On Monday, May 16th, the Tobacco Spillway fishing area (east side of the water channel below the dam) will be closed for the day while crews finish existing work from the fall and winter on the dam. The fishing area will be open to the public again on May 17th.
Monthly dam restoration progress meeting to discuss value engineering, dam restoration, permitting, and a natural resources restoration study. Participants included representatives from Four Lakes Task Force, Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service, GEI Consultants and Spicer Group.
In January 2021, property owners in the Four Lakes Special Assessment District received a survey from Public Sector Consultants (PSC), a Lansing-based policy research firm, that sought to better understand how the August 2020 dam failures impacted them and to gauge property owners' willingness to pay an assessment to rebuild the dams.
Recent heavy rainfall has resulted in higher water levels for the Four Lakes, with water expected to continue to rise through the day. Residents in the area of Radov Drive directly below Smallwood Dam were notified overnight about rising water levels. Property owners are asked to keep a close eye on their property and take action if necessary to safeguard themselves and their property.
We are pleased to see this interim report from the forensic investigation team. The five-member independent forensic team (IFT) is investigating the failures and the physical and human factors that contributed to the cause of the Edenville Dam and Sanford Dam failures. In this interim report, the IFT’s findings to date on the physical mechanisms are presented in only summary form, with all the detailed evidence being compiled and presented in the IFT’s final report to be issued in the next several months.
The FLTF Restoration Plan identifies four critical issues that could impact our ability to restore the lakes. One is to have support from and collaboration with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) on the Environmental Restoration Plan.
In a letter dated June 29, 2021, EGLE Director Liesl Clark thanked FLTF for its cooperative engagement with the Agency and affirmed its support of our path forward. Letter to EPA and FERC Seeks Help to Rebuild
In a bipartisan show of support, U.S. senators and members of Congress from Michigan asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to assist the State of Michigan and our communities in recovering from the dam failures of May 2020. |
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