The long-running saga of the dam wall, deemed structurally unsafe by State Water in 1999, will soon see a recommendation made to the NSW Department of Land and Property Management Authority (LPMA) as to how it could be resolved.

Yesterday, two days of talks between the LPMA, Junee Shire Council, Department of Fisheries, the Rural Fire Service, the Dam Safety Committee and selected residents was set to conclude with a consensus on future work to the wall.

At the time of print the final recommendation for the project was not known.

Junee Shire Council engineering services manager Colin Macaulay, who was present for the two days of talks, said he was sure of a positive outcome before final discussions yesterday afternoon.

“The most important thing is that the nothing option is not an option,” he said.

It appeared the parties to the talks were leaning towards strengthening or lowering the wall as opposed to decommissioning, he said.

“There have been a number of options discussed, including post tensioning the wall to the bed rock,” he said.

“This has been the most favoured.”

Other options have included lowering the wall by 1.4 metres, butressing the wall with cement and reducing the wall length by 30m.

Regardless of the result the talks, any work on the dam might not begin for some time.

The recommendation from the workshop will be finalised before being presented to Treasury by the LPMA to gain funding for the project.

It was positive to have the call for community consultation now, considering when the debate over the wall began in 2005 the LPMA made a development application to Junee Shire Council to partially demolish the wall, Mr Macaulay said.

“The last time there was no consultation,” he said. “It wasn’t until we put up a brick wall it was stopped.

“It’s been by the hard work of council in deffering the work to get the best result possible and we are getting it now.

“We put up the brick walls and said we want more consulation and consideration to do the job properly.”

The dam was constructed in the 1890s to supply water to Bethungra and Junee.

A LPMA spokesperson said yesterday it would receive a final report from consultants after which a decision on remediation would be made.

He said the community would be advised on the course of action.