Boyne Mountain violated hydropower license, say regulators

BOYNE FALLS, MI — Boyne Mountain violated its hydropower license this spring by failing to adequately disclose to federal regulators that it mismanaged spillway gates at its controversial dam and altered the level of the Boyne River.

On July 31, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), issued Boyne USA two violations because the resort company mistakenly cut the Boyne River flow in late March and then waited too long to formally notify the agency.

The incident earned a rebuke from federal officials but no fines or additional enforcement action.

“It appears that your staff are unfamiliar with appropriate operational procedures to maintain run-of-river flows at the project, which resulted in these events,” wrote FERC aquatic resources chief Andrea Claros. “Further, the failure of your monitoring and alarm system contributed to an extended duration and greater magnitude of the event.”

Claros acknowledged that Boyne took corrective steps to remedy the issue and wrote that the violations “may be considered” in future proceedings.

Boyne is awaiting a relicensing decision from FERC about its dam, which creates an impoundment the resort plans new lodging around.

Boyne told MLive it automated water level monitoring and addressed a “procedural gap” in its compliance notification in response to the water level changes. It plans to automate controls, “pending relicensing.”

“We are pleased that FERC recognized the thoroughness of our response and determined that no enforcement action was warranted given the immediate corrective measures we implemented,” said Stacie Harris, Boyne vice president of communications.

According to federal filings, Boyne surpassed a 10-day window to notify FERC of the water level deviations caused by improper gate settings between March 25 and 28. The settings prompted low-water level reports downstream, but no observed fish kills.

State and federal officials contacted the resort about low-water levels downriver on March 27. The resort sent FERC a formal notice of the water level changes on April 25, but it says it also emailed and called the agency before that.

The violation notices come as Boyne is upgrading internal structural components at the dam following a July 2 federal safety inspection, which FERC engineers wrote last month found “no dam safety deficiencies requiring immediate action.”

The 250-kilowatt dam supplies a small percentage of the nearby resort’s power usage. It stopped generating power in February while Boyne upgrades the powerhouse, replaces the turbine and re-coats penstocks — a type of underground piping that relicensing opponents have worried about potentially being leaky.

In March, Friends of the Boyne River (FOBR) cited concerns about leaking penstocks in a letter questioning the dam’s stability to the state departments of Natural Resources and Environment, Great Lakes and Energy. The group opposes the relicensing, saying the dam is ecologically harmful to the river. Boyne disputes that.

Harris characterized the “proactively scheduled comprehensive maintenance and modernization upgrades” happening this summer as “standard practices for hydroelectric facilities of this age and type.” The dam is classified as low hazard, meaning a failure would likely not kill anyone or cause severe economic damage.

“These infrastructure investments, combined with FERC’s recent safety confirmation, demonstrate Boyne’s longstanding commitment to responsible dam operations,” she said.

Harris did not answer questions about when Boyne discovered the need to recoat penstocks, the severity of any leakage, or how the work comports with federal filings this year accusing FOBR of “fear-mongering” with unsupported concerns about dam integrity.

Dam safety concerns prompted Boyne City and Charlevoix County to seek intervenor status in the relicensing case this year, which FERC denied as “untimely.”

On July 25, Boyne asked FERC to move its pending relicensing process forward “expeditiously” in a filing made in response to ecological, access and dam safety concerns raised this summer by the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians.

The dam has been operating under annual license extensions since Boyne’s original 1982 license expired in 2022. A new license would be good for 30 to 50 years.

Harris did not answer questions about access or ecological concerns raised by the tribe, including its desire for Boyne to rehabilitate the downstream fishery.

The tribe and the Michigan Hydro Relicensing Coalition, a collection of state conservation groups, are pushing FERC to require public access to the dam’s 68-acre impoundment. The resort opposes that and argues in filings that it owns all the land surrounding the impoundment and that public access already exists to the downstream tailwater banks.

In June, Republican U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman of northern Michigan waded into the issue with a letter to FERC expressing “concern” about any relicensing conditions “that would mandate expanded public access to private land.”

Bob Stuber, president of the hydro relicensing coalition, said the public access debate is complicated because the Boyne River was never included on the list of navigable rivers in Michigan although he said it warrants such designation because it was used for commercial log drives in the late 1800s. Regardless, “the fact is that it’s still a public waterway.”

Stuber called the FERC violations as “a slap on the wrist.”

“It was unfortunate,” he said. “It got addressed. They got spanked. They were told what they need to do, but it also serves notice to them, like ‘we’re watching you.’”