myPlanetGanja.com

Or....How my brother lost his lake house.


So, we've been getting a little rain lately. But some back story first...

Aboot 25 years ago, my brother bought a lake house. As part of the process, he had to have a flood evaluation done in order to get the mortgage. It's not a regular lake, it's a reservoir. He tried to point out to the bank folk that his house would never flood, because the dam creating the lake would breech before that happened, and it would be the folks down stream that would need to worry aboot flooding. They didn't care, they made him pay for the evaluation anyways. And apparently we like to put these things in series on a single water way...because there is another reservoir down stream, and yet another up stream.

So, we've been getting a little rain lately...and in anticipation of higher water levels, all three dams have had their spillways fully open. That by itself means flood conditions for anything down stream. But today, things went from bad to worse. Earlier this afternoon, the dam 12 miles up stream breeched...



The water at bro's house came to 4' below his foundation level.

Then the dam on his lake breeched...



You can see what that meant for folks down stream...



Here's video from one of those down stream bridges...



The next dam, 7 miles down stream, looked like this, BEFORE the breechs...



The spillways are already causing major flooding. Now they say this dam's breech is imminent.

Further down stream is Midland, home of the famous tridge...that's right, tridge, a three legged bridge. And BEFORE the breeches, it looked like this...



You couldn't even get to the fukking thing without a boat.

I grew up in Midland. The neighborhoods I lived in have been evacuated. After Midland comes Saginaw, and then Bay City, before dumping into the Saginaw Bay on lake Huron.


So while my brother didn't lose the house, he did lose the lake. It is now a giant mud puddle with a river running through it.

History shows again and again
How nature points out the folly of man
Godzilla!

Heard of the tridge but
Had never seen it...

Thanks bob!

All that muds going to make
A Great place to start a farm

Dams are going away
And in light of their true lifetime costs

And few will be replaced

You made the NPR news!

Two dams breached near midland
And significant flood waters intermingling with
Chemical retention pond water...

The first dam breech wasn't even covered by the news. It appears for the most part that breech was overflow, but no real structural failure. Except for the hydro turbine building, which looks like they were already working on before this happened.

The second dam breech was structural failure. It is privately owned, and the owner has been in a court battle with the state and the power company for the last several years. He is sooo fuk'd now. The state wanted him to increase discharge capacity, and he was refusing.

The third dam breech happened aboot an hour after the second. So far they know it overflowed, but it is unknown if the structural integrity was compromised.

This morning @ 6:20 notice went out of a levy failure in Midland...couple thousand more acres flooded.

A friend lives across the lake from my brother's place. This was evidently too much for him. Water was up to his doorway. He had already put his dock and boat in. As the water rose, the boat started pulling the dock anchors out of the ground...so he was out tying the boat and dock to a tree to keep them from floating away. He called 911 and was taken to the hospital...still in his waders...just before the road in was closed.

My nephew was sent up yesterday to check on the house. He said the power was out, so he was going to come home. Bro told him no way...no power means no sump pump, so he needed to stay and monitor it.

These dams will all be fixed, because they all have hydro power generators. Not to mention the thousands of vacation homes on these lakes that would lose most of their value.

I have several friends with property on these lakes...some vacation homes, some full time residents. From the videos I can tell at least two were flooded out. Going to be a hell of a mess up there all summer.

Oh yeah, I forgot aboot that...Midland is home for Dow Chemical. Probably all kinds of nasty shit for folks down stream.

Seems you streched the defination of breach and
failure

Unreal how often extreme weather has systematically changed the lives of so many extra folks...
https://youtu.be/fOEQTJV_3-w" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

My understanding is breeched is when the dam can't contain the water, and failure is when parts of it start ending up down stream...no?


My friend who went to the hospital is back home and doing fine. He's a tough old fukker, but he's been having heart issues for the past year, and when it's looking like you might lose the home that's been in the family for the last 60 years...well... At least he was lucky, the house was spared any damage...just barely.

Other folks weren't so lucky...they lost their homes. And I don't mean destroyed by flooding. I mean LOST...as in no longer there...



Plenty of other things gone as well...like the bridge in yesterday's clip...



...and an entire lake...



To give you an idea of the size of the lake, it covered 1980 acres, had 84 miles of shoreline, and was up to 40' deep.

While their flood threat is over, the next dam down stream is not as fortunate. It has failed as well...almost the entire dam is gone. And water levels are still peaking...



Though not as big, it still covers 1500 acres, up to 26' deep, and 35 miles of shoreline.

Down stream, Midland was expected to crest tonight.

A station out of Detroit had some pretty good footage...even if their reporting wasn't entirely accurate...



They were saying the Sanford dam was still intact, just breeched...but their video footage showed otherwise.

