The dam, when completed, was the biggest in the southern hemisphere and the second largest in the world.

The wall was more than 40m high and 1615m long.

In 1950 work started to enlarge the dam to its initial design capacity of 2467 gigalitres.

But the decision to build the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme and the need to re-regulate an additional 550 gigalitres to be diverted into the Murray system meant an even bigger Hume Dam was needed.

Potential sites upstream were investigated but in 1954 the decision was made to enlarge Hume Dam to 3038 gigalitres.

Enlarging the dam forced the township of Tallangatta to move between 1954 and 1956.

Old Tallangatta, as it’s now known, was drowned by the expanded Hume and residents moved 7km east to the present site.

Tallangatta holds a 50s festival every year to celebrate its history as the “town that moved”.

The enlargement project, which included the construction of a 50-megawatt power station, was finally completed in 1961.

The dam’s safety has for years been the subject of speculation, and remedial works to ensure the structure met contemporary structural safety standards have been ongoing since the early 1940s.

The work has included the placement of rockfill on the upstream earthen embankment and in 1961 the first stage of post-tensioning of the main concrete section was carried out.

Safety reviews in the 1970s and 1980s resulted in further remedial work which included additional vertical tensioning of the spillway section to provide resistance to uplift pressures and seismic loads.

The existing balanced needle valves were replaced with fixed cone diversion valves.

In 1993 the most comprehensive remedial works program in the dam’s history started. The work extended over 10 years and cost $80 million.

The work included foundation improvements to enhance earthquake protection and the enlargement and strengthening of the downstream embankment.

An enchanting lake that won over resort owner

JON Ward is a true believer in Lake Hume and the mighty river that sustains it.

Mr Ward came to the Border 13 years ago after he and a business partner bought what is today known as Lake Hume Resort.

But as the drought and the impact of Lake Dartmouth have prevailed, Lake Hume has struggled to reach and retain significant levels.

In his time at Lake Hume Resort, Mr Ward has seen a full lake just twice.

“I have seen the tide come and go,” he said. “But I am optimistic about the future because people come in here and say how beautiful the lake is.”

Mr Ward said he had recently taken a TV personality out onto the lake for an evening barbecue.

The sun had been setting and the colour of the hills around the lake had been “Namatjira-like” and the TV person had said it was one of the 10 most beautiful places in the world.

Mr Ward said the biggest problem was the way the media portrayed the river and Lake Hume as being dry and empty.

“I am driven by the people who come here and say how great it is,” he said.

Mr Ward said he was confident about the future and as such, work had started on more

new villas and the resort was being readied for the Christmas influx.

“The worst ones are the locals who remember the lake pre-Dartmouth when it was often full,” Mr Ward said.

“Locals say there is no water, but if I get people here who do not know the percentage level of the lake they cannot understand why there are not more boats.

“They all ask ‘where are the boats?’.”

Mr Ward said the Murray-Darling Basin Commission had developed a strategy to guarantee a minimum level of 12 per cent until the end of January, but he knew that could change if circumstances deteriorated suddenly.

“We tell them we have 10km sq of water to ski on,” he said.

Government fell over Dartmouth

CHOWILLA and Dartmouth are names forever etched in the annals of interstate conflict over the Murray River.

The two dam projects pitted Victoria and South Australia against each other and ultimately led to the defeat of the Steele Hall-led Liberal government in South Australia in 1970.

Both the Dartmouth and Chowilla projects had their origins in the late 1950s and early 1960s when it became apparent more water would be needed to protect the Murray River communities and Adelaide from drought.

South Australia wanted to dam the Murray River above Renmark and just downstream from Linday Point.

Victoria and NSW wanted the storage built on the Mitta River to capture inflows from the Mitta, Dart and Gibbo rivers.

Victoria and NSW opposed South Australia’s plans for the Chowilla dam on the grounds of cost, evaporation and salinity issues.

In 1970 Mr Hall committed his government to supporting the massive Dartmouth project, but only if South Australia received a 20 per cent increase in its allocation.

In a column in the Adelaide Advertiser on September 25, this year, commenting on the states’ decision to hand control of the Murray-Darling Basin to the Commonwealth, Mr Hall recounted how the then prime minister John Gorton had rejected his demand and had sent national development minister David Fairbairn to resolve the issue.

Mr Hall said he told Mr Fairbairn he would use South Australia’s power of veto to block Dartmouth.

He won but it was to be a costly victory for him and the Liberal Party.

Then South Australian opposition leader Don Dunstan saw the political opportunity and made it a Labor policy to oppose Dartmouth.

The independent MP who held the balance of power, Tom Stott, wanted

Chowilla and supported Mr Dunstan to force a vote of no confidence in the government.

The Liberal Party lost that vote and the election held in June 1970.

Mr Dunstan then proceeded to delay and frustrate those involved in the Dartmouth proposal.

Finally, after months of intense pressure from Victoria and NSW, Mr Dunstan relented and in February 1971, his government formally backed the Dartmouth decision.

A little over two weeks later the South Australian parliament passed a bill backing Dartmouth.

In his Advertiser column Mr Hall said that Mr Dunstan’s intransigence was an example as to why the river management should be taken away from the premiers and given to the Federal Government.

But the legislation to transfer South Australia’s powers to Canberra would also end the state’s power of veto.

Dartmouth was designed by the Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation and built by Thiess contractors.

Work started in 1972 and was completed in 1979 at a total cost of $139 million.

The storage, which has a capacity of 4000 gigalitres, first spilled in 1990.