for Fahey Schultz, Burzych Rhodes based in Okemos, has plenty of experience. She serves as general counsel for the Michigan Association of County Drain Commissioners, representing more than 40 drain commissioners. A practicing attorney since 1996, she has more than a decade of experience representing clients on issues relating to stormwater and inland lakes and streams, working on projects involving county and intercounty drains, lake levels, lake improvement boards, sewer authorities, and county public works offices.
“I grew up over by the Pere Marquette River and I feel very lucky that I get to do this type of work as a lawyer and help. I feel like I make a difference. It's a super fulfilling job to have,” Hissong explained. “Our law firm represents not only the Michigan Association. of County Drain Commissioners but we also represent about 60 different county drain offices. In the drain commissioner association capacity, I help with legislation involving lakes. And then in my individual representation of those offices, the drain commissioners are often the delegated authority for the counties when there are lake levels established by the court. And there are about 400 of those across the state.”
Regarding lake levels, “Every lake doesn't have to have an established lake level but if the county is going to be the one responsible for the water control structure, then there's normally going to be a lake level established that gives the county the jurisdiction to do that,” she said. “If a lake association owns the dam and not the county, then there's not normally a set lake level through the statute that we deal with. But if the county takes it over because the type of repairs that it might require is too much for a lake association to have the expertise to handle or the financing capabilities to do so they turn it over to the county.”
Establishing a lake level is like no other legal procedure in Michigan.
“If the county board has to petition the circuit court to set one there has to be a study and then every riparian owner and the lake is invited to circuit court to testify as to what they think the level should be,” Hissong said. “Then the circuit court has to take that evidence as well as from engineers and (The Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy) EGLE and then and then come up with a lake level.”
That can be an easy process or a quite contentious one at times.
“The county can set up a special assessment district in the circuit court sets the boundaries of what that district is. The circuit court isn't involved at that level in any other type of public infrastructure. Because lake owners can have such varying opinions, they decided that a court intervention just from the very beginning is a good idea,” she pointed out.
Lake levels date back to the 1920s but Michigan statutes were all updated in 1994, when recodification of all Michigan statutes took place. The statute is part of the Natural Resources Environmental Protection Act (NREPA) which took all the environmental laws except for the drain code and put them in NREPA in different parts. The Inland Lake Level Act, which was already there, was recodified in 1994.
“The statute had been updated several times and then they allowed for special assessment districts in the 1960s, but the court has always been involved in it,” Hissong explained. “I've probably participated in maybe just shy of a hundred of these lake level proceedings.”
With nearly 400 lakes already having their lake level set, Hissong noted, “There's probably only a handful, less than 10, that are in the process of getting a lake level established for the very first time. Now, when the circuit court takes jurisdiction, it has continuing jurisdiction, so that means if the district needs to change or the level needs to change, the case can be reopened and there's probably a dozen or more of those currently open right now.”
The county board has jurisdiction and then EGLE requires inspections of those water control structures every three years. They work with the lake associations and riparian owners to make sure everybody's satisfied as they can be.
“But with the Midland Dam breaks, there's a much more public awareness. State government is becoming much more sensitive to making sure that all the safety and condition of the structures are satisfactory and there is a lot more communication between EGLE and the counties.”
As a lawyer, Hissong consistently sees and represents both sides of the lake level argument. It’s a constant balancing act.
“I see it completely differently than everybody else. And there are lots of varying opinions on the same lake depending on where you are on the lake. One person may say, ’I want it higher so I don't have to have as many sections on my dock to get my boat out.’ And right across the lake from them, ‘I need it lower because I'm having erosion issues on my seawall.’ Or somebody else, ‘I'm having problems with my septic so I need it lower.’ But ‘I want it higher because I like to fish in the fall.’ It just depends,” she said. “We try to balance all of these various needs and work with the court to set a level that makes sense for everyone. We're not making everybody happy.”
She also added that the issue with lakes can become more personal with generations of families attached to the lake.
