MIDLAND, Mich. – It’s the strangest sight -- watching someone cut grass at the bottom of what was once a lake. But that’s the reality for people who live in Edenville.
After the dam failure five years ago, Wixom Lake no longer exists.
“I’m used to it,” said Gordy Stryker, a marina owner. “It’s hard mowing it down.”
Stryker said they’re keeping Lakeside Marina open and that the locals have been supportive.
Roughly 2,500 buildings were damaged when the Edenville Dam failed, including Kim Borchard’s home, which was flooded.
She described the area as “a blue-collar area - people work for this stuff and it’s gone.”
About 11,000 residents were impacted by the dam failure and are now demanding accountability.
Chris and Laura, longtime residents, built their lives around the lake. Their lives were destroyed in May 2020 when the floodwaters came.
After the dam overflowed, floodwater rushed onto their property, forcing them to dig out (even using snow shovels), exposing them to sewage and petroleum contamination — and by the third day, they already had mold.
They lost everything.
Jenifier Boyer is the Emergency Management Coordinator of Midland County. She is the one who made the call to evacuate -- she was criticized at the time.
Concerns about the Edenville Dam were raised years before the failure. In 2017, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) warned the dam was a serious risk to life and property. In 2018, FERC revoked the dam owner’s license due to failure to increase spillway capacity.
Between 2019 and 2020, multiple issues were reported, including erosion and failure to meet flood requirements. Despite these warnings, in April 2020, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) authorized maintaining Wixom Lake’s water levels, even with known risks.
“Edenville had a long history of non-compliance with the federal agency that regulated at that time, FERQ,” said Luke Trumble, from EGLE. “Dam owners didn’t comply for years, ended up with a revocation of a license to generate hydro power in 2018.”
Trumble said he’s limited with what he can share due to ongoing litigation.
The legal battle over the dam failure is expected to be addressed in court in early 2026. Meanwhile, residents continue to rebuild and hope for repairs to be completed within the next year or two so they can return to their lake life.
The financial cost is significant. Some estimates put the total at $217 million, to be paid by property owners over 40 years. For some, this means hundreds of dollars added to monthly bills; for others, it could force them to sell their homes and abandon their dream of lake living.
The Michigan Attorney General’s Office released the following statement:
“The State agencies have appealed the decision, and the Michigan Department of Attorney General will be well-prepared to argue this case in January on behalf of its clients, if needed. The State was not responsible for the dam failure and we expect this litigation will not be successful as the plaintiffs do not have evidence to support their allegations. As we’ve explained, this was not a state dam, but a privately owned dam entirely controlled by a small family. Flood survivors already sued the owners and successfully forced the liquidation of the owners’ assets.”