ANN ARBOR, MI (MPRN)-- The author of a new report on the cause of the Edenville Dam failure last year says the collapse may be linked to its construction nearly a century ago.
The May 2020 flood that followed the dam’s failure caused tens of millions of dollars in damage.
The Association of State Dam Safety Officials says “Saturated, loose sands” in part of the dam are the “most plausible” cause of the failure.
The Association’s John France says “static liquefaction instability” is “rare,” but may be a bigger problem that previously realized.
“It raises the question of something that we in the engineering profession have not been looking at that we need to look at more closely.”
A state environment agency spokesman says officials “don’t have a lot of data on which dams would be at higher risk from static liquefaction.”