“With lakes, people love their property but with Michigan's Great Lakes or inland lakes – those are generational and hold such memories. Different feelings come out of people when they're talking about their lakes and their memories of their childhood. They're very passionate about the condition of their lake and very much more involved than other public infrastructure projects that I'm involved in. There's just a lot more passion and interest in the very minute specifics of how something happens. A regular property owner doesn't want to know the intimate specifics of the sanitary or the wastewater treatment plant, but they do on a lake.”
She noted the importance of taking care of Michigan lakes is of the utmost importance.
“The lakes are a big part of our tourism and we need to take care of them.”
Focusing on Oakland County, there are more established lake levels than any other county in the state. Jim Nash, the Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner, and his office are the delegated authority with staff specifically dedicated to lakes.
“Lake levels are something that's been going on for a very long time,” Nash said. “When Michigan was initially settled, they recognized that it was a giant swamp. To make farmland, they had to drain the properties. That's when drain commissioners were born, and over time it's expanded to other things.”
He noted that each lake level lake “has a structure on it that either relieves water or brings it in from an upstream source. A lot of these lakes are in chains.”
A recent court ruling regarding Higgins Lake where the county wanted to stop its lake level but citizens sued and the court ruled that the county must maintain the lake's normal level. That led to an exact level to maintain but Michigan legislators entered the fray to fix the problem.
“An appeals court ruled that it had to be exactly at that level at all times and with physics it's impossible. This new legislation allowed a certain leeway, which since the beginning has been how it's done, especially in the winter. We lower the lakes in the winter because people aren't boating and because in the spring when it rains, it could otherwise have an issue. That's how that kind of has run for a very long time.”
Nash further explained, “This legislation really allows more to be done. It also makes it easier for communities.”
Lake property owners foot the bill for the lake level process and over time, when structures have to be maintained, replaced or improved, “They have to be charged again for that. But this is set through petition to circuit court. And so, it's all done on a very strict schedule.”
Some of the structures involved in maintaining a lake level include an augmentation well.
“In a warm, low rain summer, when the lakes get too low, we can augment them, pump water from the ground into them,” Nash said.
The variance level is a percentage of a foot, according to Nash. Ten to fifteen percent of a foot can be an inch or two in lake level.
“Beyond that the state can cite you. Whenever you're doing these things, you're doing it with the folks that live on that lake paying for it. We have to make sure the funds are there.”
In Oakland County, Nash said, “Most of our structures are in very good shape, and we have a really good record of keeping them in a proper slot. Over time, there have been issues. We replaced a structure on the Middle Straits Lake a couple of years ago because it was having issues. It was a very old structure and it would allow lake water out. We put in a much more modern piece there.”
All of the lake level structures are inspected annually or every two years, depending on the age of the structure. There are Oakland County staff that check on the structures weekly to make sure they are working properly.
“For the county board, we do an inspection of dams and water structures all over the county – even those that aren’t ours,” Nash said. “There's a lot that are privately owned or owned by parks and other entities. But we do report back to the county. This was after the big mid-Michigan dam collapse. We keep an eye on all the dams around Oakland County.”
Nash said the inspection teams look for two things – the potential for failure and then the results of failure.
“If it’s a strong structure it has a low failure rate. But if it’s on a place that could really flood a neighborhood and cause damage, then that would be something we keep a higher level on.”
In addition to the “old school” structures as dams, weirs and augmentation wells, new technology is being put in place.
“Right now, we’re looking at a watershed-wide network of sensors that can tell different things like speed of water level and water level. We can even do tests for things like oxygen levels – dissolved oxygen in the water. In the future, we’re looking to track things in the watershed more remotely so we can get better data at a larger scale.”
Nash also explained that Oakland County is fortunate to “have a lot of areas that still have wetlands and places that can absorb flooding. A lot of places don't have that.”
Ryan Woloszyk is a professional engineer for the state of Michigan and works with the Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner’s office.
“When I came on board with the Water Resources Commissioner's office, I just took an interest in lakes. I live on a lake. I have a background in hydrology. It's something I really enjoyed doing,” Woloszyk said. “Once I took that interest, I just took a hold of it and am involved throughout the state and with our lake level program for all of the county drain commissioners and involved with the legal aspect of it and mostly managing our lakes here in Oakland County and protecting our residents.”
