The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan awarded the state a monetary judgment against Lee Mueller, whose business owned and operated Edenville Dam and is responsible for failure of the east embankment of the dam in May 2020.
The $119,825,000 judgment was announced Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. The Department of Attorney General filed the motion seeking judgment on behalf of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
An engineer’s report into the failure of the nearly century-old dam in central Michigan said the likely cause was static liquefaction, rather than overtopping or internal erosion. A five-person independent forensic team evaluated the failure, which led to extensive flooding.
Through the discovery process, the state uncovered facts previously unknown to the public, the Attorney General’s department said. In 2010, Boyce Hydro determined that the east embankment of its dam might fail if Wixom Lake rose too high. Boyce Hydro could have fixed the defect and made preliminary plans to do so but neglected to follow through. That part of the embankment failed in May 2020, just as Boyce Hydro had predicted. Boyce Hydro never divulged that defect to the state, even though it was required by law to do so. Additionally, Boyce Hydro’s former dam safety engineer and chief operator resigned in protest in May 2017 because Mueller routinely neglected basic dam safety priorities, according to the Michigan Department of Attorney General.
“The dam’s ownership completely disregarded imminent threats to the safety and integrity of the dam, and as the state clearly demonstrated before the court, Lee Meuller and his business [Boyce Hydro] were responsible for the disaster that struck Edenville and other area communities,” said Nessel. “This nearly $120 million judgment is important, both as a measure of accountability to the community Mueller devastated and as a deterrent to other owners of critical infrastructure.”
“The failures of the Edenville and Sanford Dams caused impacts that were devastating, but avoidable,” said Phil Roos, EGLE director. “The courts have rightly declared that owners of critical infrastructure must not put their own interests ahead of the safety of Michiganders, our environment, or our natural resources. EGLE remains committed to supporting the community through permitting replacement structures as it rebuilds.”
The judgment concludes the state’s civil enforcement action against Mueller and his companies that owned and operated Edenville Dam, which has been ongoing since June 2020. The court ruled in February that Mueller himself was responsible for the failure, before ruling in October that his company, Boyce Hydro, was also responsible. In that ruling, the court held the state had “brought sufficient evidence to show that Defendants knew of its dam’s vulnerability and that Defendants did not make EGLE aware of that vulnerability. Defendants do not dispute either assertion.”