Another levy failure...this time on the Cass river just south of Saginaw, right before it joins the Titabawassee river going into Saginaw.

Weather forcast this morning is predicting 60% chance of rain today, clear tomorrow, and then 50/50 chance of thunderstorms for each of the 6 days following that. The folks around the dams will be safe, but Midland, Saginaw, and Bay City will be at risk, because this series of dams were put in to control flooding in those cities.

The dow property is a superfund site

Dioxen...

As it should be......considering all the napalm, agent orange, and paraquat that company made for Uncle Sam.

Saw the news reporting that everything at Dow was safe...no contamination of the waterways occurred.
But I also saw the overhead shots during the flooding. That plant area is huge. It is a city by itself...it has it's own zip code, security force, and fire department. Just the mere fact that most of that area was under water means contamination definitely occurred.

I grew up on the other side of town, up wind of the plant...still remember the 'chemical' smell the air had. Then came the clean air act, clean water bill, and the EPA under Nixon...and then the whole dioxin fiasco. Things changed...Dow started shutting down a lot of the production facilities there, and started adding more corporate offices. But they still make some nasty shit there.

Umm, I'm pretty sure he already declared it a disaster area and authorized relief funds....because FEMA and the National Guard already have boots there.
And I saw he said the dams would be replaced....although I'm not sure how that would work, because these are state dams, not federal. So far the state has said they're not sure they want to fix them. They don't seem to be concerned aboot controlling flooding in the 3 cities down stream, devaluing thousands of properties, and destroying the tourism economy in the area, both of which fund these communities through taxes.

The funds they are pissing over, are covid funds.

That's the humor, both are illegal, strong-arming, and failed.

Dow opperates a nuclear reactor at that facility?!?!

Ahh, you caught that too eh? That was the same thing that went through my head as well.

Back in the 70s they tried to turn us into another 3 Mile Isle. Both reactor towers had been built before the public was finally successful in getting the project shut down. One of my best friend's dad worked for Bechtel building it...oddly enough, that friend is one of the folks on Wixom lake whose house flooded. With the nuclear option off the table, they converted the facility to natural gas...Midland Cogeneration Venture. I have never heard anything aboot a nuclear facility since then...until now. The whole point in getting the original project shut down was a 'not in my back yard' thing.

You have got to be kidding me. ...

In 2018 Wixom lake's dam was cited for inadequate spillway size. Winter 2019 the lake was lowered for inspection. Spring 2019 Boyce Hydro, owners of the dam, wanted to leave lake levels low. So the communities formed a non-profit organization, Four Lakes Task Force, to force the owners to raise the lake level back to normal...they meet quarterly. The lake was returned to normal levels. The organization came to a tentative agreement to purchase the dams in 2022. The organization is now claiming ownership of the exposed lake beds, Wixom and Sanford, and telling the sheriffs to arrest any trespassers...

The bottom lands are owned by Four Lakes Task Force, but Stephenson said the task force has given the Sheriff’s Office the right to take enforcement action for the public’s safety. The Sheriff’s Office and local law enforcement will stop people from trespassing in the Sanford and Wixom Lakes bottom lands.

The bottoms lands are considered dangerous sections of the disaster recovery area, Stephenson said. Residents are not permitted to walk, ride recreational vehicles or perform other activities in the disaster recovery area.

Anyone who does not comply will be subject to arrest by the Midland County Sheriff’s Office and its law enforcement partners.

Umm, hello!?
The organization does not own any of that property.
A public waterway, drained or not, is still a public waterway.
A private organization has no authority to direct law enforcement to do anything.

But hey, if you just lost a bunch of your stuff due to the actions of this organization, fuk you you can't go look for your stuff. Fukking fascist country we live in.

The dams were privately owned
And for more than 20 years
Had been refusing to bring them up to minium standards

Had a couple years ago
Negociated to sell them to a coalition
Of local counties

Christ bob
Cheering for private profitteering of squating
On public land?

Fuck you 'dont pay your own way' assholes...

The owner of Boyce is an asshole...no doubt aboot that...but I lay blame where blame is due. The state built, owned, and operated these dams...until they thought it was a good idea to privatize them. That's the state's fault. The communities spoke up at the time, saying it was a bad idea, fearing they would not be maintained properly. So now it's time for the state to take responsibility for their poor decision.

yes,
time to sieze boyce holdings and prosecuting them for subverting the state AS was how they got away with the theft of public commons

and we can cruxify all the state actors it bought off to make this so...

You seem to be under the impression Boyce caused the problems...that they went to the state and said "sell us these dams".

The spillway volume has not changed since the dams were built. Boyce didn't reduce the flow, it was a design flaw by the state.

