Editorial Roundup:

The Detroit News. May 23, 2020.

Dam disaster enabled by government failures

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel have promised a vigorous investigation to hold accountable those responsible for the catastrophic Midland-area dam collapse. They’ll need a wide net, and a willingness to look at the role their own shops played in enabling the disaster.

Early indications are that Michigan residents, just as with the Flint water crisis, were again failed by government at all levels as well as by the private sector.

The crumbling of the Edenville Dam Tuesday comes as no surprise. Federal regulators flagged the deficiencies of the hydroelectric structure more than two decades ago, and engaged in a long battle with the dam’s owners to force improvements to spillways to make it safer.

The owners insisted the structure could handle the worst storms and stubbornly fought making the necessary upgrades.

The Federal Electric Regulatory Commission finally pulled the license of the most current owner, Boyce Hydro, in 2018 because of the high risk to life and property.

But instead of making residents safer, it placed them in greater danger. The loss of the federal licenses shifted oversight to the states, and Michigan is one of the few state’s whose regulations on dam safety are far less stringent than the federal standards.

State regulators inspected the dam in January and expressed concerns about the ability of its spillways to handle a significant surge in water level.

Last fall, the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) rejected a request from Boyce to lower lake levels behind the dam out of concern such a move would endanger aquatic species.

The dispute ended up in state court, where just three weeks ago Nessel asked that the higher lake levels be maintained at levels high enough to preserve the freshwater mussels that live in the lake, despite the previous concerns expressed by both state and federal inspectors.

Just as in Flint, poor communication and conflicting regulations between state and federal agencies and misplaced bureaucratic priorities created a dangerous situation in Midland that should have been apparent.

The company in a statement last week also said it was under pressure from homeowners around the lake to keep water levels high for recreational purposes.

Still, Boyce has much to answer for. It should have improved the spillways to enable the dam to operate properly and safely.

The state Legislature, too, has been aware for years that Michigan’s regulatory standards for dams are inadequate, and has not moved to fix them.

Now, Michigan must act swiftly to bring its regulations in line with those of the federal government.

Dozens of small dams similar to Edenville are operating across Michigan. They should be immediately inventoried, and those that are not up to federal standards should be brought into compliance or shut down.

And all state agencies should clearly understand that when the choice is between protecting human life or wildlife habitat, humans get the priority.

What happened in Midland could have been prevented. The task ahead is to determine why it wasn’t, and to put in place safeguards to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

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The Alpena News. May 20, 2020.

Let’s hope we re-embrace reality

Even before the pandemic, so much of our lives had moved from the real world and into the 10 square inches of our phone screens.

We shop online. We read online. We communicate with friends online. We date online.

Now, the coronavirus and the shutdowns meant to prevent its spread have forced even more of our lives into the virtual realm. Now, birthday parties, government meetings, even wedding ceremonies are attended online.

Thank God for the technology that lets us do that, that has helped us stay as connected as possible even when we can’t be together.

But here’s hoping the near-total loss of real-world human contact will teach us something about its value, that we’ll re-embrace reality when this is all said and done and get reacquainted with face-to-face interactions.

That we go to the library and pick up a hardcopy book. Buy a hardcopy of The News. Shop in person at a local retailer instead of at Amazon.com.

Sometimes, you don’t know how much something means until it’s gone.

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Traverse City Record-Eagle. May 21, 2020.

COVID ‘hub’ system is a disaster waiting to happen

Fox guarding the henhouse.

Wolf in sheep’s clothing.

A disaster waiting to happen.

There are plenty of ways to accurately describe the plan that places Michigan’s nursing home residents in a position of unnecessary risk during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It doesn’t take much common sense to see the flaws in the State of Michigan’s plan to warehouse convalescing COVID-19 patients in nursing homes.

State health leaders and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer have received well deserved criticism over efforts to funnel COVID patients into regional “hub” facilities. The structure, outlined in Whitmer’s executive orders, effectively directs still-contagious patients to the same facilities that house the state’s most vulnerable residents.

It was a decision that didn’t make a lot of sense to us when we first broke news of the plans. It makes even less sense today as headlines nationwide continue to document outbreaks of COVID-19 running like wildfire through nursing homes, killing thousands of people who, because of age and underlying conditions are particularly susceptible to the disease.

Why would anyone hatch such a plan, especially as about 30 percent of deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the U.S. have occurred in nursing homes?

Sure, state officials contend there are plenty of regulations in place to ensure the sick are partitioned away from the well - either in separate wings or altogether separate buildings.

But two developments the Record-Eagle reported last week make us question the practice further.

One: top Michigan health officials admitted they don’t trust the data generated by a self-reporting system the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services installed to gather information about infections in Michigan’s long-term care facilities.

Two: state officials didn’t see fit to require extra inspections of nursing homes that signed on to receive COVID patients as regional “hub” facilities.

On its face, the idea of placing people infected with a pandemic disease within any proximity of those who are most likely to succumb to the illness is absurd. It’s flat reckless with the added context of poor state tracking of infections in nursing homes, and a gaping void where increased scrutiny should be situated.

There is no doubt, state planners are responsible for constructing and operating a network of facilities to receive and care for people infected with the disease that now has killed more than 80,000 people in the U.S. We simply can’t understand why the system designed in the midst of an outbreak would loop sick people back toward those who are most likely to be hurt.

It’s especially confusing as many hospitals - the facilities most prepared to control and treat infections - linger nearly empty.

Why take a chance?

It doesn’t take any expertise or advanced degrees to see the potential catastrophe here.

We just hope Whitmer and state health officials change course before colliding with such an obvious disaster.

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