Au Sable Forks undammed

n a bank of the Ausable River’s West Branch, just upstream of its confluence with the East Branch in Au Sable Forks, this spring’s high water deposited a large twisted sheet of rusted steel, looking like a beached whale, opposite the Tahawus Cultural Center. Rebecca Kelly, who runs the center with her husband Craig Brashear, invited me over to see it. “It’s part of the penstock,” I told her. “There was a flattened section in the pool below the dam.” I was surprised it had moved so far, roughly