Aging Dams in Michigan Expose Nationwide Climate Risks as Floods Test Decades-Old Infrastructure

Flooding across northern Michigan last month pushed rivers to record levels, testing the limits of the state’s aging dams so severely that officials in one city nearly ordered evacuations as water threatened to spill over the top of a key barrier. The close call highlights the growing risk that intensifying storms pose to similar infrastructure around the country.

Nationwide, the average dam is 64 years old, and most were built for rainfall patterns that no longer reflect today’s changing climate. Thousands are classified as high hazard, meaning their failure could result in the loss of life. Dam safety experts say inspections are uneven and improvements often underfunded.

More than half of Michigan’s dams are beyond their 50-year design life, and the risks became clear as snowmelt and weeks of heavy rain swelled rivers. Rising water came within 5 inches of flowing over Cheboygan Dam in Cheboygan, a city of about 4,700 people, on April 16. In Bellaire, officials deployed about 1,000 sandbags to shore up a century-old dam.

“This needs to be considered not the worst we can experience. This needs to be considered as typical of the future.”

— Richard Rood, professor emeritus at the University of Michigan, climate change expert

There are about 92,000 dams in the United States. About 18% are considered high-hazard. The Association of State Dam Safety Officials estimates repairing all of these aging structures will cost more than $165.2 billion. In Michigan, that estimate is $1 billion.

Communities facing these risks are left with difficult choices. Given the cost of repairing and upgrading dams to withstand stronger storms, removing them is often cheaper. That can reduce long-term risk and restore rivers to a more natural state. But it often faces resistance from property owners and communities with economies built around the reservoirs those dams created.

As floodwaters recede across Michigan, local leaders, dam safety advocates, and experts are renewing calls to bolster safety regulations and deal with aging dams.

Bellaire Dam: A Century-Old Structure Under Pressure

On April 13, 2026, Bellaire Dam in Bellaire, Mich., stood as a symbol of the state’s infrastructure challenges. Officials deployed about 1,000 sandbags to prevent potential failure as floodwaters rose.

Union Street Dam Removal: A Model for Climate Resilience

In Traverse City, officials removed the Union Street Dam along the Boardman-Ottaway River in 2024 as part of a decades-long restoration project that includes FishPass, which will allow key species to pass while blocking harmful invaders like sea lamprey. Engineers said that removal and upgrade most likely reduced flooding impacts when waters surged to near-record levels last month, falling just short of a 500-year flood.

“Upstream would have been under two more feet of water, which would have been quite devastating.”

— Daniel Zielinski, principal engineer

Experts Urge Action on Aging Dams

Bob Stuber, executive director of the Michigan Hydro Relicensing Commission, considers the April flooding a wake-up call and believes the solution is clear: upgrades where feasible and removal where it makes sense.

“I think every opportunity we have to remove an aging dam, we should take advantage of it because it’s not going to get better. It’s just going to get worse.”

— Bob Stuber, executive director, Michigan Hydro Relicensing Commission