(Source: MIRS.news, Published 05/18/2023) Three years after heavy rains broke the Edenville and Sanford dams, area residents who were flooded out at the time are still not whole, as many homeowners have double mortgages they cannot possibly pay off in their lifetime, according to Sanford Village Councilman Carl Hamann, himself a flood victim.
“We stayed and we’re rebuilding,” he said, noting that the flooding left 51 inches of water in his home. “The state of Michigan isn’t helping us.”
Attorneys for the residents spoke out against the state’s handling of the 2020 flooding Thursday in the hopes public pressure may jar loose some relief.
“We have almost nothing to show for it other than delay, defend and deny by the state of Michigan … and the federal government,” attorney Ven Johnson said in a press conference near the Sanford Dam site Thursday. “What we have is a case that is, because of governmental immunity, completely gone nowhere.”
Area residents filed a number of civil lawsuits and more than 300 filed claims against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for its alleged role in the disaster.
In April, a three-judge panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals heard oral arguments and will decide whether to reverse the Court of Claims’ ruling that held the state is not immune to the residents’ claim that the government essentially took someone’s property.
Hamann said residents have known since the 1980s that there was a problem with the dams, but the state and federal governments simply “kicked the can down the road” by ignoring it and not fixing the problem.
Mark Callen, an Edenville resident and business owner, echoed Hamann’s statements, noting that many homeowners are “still stroking that payment, $1,300 to $1,400 a month” mortgage payment for something they no longer have and didn’t cause.
“It’s a big burden on us,” he said. “The state of Michigan hasn’t done anything whatsoever. It’s deny, deny, deny. Taxes are starting to go up and everything is climbing, climbing, climbing. And we’re still stuck with the burden of the payments and have to move on and move forward.”
Johnson reiterated prior comments he’s made that government immunity needs to be changed or repealed. He called the available use of immunity “incredibly irritating" and “rubbing salt in the wounds” of the flood victims.
“They also get the luxury now of having new dams built that they get to pay for even though they’re not the ones who obviously were responsible for the dams,” Johnson said about the residents. “Talk about damn. They’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t. These dams broke and they get stuck paying for the dams.”
