Dam Failure Case Study: Silver Lake Dam (Michigan, 2003)

The emergency fuse plug spillway at Silver Lake Dam in Michigan failed on May 14, 2003, resulting in a nearly complete release of the reservoir. The dam was modified in 2002 to increase spillway capacity with the construction of the fuse plug spillway. A fuse plug spillway is an engineered earth embankment section designed to fail sacrificially to prevent failure of the main dam structure. Silver Lake Dam is in the Dead River Basin, a tributary to Lake Superior, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The main stem for the Dead River extends 25 miles and includes impoundments, which are part of a hydropower generation system licensed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and owned and operated by a regional utility provider. Silver Lake is the most upstream impoundment in this system, is used for water storage, and does not have power generation facilities.