So Consumers basically wants someone else to take over the bills. The $1 is close to a formality. I’d argue the number that actually matters is the power contract that comes attached to it.<\/p>\n
Under the deal, Confluence would sell everything the dams generate back to Consumers for 30 years. That’s what’s called a power purchase agreement, which is basically a long-term contract to buy electricity at a set price. E&E News reported the price in this one at $160 per megawatt-hour, going up 2.5% a year. The anglers’ groups fighting the sale call that above market, and if they’re right, Consumers’ customers would be the ones covering the difference on their bills.<\/p>\n
Confluence’s pitch is that the contract is what pays for the repairs. Its spokesperson told E&E the 30-year deal was set up on purpose so the company could afford to upgrade and relicense the dams. That’s a fair argument, as far as it goes.<\/p>\n
The state’s own administrative law judge didn’t buy it. On June 10, Judge James Varchetti issued a proposal for decision recommending that the MPSC reject both the sale and the 30-year contract, saying the deal wasn’t in the public interest. A proposal for decision is basically the judge’s recommendation to the commissioners. They can follow it, change it or toss it.<\/p>\n
Things went downhill for the deal from there. Nessel had originally backed the sale with conditions, then dropped her support in July, saying Consumers had made it clear it wouldn’t accept any. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer came out against it in August.<\/p>\n
Consumers’ answer was money. In July, it offered up to $270 million in shareholder funds for a state-run Hydro Safety Fund to cover safety problems that might crop up after Confluence takes over. Nessel’s objection, according to Michigan Public, is that the money would be paid in installments over 30 years, so there’s a chance the pot wouldn’t be deep enough if a dam got into trouble early on.<\/p>\n
Then, in September, the commission skipped the decision it was expected to make on September 10, and Consumers said it was voluntarily extending the timetable by 60 days to negotiate with the groups opposing it.<\/p>\n
![\"Aerial](\"https:\/\/www.autonocion.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/100-foot-earthen-dam-4000-acre-lake-13-michigan-hydro-plants-private-b-1.jpg\")
Hardy Dam is the big one<\/h2>\n
The 13 dams are spread across the Au Sable, Manistee, Muskegon, Grand and Kalamazoo rivers, and most of them are fairly modest plants. Hardy Dam, on the Muskegon River in Newaygo County, is the heavyweight.<\/p>\n
Consumers’ own fact sheet lists Hardy at 100 feet tall and 2,580 feet long, and the utility calls it the largest earthen dam in North America east of the Mississippi. Its powerhouse is rated at 31,500 kilowatts, the most of any plant on the Muskegon. Behind it sits Hardy Dam Pond, which Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources puts at 3,971 acres at full pool, with water more than 100 feet deep near the dam.<\/p>\n
If you’re picturing a concrete wall like Hoover Dam, an earthen dam is a different animal. It’s basically an enormous, carefully compacted bank of soil and rock. That’s cheaper to build than concrete, but earth really doesn’t like water pouring over the top of it, and that’s why spillways matter so much on dams like this one.<\/p>\n
I’d love to give you a weight for Hardy, too. Nobody publishes one for a dirt dam, though, and I’m not going to guess.<\/p>\n
Hardy also has some unfinished business. Consumers had planned a new spillway there, then paused the project<\/a> while it sorted out the dams’ future. In the meantime, the utility says interim risk reduction measures are in place, including drawing Hardy Dam Pond down every winter. Last year’s drawdown started on November 4. I couldn’t find a date for this year’s.<\/p>\n Bridge Michigan has reported that 12 of the 13 dams are rated high-hazard. That label gets misread a lot, so here’s what it means. A hazard rating describes what would happen downstream if a dam failed, and it says nothing about the dam’s condition. High-hazard means people could die.<\/p>\n Michigan saw what that means not long ago.<\/p>\n If you live in Michigan, you probably don’t need this explained. Six years ago this past May, the privately owned Edenville Dam on the Tittabawassee River gave way after days of heavy rain, and the flood that followed overtopped the Sanford Dam downstream. About 10,000 people in Midland County were evacuated, and damage ran past $200 million. Federal regulators had already revoked the owner’s hydropower license two years earlier, after years of warnings that included a spillway they didn’t think could handle a major flood.<\/p>\n Whitmer has pointed to Edenville directly, and so have the groups opposing the sale. Their argument is that once the dams leave a state-regulated utility, Michigan loses much of its say over how they’re run. The federal government would still regulate them through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, but the MPSC wouldn’t.<\/p>\n The dams’ neighbors mostly see it differently. James Ward, who founded the Hardy Dam Preservation Alliance, told Mid-Michigan NOW that Confluence shouldn’t be lumped in with the company behind Edenville, and that he dug through the safety records of Confluence and the firms tied to it and couldn’t find a problem. Confluence, for its part, says it’s committed to investing in the dams, relicensing them and running them safely.<\/p>\n The sale also includes about 32,000 acres of land around the dams, according to the Detroit News. Confluence has said it’ll honor existing leases, but some critics worry the land could get sold off down the road.<\/p>\n So who’s right about how a private owner will treat 13 old dams over the next 30 years? I honestly can’t tell you. Nobody can, really, and that’s pretty much the whole fight.<\/p>\n This is where the lake people come in. Consumers has said it may decommission the dams if the sale falls through. Take out a dam, and the lake behind it eventually goes back to being a river, and the docks and cottages built along the old shoreline could end up a long way from the water.<\/p>\n That’s what towns along these reservoirs are worried about. On October 27, a public relations firm hired by Confluence set up a video call with local business owners and town officials to talk up the deal. Jacob Veith, superintendent of Bear Lake Schools in Manistee County, called the lakes the “life’s blood” of communities like his, according to Michigan Public. Residents interviewed by Mid-Michigan NOW put the possible hit to local economies at $33.4 million, though I couldn’t find who calculated that figure or how.<\/p>\n Does a no vote mean the lakes drain next spring? Not automatically. According to Bridge Michigan, a decommissioning plan would most likely need the commission’s approval too, so you’d be looking at another regulatory case, not a crew with excavators showing up the next morning.<\/p>\n And not everyone would be sad to see some of the dams go. Michigan Trout Unlimited, one of the groups fighting the sale, has said it’s spent decades pushing to see these dams eventually retired, and it’s never been shy about wanting free-flowing rivers. Howard Learner, the Environmental Law & Policy Center lawyer representing the opponents, argues that Michigan’s ratepayers and taxpayers would be the ones on the hook if it goes wrong.<\/p>\n Frankly, it’s a pretty uncomfortable spot for three state commissioners. Vote yes, and you hand 13 dams, 12 of them high-hazard, to a private owner over the objections of the governor, the attorney general and the judge who heard the case. Vote no, and you might go down as the people who drained the lake.<\/p>\n If you want to see a dam system actually doing its job, the four flood-control dams around Omaha<\/a> just pushed their lakes to record levels in a single storm and still had room to spare. And for the opposite end of the spectrum, San Diego is planning to cut the spillway on a 131-foot dam<\/a> because its concrete is too far gone to fix.<\/p>\n Michigan Public reported on October 27 that it wasn’t clear whether the sale would come up at either of the commission’s next two meetings, and the October 29 special meeting came and went without it. The MPSC’s next regular meeting is Thursday, November 5, at 1 p.m. in Lansing<\/a>, and by my math, 60 days from the decision the commission skipped on September 10 lands on the following Monday, November 9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A dollar doesn’t buy much these days. A pack of gum, maybe, if you find the right gas station. In … <\/p>\nEveryone keeps bringing up Edenville<\/h2>\n
So what happens if regulators say no?<\/h2>\n