‘We have not forgotten you' – Residents remain without relief 5 years after failure of Edenville Dam

Yahoo

20-05-2025

Attorney Ven Johnson stands in front of the Midland County Courthouse for a press conference marking the five year anniversary of the Edenville Dam failure on May 19, 2025. | Screenshot
Marking the five year anniversary of the 2020 Edenville Dam failure, a host of residents whose homes were damaged by the dam's collapse gathered outside the Midland County Courthouse Monday, calling for the state to step up and make things right with those impacted by the flood.
'Not a single dime has been collected. Let me repeat that, not a single dime has been collected by these folks behind me, the true victims and survivors, nor on behalf of their attorneys. Not a single dime has been offered by the state of Michigan to step up to do the right thing,' attorney Ven Johnson told reporters, arguing the state's response to residents seeking accountability through the courts had been to 'defend, delay, deny.'
Johnson recounted the past 5 years of legal proceedings, as residents impacted by the flooding seek damages from the Department of Environment Great Lakes and Energy and the Department of Natural Resources, alleging the state knew the dam was not safe for continued operations, but still authorized the dam operator, Boyce Hydro, to raise the water levels within the lake created by the dam.
The state attributes the dam's failure to 'historic levels of rainfall.' More than 11,000 people and 2,500 structures were damaged due to flooding, with the state's initial estimate for damages coming out to $250 million.
While a federal judge later found Boyce Hydro responsible for the dam's failure, ordering the dam's former owner Lee Mueller to pay $119 million in environmental damage, Johnson argued the state had yet to properly respond to the complaint filed by residents shortly after the dam collapsed.
He pointed to an order filed by Court of Claims Judge Douglas Shapiro in October 2023, which notes 'this case was filed over three years ago and that no Answer has ever been filed and that no discovery has yet occurred.' Shapiro called the state's repeated requests to reverse a previous order, which partly denied the state's effort to resolve the case without bringing it to trial, 'time-consuming and unsuccessful.'
While Court of Claims Judge James Robert Redford last week denied another request to resolve the case in favor of the state without going to trial, Johnson predicted the state would appeal the decision, noting that the government retains an automatic right of appeal. Johnson said he would be objecting to that request, as would the attorneys standing beside him at the conference.
'Sadly, this is a months, plural, long process,' he said.
Johnson repeatedly compared the state's legal approach to the way it handled legal proceedings in the Flint Water Crisis where the state was ordered to pay $600 million to Flint residents and property owners whose water was contaminated.
'There's your blueprint for how the state of Michigan deals with infrastructure failure. No one went to jail, no one was prosecuted, and it was the Civil lawyers who did what they did and exactly what we're doing in this case to try to bring some semblance of justice,' Johnson said. 'That took them eight and a half years before the State of Michigan stepped up and began to take responsibility and pay for the damage….But even so, that litigation, in many respects, is ongoing even today.'
While the state pursued several state officials, including Republican former Gov. Rick Snyder for their role and response in the Flint water crisis, the efforts failed to return any convictions after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in 2022 the charges were invalid.
The residents pursuing the state for the dam collapse are scheduled to go to trial in January 2026, Johnson said. However, if the case is allowed to proceed, he expects the state will take the case all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court.
In the meantime, Mike and Lisa Callan, whose home was destroyed by the flooding, said the burden is getting greater and greater each year.
'We have a couple mortgages we're still paying on this property. And, you know, now, now we have a water assessment coming. You know, my water assessment is about $48,000 for a piece of property that has absolutely, you know, nothing there,' Mike Callan said.
Carl Hamman, a member of the Sanford Village Council, warned that residents could lose their homes over the assessment fees the state is requiring to rebuild the Edenville, as well as the Sanford Dam, which was located downstream.
'If they're living on —and I'm on Social Security — If you're living only on Social Security, I can't afford another $5,000 a year tax. Can't do it. I'll have to walk away from the place that I've been at for 35 years,' Hamman said.
Kevin Carlson, another attorney working on residents' behalf, said the dam failure was not just a natural disaster but a failure of government and a breach of trust.
'What the state officials knew here, by January of 2020 at the very latest, was that the Edenville Dam did not meet the minimum safety requirements for a dam to continue operating in the state of Michigan…. The people behind me, the people that live downstream from this dam, they didn't know that,' Carlson said.
'They couldn't take matters into their own hands and start evacuating early. They count on the state acting behind closed doors to know that when a dam is unsafe for continued operation, there's one thing you shouldn't do to it: load up the lake behind it with more water. That's what the state authorized the dam operator to do.'
Danny Wimmer, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Attorney General, which is representing EGLE and the DNR, said the failure of the dam was tragic, but noted it was not a state-owned dam and that survivors of the flood had already sued the dam owner and forced liquidation of their assets.
'Despite the claims of plaintiffs' attorney Johnson today, the litigation still pending in the Court of Claims is nothing like the Flint water litigation, and there is no appeal pending in it,' Wimmer said.
'Plaintiffs in this litigation already lost their lawsuit against the county governments because they did not have evidence to back up their allegations. We expect the same thing will happen in the Court of Claims. The plaintiffs do not have the evidence to support their allegations. Instead, the evidence confirms that the state agencies are not responsible for the dam's failure,' Wimmer said, before noting the department's sympathies lie with those affected by the dam failures.
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