IT has silently helped water gardens, nurture crops and keep the Hunter clean for a century – now Chichester Dam needs a health check.
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Teams of specialist staff are clambering across the dam's 43-metre tall spillway in the coming days to ensure the wall is strong enough to keep holding back the 18 billion litres of water stored behind it today and far into the future.
That work involves examining 93 cable "tendons" that lash the enormous concrete barricade to the bedrock, tying it to the earth as huge force tries to pry it loose, to make sure they remain strong and secure enough to perform their vital work.
NSW Primary Industries Minister Niall Blair said it was a privilege to be among the first non-Hunter Water employees to stand on the spillway in the trolley workers will use to take the dam's pulse.
Mr Blair rode out onto the spillway alongside Upper Hunter MP National Johnsen, reportedly the first pair not employed by the water board to stand in that area in its 100-year history.
"It's a testament to those who not only built it but the team at Hunter Water who maintain it," Mr Blair said.
"Chichester dam was built before aerial photography, computers and even power tools and was an engineering marvel of its time.
"I think it's special. I mean, this is an asset that all of the Hunter community should come and have a look at.
"It's in some of the most picturesque parts of NSW, and it's something everyone should come along and view from themselves."
The dam that still delivers water to 40 per cent of the lower Hunter, despite being a tenth the size of Grahamstown Dam, was built the same year Australian troops landed at Gallipoli.
It was an era when the Chichester pipeline that ferries water into the populated parts of the region was crafted from timber held together with metal bands and made watertight with tar.
Contructing the dam required an army of about 1000 people, who also added cinemas and dance halls to the area as they worked to create a dam that still serves the region's needs.
Hunter Water group manager systems operations Clint Thomsen said the tendons, which were added in a mid-1980s revamp to extend the dam's life, could fulfill that purpose long into the future with proper care.
"In terms of the pressure on the dam wall, there's 18 billion litres of water upstream.
"That's equivalent to about 7500 Olympic swimming pools, so it's important that we get it right...and that's exactly what we're doing.
"There's no reason it won't last another 100 years."