Hydrology, explained Woloszyk, “is rainfall and how water moves around once it actually hits the ground going through the various dams, streams, lakes, rivers and stormwater systems.”
Woloszyk also touched on the Higgins Lake situation. He helped craft the wording of the legislative resolution.
“Higgins Lake sued the county/stream commissioner because their lake wasn't being maintained. The court ruled that how it was written, it must specifically maintain that exact level at all points in time. Let's say a big rainstorm; comes through there's no way we can move all that water through instantaneously. We would flood everyone downstream. It's just not responsible management. To target how it's written, essentially gives the ability to say, ‘Are they operating that dam with the intent of getting to the target?’ You wouldn't be in compliance with the law if it rains. If you left it shut and the same thing goes on the other side if it was shut but it's not raining. We understand that you're doing what you can to maintain the level of your lake. The target language is essentially our solution to the judge’s ruling that that number must always be maintained.”
Woloszyk said of the Oakland County lake level structures, the “majority of ours are weir structures, so basically as the water rises it just flows over a weir. It's the simplest and easiest way to maintain them, because that way the higher the water gets the more water that flows out. During events we have three lake level techs that are always on, they're always out checking them, doing maintenance, etc. But during rain events, we may have two or even three of them specifically out making adjustments to either pull some boards so we can get more water out of those lakes and keep it moving downstream, or on the other end when we're dry, we're just basically buttoning everything up as much as possible. More complex would be gate structures but they act very similar. They're just underwater, so we have to monitor them a lot more. A weir, as the water comes down, it slows down naturally and will eventually stop. A gate, if left open, could lead to very low lake levels if we did not go and shut that.”
With Oakland County being at the top of several watersheds the less complex technology is primarily used. “Most of our lakes are in a river chain. We do have some kettle lakes where they're either the top of the chain or they don't have a lot of water coming into them. During dry periods, we'll play a balancing act between them a little bit. Typically, it's easier to get the water out there just to get it in. We do have eight augmentation wells, but those are on some of our kettle lakes. During dry seasons, we will run those to essentially pump ground water into the lakes to try and maintain our levels,” Woloszyk said.
He explained “that inspections are conducted by an engineer, legally licensed in the state of Michigan, just to ensure that the dams are up to where they should be with maintenance and repair. Repair wise in Oakland County, we do have some that are in poor shape. However, they're probably smaller than the desk you work at. Some of these structures, in terms of them failing, there isn't a large concern of mass damage or issues with those. We don't have an issue maintaining the level. We work within our bounds to try and keep our residents happy and make sure that we're not overtaxing them for something that doesn't necessarily need to happen. There's a balancing act when you've got lakes with a very low number of people, especially northern county lakes. They bought a lake house in a small community and a thousand- or two-thousand dollar bill might bankrupt them. We always try and keep our special assessment at under $100 a resident unless I have something major going on that that needs to be addressed.”
The engineer doesn’t design the structures as they are bid out. He does oversee and review them. “I've got a new one we're looking at taking on right now, so I'm heavily involved. I've got my maintenance items that I want in there and influencing the design to make sure I have that and I'm getting the right hydrology through it. Then we will typically pass that along to an actual design engineer or structural engineers to go through the design process for it.”
A lake level case he is currently involved in Bloomfield Hills covers a dam that is in poor shape.
“The dam was privately owned and the residents got together and put a petition forward. We did our study. We're waiting in court right now to move forward to get a new dam completely designed and built there for them,” he said. “It’s a 14-acre lake.”
The cost for that lake level process has hit $40,000 with the study portion and engineering for cost estimates.
Woloszyk explained that his particular job is “the only one in the state because we have quite a few lakes under management. Most drain commissioners or water resources commissioners may have five or six employees. Most of the time those offices are significantly smaller. In Lapeer County, for example, it's the drain commissioner and two secretaries. That's the entire staff.”
