Join the Mackinac Center’s Environmental Policy Initiative as we look into the recent failure of two mid-Michigan dams. What caused the failures, and how can we begin to repair the damage?
Joe Lehman, president of the Mackinac Center, will share opening remarks and be followed by our featured speakers:
Since its construction in 1924, the Edenville Dam has been a part of mid-Michigan’s essential infrastructure. The water held by this dam formed Wixom Lake, one of four area lakes that provided a mix of flood control, water resources, and outdoor recreation to the area’s residents and visitors. The towns of Edenville and Sanford, MI both relied heavily on the activity that the lakes encouraged as a central support of their economies.
Not surprisingly, pressure is building to determine why rains that this dam had previously endured caused it to fail this year in such a spectacular manner. While many of those involved are busy pointing fingers of blame at others, the growing weight of evidence appears to show that both the dam’s owner and the state agency charged with regulating the dam set the conditions that allowed a historic flood to push the Edenville Dam to rupture.
Please join us as we attempt to dig into the causes and potential solutions to this life-changing event.
This event will take place on Tuesday, June 23rd at 11 a.m. EDT. To RSVP and receive access to the forum, please register below.
Tuesday, June 23, 2020
11:00 a.m. to Noon EDT
Online virtual program
To join, please RSVP
Call our Events office at
Registration is closed.
Jason Hayes is the director of Environmental Policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Jason has spent almost three decades studying and working in environmental and energy policy. He worked as a backcountry ranger in British Columbia’s provincial parks, as a forester in British Columbia’s boreal forest, and researched National Parks management and grizzly bear biology with the Fraser Institute in Calgary, Alberta. He spent over a decade researching and communicating energy and environmental policy with the Canadian and American energy industry.
David Kepler is a private investor and a former executive vice president of The Dow Chemical Company where he was its chief information officer and chief sustainability officer. He is a member of the board of directors of three public companies; Teradata Corporation, TD Bank Group and Autoliv. He and his wife Patti, reside in Sanford, Michigan. Dave and his family engage in multiple social and economic investments within Midland County, Michigan. Kepler graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering. Today, he now serves on the Board of Trustees of the University of California, Berkeley Foundation.
An engineer by training, Joseph G. Lehman joined the Mackinac Center in 1995 and was named president in 2008. During his tenure Michigan has seen numerous free-market policy advances in education, labor and state fiscal affairs. Frequently published in national and state media, Lehman also has trained more than 600 public policy executives internationally on strategic leadership and communications. He and his wife are founders of Midland County Habitat for Humanity.
