The Peninsular Dam over the Huron River in Ypsilanti is one step closer to being removed after the city received a $7.5 million grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s National Coastal Resilience Fund. The city has also set aside $500,000 toward the effort, says City Manager Andrew Hellenga.

The dam, located inside Peninsular Park at 1249 Leforge Rd., was constructed in 1867 to provide power for manufacturing paper at the Peninsular Paper Co. The dam failed in 1918 and was rebuilt in 1920. All electricity-generating equipment has since been removed from the powerhouse.  

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality inspected the dam in 2014 and required the city to come up with a timeline for bringing the dam up to safety standards. By 2019, the decision to repair or remove the aging dam was a topic of spirited debate. Later the same year, city officials opted for the "remove" option, pending the funds to do so.
Doug CoombeHuron River Watershed Council Climate Resilience Strategist Dan Brown.
But the story goes back much further than that, says Dan Brown, climate resilience strategist at the Huron River Watershed Council (HRWC). The organization has partnered with the city in researching dam removal and applying for funding for the project.

Brown says that in the mid-'90s, Michigan's Department of Natural Resources (DNR) recommended three dam removals on the Huron River in Washtenaw County. One in Dexter has since been removed, and Ann Arbor ultimately chose not to remove the dam at Argo Pond. Peninsular Dam was identified as the third priority dam at that time.

"These three dams were identified as potentially the most ecologically valuable if they were removed, based on the biodiversity around those areas, the character of the restored river channel, and a whole bunch of other factors," Brown says. "[Peninsular] Dam remained a priority since then, and it still is."

"Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity"

Ypsilanti resident Beth Gibbons was on the committee that sought public feedback on the dam. She has also since been appointed director of Washtenaw County's Resiliency Office.

She calls the removal of the dam a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to make the city more resilient and to improve the health of the river, which residents say is important to them. Gibbons points out that access to the Huron River and the river's health were two of the top priorities community members brought up when the city was developing its 2021 sustainability plan.
Doug CoombeWashtenaw County Resiliency Office director Beth Gibbons.
"It's even more exciting that this project is going to happen as we see political change and funding available for significant infrastructure projects like this likely to be reduced in a major way," Gibbons says.

HRWC has been involved in assessing the ecological impact of the project and seeking funding for it from the beginning, assuring the city that it wouldn't have to bear the full cost of the project, Gibbons says. She adds that the situation Ypsilanti finds itself in with the dam is not unusual.

"We find that 75% of dams across the country are classified as having high hazard potential," she says. Adding more extreme rainfall and weather events to aging infrastructure creates a high risk for failure, she says.
Doug CoombeThe Peninsular Dam in January 2025.
"We've seen an increase in dam failures or near-failures in the Midwest, about 30 since 2019," Gibbons says. "It's a real risk to keep these kinds of infrastructure, especially when they're not being maintained."

Brown says most dams are only built to withstand a big storm once every 100 years. But now, with climate change, it's possible dams will be holding back dangerous amounts of precipitation every 10 to 20 years, or more often.

"We're projecting into the future that it won't be tenable to have major infrastructure in the way of unpredictable flows fueled by climate change," he says. "We could get storms that can generate floods that could break a dam every five to 10 years. It'll push that infrastructure to a point where the only solution is to remove that infrastructure and get back to nature-based solutions."

A revitalized stretch of river

Gibbons says public concern about the dam removal is also to be expected. She says it's natural to fear change, and objections pop up in any community proposing such a project. For instance, some homeowners north of the project will be living on a river instead of a pond. The removal will "change the profile" of such properties, Gibbons says, but she thinks it's very likely those changes will be for the better. That's why a lot of public education is also needed in addition to funding, she says.

"Time and time again, in terms of the likely experience of landowners, property prices go up after a dam removal for those who lived on a former impoundment," she says. "It only makes sense, because it'll be sitting on a flowing river rather than a stagnant body of water."

Brown also says that the length of time it has taken the community to decide on a plan, do the research, find funding, and demolish the dam is in line with similar projects around the country.

"For a dam the size of Ypsilanti's Peninsular Dam, it's a decade-long project from start to finish," Brown says. "I don't think we're outside the mainstream in terms of time. It's tracking pretty typical."
Doug CoombeThe Peninsular Dam in January 2025.
Brown says there are some general benefits to dam removal in most cases, and then other benefits specific to each case. In general, dams restrict wildlife from moving about and breeding freely. They also cause sediment buildup in upstream sections and lack of sufficient sediment downstream. In this specific case, HRWC expects to see a positive impact on native fish that live and spawn along the stretch.

At the human level, removing the dam improves the community's climate resilience, Brown says. This is especially important when dams are in an urbanized center like Ypsilanti, he says.

Hellenga says the dam is insured but the city can't get an underwriter to insure the city for if the dam was to fail. That would mean a great deal of cost in money and human lives if the dam were to fail. Removing the dam will save insurance fees and long-term maintenance costs as well, Hellenga says.

The project not only includes removing the dam, but river and bridge restoration and shoreline design. Hellenga says engineering firms are completing designs for those projects in multiple phases.
Doug CoombeYpsilanti City Manager Andrew Hellenga at the Peninsular Dam.
"And then we need to go through the bidding process to find the engineering firm to remove the dam," Hellenga says. 

He says the final design approval and demolition likely won't happen until 2026.

Katie Jones, community, economic development, and equity manager for the city of Ypsilanti, says she and other city staff are excited to finish the project.

"Now that we have the resources to do this project, it begins the process of removing one item that's been long-standing and allows the city to move forward on other projects," Jones says.

Sarah Rigg is a freelance writer and editor in Ypsilanti Township and the project manager of On the Ground Ypsilanti. She joined Concentrate as a news writer in early 2017 and is an occasional contributor to other Issue Media Group publications. You may reach her at sarahrigg1@gmail.com.

All photos by Doug Coombe.