He further explained there are no hydro-dams – electric power producing – in Oakland County.
“There are some former hydro dams but I do not believe that there is any currently active. We've got five different watersheds in Oakland County, and with us being the top, we don't necessarily have that mass flow that you would see when you want a hydroelectric project like up in Midland and that area where those hydros are operating. We have very small watersheds, so when it rains here, up on our end, our lake levels go up, it comes down fairly quickly and there's not a lot of water feeding it,” Woloszyk said.
He serves the entire state as a point of contact for lake level questions.
Rex Vaughn, a board member with the Michigan Lakes and Stream Association, has long been involved in lake level matters. Vaughn is a riparian with property on Cedar Lake in Alcona County. He’s become quite familiar with the century-plus lake level process across the state.
“As an example, my lake got their legal lake level in 1954. I know that Higgins and Hawthorne, two big lakes in the central part of the state, as well as Houghton Lake, got their levels in the 1920s and 30s. The law in some form has been around for decades,” Vaughn said.
Court ordered lake levels are referred to as “Part 307 Lakes,” according to Vaughn.
“They're monitored and they have a court-ordered legal lake level. It's the circuit court judge who is empowered under Part 307 to set that level, and then it's up to the county to have a designated authority manage that level and manage the dam,” he said. “If the county went through the process correctly at the time that they petitioned the court for the court order, they would ask the judge to also approve the special assessment district that is used to fund the improvements and then maintain and operate the dam.
“The people that derive the most benefit, from the control of the lake level, usually are the lakefront property owners. They would pay into a special assessment that the delegated authority will use then to operate the level control structure, maintain the level control structure and receive occasional maintenance from the county.”
Vaughn explained Cedar Lake, where his property is, didn’t have any “dedicated funds to take care of it. When the structure deteriorated to the level that it was at risk of failure, we started working on implementing a special assessment district in 2016. That's when the project was approved. A group of property owners contacted the counties and got working on a project. And in 2018, the case finally got to the court. They reestablished the lake level and then put in place a special assessment district. Construction started then in 2020 to rebuild our structure. There's an eight-year special assessment district that was set up to pay for the $600,000 it took to replace that structure. It shows up on our winter tax bill. And for us, I think it was $138 a year for eight years.”
If a county doesn't have a drain commissioner because of its population size, then the responsibility falls on the local county road commission to act as the drain commissioner when it comes to matters relating to the legal lake level.
Vaughn explained more of the benefits of having an established lake level. “There’s the risk of flooding, both to the flooding from surface water floods but also for those that have basements or crawl space foundations around lakes. Water does move through the ground out of a lake and if you know what the legal lake level is, you can then design and build your home with a foundation that's not going to get flooded or a crawl space that fills up with water in the spring because of excessively high lake levels.”
He also touched on the disaster in Midland.
“Before the dam failed, when the hydro plant operator had his license pulled by the Federal Energy Commission because of his lack of maintenance and compliance with federal regulations, a group of property owners on those four lakes got together and petitioned both counties to establish legal lake levels with the intention of the counties taking over ownership of the four dams,” Vaughn said. “That also set the framework in place to allow the counties, through their delegated authority, to rebuild those dams. And it's known as the Four Lakes Task Force. Because the four dams all generated power, they had federal regulations on lake level tied to their hydro dam operating permits. Once the operating permit was pulled by the feds, those lake level controls that were in federal regulations went away and the folks in the Four Lakes Task Force quickly organized and got legal levels established through Part 307 for all four lakes, and then began working on plans to repair and upgrade those dams so that they could comply with the legal levels and also the dam safety regulations in the state of Michigan. And not long after they got started is when the big rain event and the destruction of the four dams came about. But they had their legal levels in place before the failure.”
In the aftermath of the Midland disaster, Vaughn explained, “They’ve done a pretty good job of documenting their history and who they are, what they, did, how they did it, what the obstructions to success have been. Now unfortunately, they've got a small group of property owners that have tangled them up in both state and federal court challenging the legality of the legal lake level and the special assessment district, and it's a pretty big mess. This small group of about 50 folks is holding up about a $600 million project. I'm a believer that lake level is beneficial to those that live on lakes and those that use lakes and could be affected by lakes. Lake level is not free. You go to the people that derive the benefit end up paying for it. And the rules on how to do it are pretty straightforward.”
