In May, 2003, heavy rain led to the activation and failure of a fuse plug spillway at the Silver Lake Dam in a remote area of Marquette County, Mich. The resulting breach emptied the reservoir of 8 billion gallons of water and devastated the downstream river system. Loss of the Silver Lake Storage Basin also resulted in lost electric generation at downstream hydroelectric plants because spring runoff could no longer be stored to help generate power during dry months. The Upper Peninsula Power Co. determined that Silver Lake needed to be reconstructed to continue augmenting flow to the two hydroelectric dams downstream.
The $15-million reconstruction project abandoned the existing concrete spillway, improved the low-level outlet, built a new concrete spillway, extended and raised the crests of existing earthen dikes, built a new dike, and built a new embankment dam at the channel created by the May 2003 breach.