The state has known for the last 20 years that the electrical generation income would no longer cover the cost of maintaining the structures...that is why they sold them. The state did not want to address the repairs that were needed back then. So they sold the structures 'as is', and started citing Boyce to do those repairs as soon as the purchase was complete.

While Boyce certainly shares some of the responsibility, the state should be the first to be strapped to the whipping post.

Privately owned dams: really, really, really shitty idea. Sorry about you bro's house.

Normally, I spend the 4th of July on Wixom Lake...but not this year.

For aboot the last 20 years my brother's lake house has been the family retreat for the 4th. During this time the lake becomes packed with folks. On the night of the 4th we usually tool around the lake on the pontoon, watching all the fireworks displays. During the day Pontoon Alley packs in hundreds of boats...drinking, toking, eating, sunning, swimming...basically one gigantic party. Yards fill up with cars of people visiting for the holiday. The smell of grilling food fills the air. In the heat of the summer, the lake provided a nice cool relief.

I talked with bro yesterday...he said the place is like a ghost town. When the wind picks up over the exposed lake bed, it creates dust storms. The good news is that in aboot 6 years all the dams will have been fixed.

In keeping updated on what's going on, I have been following one youtuber specifically...Jordan Mowbray. This young man is doing an excellent job documenting the whole situation. Not only does he provide great video footage, but he also interviews residents and reports the latest developments of what is going on. His last two uploads are on the status of Wixom and Sanford lakes. They are fairly lengthy, but they do a good job showing the progress of the clean up and rebuilding of the areas.

Wixom Lake...




Sanford Lake...

Boy my brother is all pissed off...


Tax dispute halting $400M plan to rebuild mid-Michigan dams
Mar. 05, 2024
By Garret Ellison

MIDLAND, MI — A dispute over property taxes is halting efforts to rebuild four hydroelectric dams and restore impoundments damaged by the 2020 mid-Michigan flood.

The Four Lakes Task Force said Monday, March 4 that it was suspending restoration work on the Edenville, Sanford, Secord and Smallwood dams after a court challenge to its taxing authority was filed by an association of property owners.

The dams were formerly owned by Boyce Hydro, an insolvent company that lost them through condemnation after the May 2020 Edenville Dam collapse and flood that caused $200 million in property damage and forced 10,000 people to evacuate.

The task force says the challenge from a group of local property owners called the Heron Cove Association impedes its ability to issue bonds meant to finance the rebuilding project, which has progressed since late 2020 using state funding.

On Feb. 21, the association filed an appeal to the Four Lakes Task Force plan in Midland Circuit Court, claiming the tax assessments were unduly burdensome.

The nonprofit task force has delegated authority by Midland and Gladwin counties and is trying to fund about half of the $398 million project through special assessments.

Dave Kepler, president of the Four Lakes Task Force, said the appeal affects the group’s ability to leverage financing and it’s “uncertain when or if we can issue bonds required to proceed with the construction to complete the project.”

The task force must now ration work using state funds, he said. Rebuilding work will taper and stop this summer.

“While we respect peoples’ right to appeal, it is a setback and disappointing considering the progress we have made as a community to restore our lakes,” Kepler said.

The tax appeal follows a unanimous joint Feb. 6 approval by the Midland and Gladwin county commissions for the Four Lakes to raise about $8 million to cover operations and maintenance and $217 million over 40 years to refill the lakes and rebuild the dams.

The organization began taking steps to acquire the former Boyce Hydro dams in 2018 after federal energy regulators revoked the Edenville Dam’s power generation license.

The Four Lakes Task Force received delegated taxing authority in 2019 after legal levels were established for Tittabawassee River impoundments Wixom, Sanford, Smallwood and Secord Lakes.

The group was negotiating with former Boyce Hydro owner Lee Mueller to buy the damns and perform long-deferred upgrades when a May 2020 rainstorm overwhelmed the Edenville Dam, which collapsed and unleashed the combined waters of the Tittabawassee and Tobacco Rivers in a 500-year flood that inundated downtown Midland.

The flood drained the Wixom and Sanford lake impoundments. The task force later acquired all four Boyce dams through bankruptcy for $1.5 million and has since been working to rebuild the damaged Edenville and Sanford dams, and upgrade spillways and embankments at Secord and Smallwood.

Plans for rebuilding the lakes by taxing property owners have proven controversial and recent hearings have been replete with opposition and angry public comments.

Residents claim individual property tax assessments are overly burdensome. Upset property owners say the cost of restoring the lakes is prohibitive and they should be left to flow as rivers. Others say the state and federal government should bear more cost, and the tax burden should be spread more broadly across multi-county residents who would benefit from public access.

According to the task force, lakefront lots would pay between $1,400 and $2,800 per year depending on frontage size and most backlots would pay about $705 annually. There are 6,640 property owners in the special assessment district.