Luke Trumble, supervisor of the Dam Safety Unit for EGLE, added more to the Edenville Dam Disaster story line. “The inspection requirements are actually more frequent for the federally regulated hydropower dams,” Trumble said. “It had been inspected and some of the issues that the dam had were pretty well known. It was that the dam owner had been promising to make improvements for years and years and years, and those never materialized.”
Without those improvements being made, the dam became a disaster waiting to happen.
“The big flood that we all feared could damage the dam happened. It hadn't happened in the previous 100 or so years that the dam had been in operation and it happened in May of 2020,” Trumble said. “I think that prior to the failure, when the regulatory jurisdiction switched hands after the license got revoked, Gladwin and Midland counties were stepping in and were in the process of purchasing the dams. Setting up what's called a special assessment district, which would have taxed the folks around the lakes to help fund repairs for the dam. And they were planning $30 to $50 million worth of upgrades to the dams. Edenville and Secord being the first two priorities, and then Sanford and Smallwood being slightly lower priorities because they were in better shape and had some upgrades already completed. But those were planned to be completed by 2023. There was a plan in place, it just didn't come to fruition before the dam failed.”
Now post-disaster, Trumble is part of the rebuilding process.
“We're (EGLE) the regulatory agency at the state level. We do the permitting and design review. That's my involvement. We do have some funding and actually manage some grants that have been awarded to the locals to rebuild the dam. We're not directly involved with the design or construction, but we are involved with the design review and permitting.”
He said lake levels had been established in May of 2019 before the May of 2020 dam failures.
“All four lakes have court-ordered lake level and special assessment districts set up for them through the tax assessments to fund, repair and maintenance of the funding gap. They've received over $250 million – but that's still about only half the money they need, so the rest presumably would be taxed back to those 9,000 parcel owners spread out over 30 to 40 years. All the framework has been in place since 2019.”
As for lake level cases across the state, Trumble’s office is involved early in the chain of events. “My office handles comments from both EGLE and DNR staff. All the folks that would be reviewing proposed lake levels, all the comments come through my office. There are 352 Lake Level structures in the state of Michigan,” he said.
Those structures are both simple and complex, ranging from large hydropower dams to simple weirs and culverts.
“There's a lot and everything in between. Some are steel weirs, some are concrete weirs, some have stop logs or no moving parts – we call those big crest structures. Those were the ones we were super worried about when the Higgins Lake decision came down that a lake level needed to be maintained. The majority of the lake level structures in the state have what's called an uncontrolled spillway, which means they have no moving parts, no gates, no stop logs, no valves or anything that that could be opened or closed to regulate flows. Basically, when it rains, the lake level is going to rise. When it doesn't rain, the lake level is going to drop and the counties have no control over that. The structures are pretty much at or near what the lake level is, but then nature takes care of the rest. There will be fluctuations up and they will be fluctuations down.”
The less complex structures include steel sheet pilings where water flows over at a set elevation or even a culvert set at a specific elevation.
“The most advanced on a lake level is Glen Lake up in northwest Lower Peninsula. That one has fully automated gates – it's called SCADA, System Control and Data Acquisition Equipment, that reads the level of the lake and the water below the dam, and then will automatically open and close the gates incrementally to regulate the lake level. We call it telemetry data, where it's constantly reading the levels and then adjusting to that,” Trumble said. “These are automated but to make sure, we really want a human to be checking at least once a day or even more to confirm the data. For every piece of telemetry equipment that you have recording lake levels, it could shoot an erroneous level and then it could open up a gate or close a gate and the lake levels could be rising or falling because it's reading bad data. We always want there to be some type of backup with humans are putting eyes on it.”
With so many structures in place across the state, the majority are locked and gated for protection. There are fines and punishments for anyone who tampers with any of the lake level structures.
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