TILLEGRA Dam had been talked about since the 1970s, but its promotion out of nowhere in November 2006 at the height of the Orkopoulos affair meant it was never free of controversy as a political expediency.
The dam went out, four years later, the same way it came in, but the political gesture of its scrapping was not enough to stop Labor losing most of its seats in the Hunter - if only for a single term - as the Coalition gained power in 2011.
Three years later, Hunter Water released a long-term water plan that made no mention of dams, which had become increasingly unpopular, environmentally, as the climate change debate raged on.
The new long-term plan concentrated instead on other means of bolstering water security, including demand management, recycling and desalination.
With this as background, it's little wonder that residents in two parts of the Hunter Water catchment were stunned to find that dams had made it back onto the agenda after a five-year review of the 2014 plan.
Both "investigation areas", at Chichester and Limeburners Creek, are home to heavily wooded areas, as well as farms and farming families, some able to trace their ancestry back to the region's pre-1850 pioneers.
READ MORE: 'Ticking time-bomb' over heads of dam 'investigation area' residents
Hunter Water may have done its best to break the news to them gently, but memories of the Tillegra saga are very fresh, in Chichester especially.
Three months after the residents learned of the possible new dam, they are organised in opposition, and determined to stay together with their friends at Limeburners Creek as two communities facing a common threat.
There is no doubt the long drought concentrated minds everywhere when it came to water security.
Even though rain has returned, climate scientists predict more water shortages in the future, and a growing Hunter population will only add to the pressure.
COVID-19 has led to a fresh passion for politicians to "listen to the scientists" but how can a dispassionate decision be made between drowning a valley to build a dam, and a desalination plant that might have to run on coal-fired electricity?
And if all the work has already been done at Tillegra - even if the acquired properties have since been sold - might that be a less disruptive solution, if a dam was needed, than starting it all from scratch?
At least a Coalition government has the excuse that it was Labor that got it wrong the first time around.
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