State legislation was introduced in February that would help defer the tax burden for low-income seniors within the special district and other similar districts across Michigan.

The total estimated project cost has risen substantially from initial estimates in the past several years due to market volatility and labor costs, the task force says.

The task force received $200 million toward restoring the lakes and rebuilding the dams from a 2022 state appropriation, which it says has helped reduce individual assessments. However, most of that money will be spent by the end of this year if the organization is unable to secure additional financing, Kepler said.

The task force says it needs special assessment money to leverage additional construction financing, such as a $80 million municipal bond in addition to a $138 million loan from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that would be repaid with tax monies.

In October, the task force said it was targeting 2025 for reopening Smallwood and Secord dams, and 20206 for reopening Wixom and Sanford dams.

The Heron Cove Association appeal includes 810 parties represented by the Foster Swift Collins and Smith law firm.

Culpability for the 2020 dam collapse and flood has been extensively litigated in federal court, where the state won a $120 million judgment against former dam owner Mueller in December. The state is challenging Mueller’s personal bankruptcy filing in Nevada.

Meanwhile, property damage lawsuits filed against the state in the Court of Claims by flooded property owners finally moved forward last fall after a multi-year delay.

https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2 ... -dams.html



"According to the task force, lakefront lots would pay between $1,400 and $2,800 per year depending on frontage size..."

Bro's lot is the minimum 60' frontage for houses, and he said his assessment amount is $2,400/year for 40 years...or $96,000...and he doesn't understand why anyone would not want to pay that. Mind you, with the lake, bro's place is only worth aboot $200-250 thousand.

The whole dam country is falling apart.

fuck...

I've driven over that bridge dozens of times when I lived in MD. It was very old, and I suspect that had something to do with how much damage occurred. I thought I was only going to see a section collapse, but the whole thing fell in on itself. Lucky for many that it occurred so early in the morning, at rush hour the bridge would have had hundreds of vehicles crossing.

Whats up!
The Francis Scott Key Bridge opened in 77 so it's not really that old for a major bridge.
I used to travel both ways over that bridge to work hauling out of the shingle factory on Ponca st, back in the Overgrow & PG days. It's not a great scenic view, as it's positioned between the harbor and the old steel mill Sparrows Point. That being said, there is next to no traffic over there in the early morning hours...compared to all day morning, afternoon, evening traffic

The Francis Scott Key Bridge was a steel arch continuous through truss bridge spanning the lower Patapsco River and outer Baltimore Harbor / Port carrying Maryland Route 695 between Baltimore and Dundalk, Maryland, United States. It was originally known as the Outer Harbor Crossing until it was renamed in 1976, while still under construction, and is also known as simply the Key Bridge or Beltway Bridge. The main span of 1,200 feet (366 m) was the third longest span of any continuous truss in the world. It was the second-longest bridge in the Baltimore metropolitan area, after the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

Here is a close up
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/3B5RjN ... tid=oFDknk

Can you imagine how backed up the tunnel is going to be? They are so fucked.

I used to take the bridge to avoid the tunnel, because of congestion.. I can't imagine this mornings rush hour at the harbor tunnel.

https://chart.maryland.gov/TrafficCamer ... ficCameras
.
Choose camera by route and pick I-895 North to South.
It's not too bad right now, but I imagine things will clog up. I'd bet many stayed home today.

Yep. It was already horrible traffic wise.

All the trucks hauling hazardous materials will have to go all the way around the west side of the beltway, as they're not permitted in the tunnels.

Ironically, my new apartment features a nice view of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, from the designated bbq area.

I remember when the old 895 Harbor Tunnel was the only way north past Baltimore. The bridge opened in 77 and the rt 95 Fort McHenry tunnels didn't open till 1985.

Sounds like you live in a nice place.
Shipping companies are supposedly scrambling to sort out the logistics. The bridge must have accommodated ground transport for alot of the shipping containers.

if the bridge debris is blocking the shipping lanes in and out of Baltimore, it will also cause a severe problem.

I use a free app that's called "Trucker pass" for traffic GPS. Traffic hasn't been as disrupted as you might think. Definitely for those close by, but elsewhere not so much.

Officials have established a temporary, alternate channel for vessels involved in clearing debris. In a preliminary timeline released Thursday by the Army Corps of Engineers, officials hope to open a limited-access channel for barge container ships and some vessels moving cars and farm equipment by the end of this month and to restore normal capacity to Baltimore's port by May 31, the White House says.

https://www.wbaltv.com/article/baltimor ... t/60410241

A look at the Key Bridge salvage efforts from today. Crews began removing shipping containers from the DALI to gain access to the portion of the bridge on top of the vessel. This will continue over the next few days (weather permitting).

: Photos courtesy of Key Bridge Response 2024 Unified Command #KeyBridge #Baltimore