Repairs almost complete on massive dam

Updated: Mon 2:41 AM, Jan 14, 2013

SOMERSET, Ky. (AP) - Work to repair the massive Wolf Creek Dam in southern Kentucky is slated for completion later this year and the project manager says things are going "smoothly."

Don Getty told the Commonwealth Journal that the project, which began in 2007, is about 85 percent complete.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers deemed the project urgent because a failure of the nearly mile-long dam would flood communities along the Cumberland River all the way to Nashville, Tenn. Officials lowered the level of Lake Cumberland by 40 feet in 2007 to ease pressure on the structure.

Getty says he expects lake levels to rise in 2014, though how much depends on several factors - including the amount of rainfall.

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