Work to the lower the spillway at Queensland's troubled Paradise Dam is almost complete and strength testing is underway, its operator says.
Last September Sunwater and the State Government announced the spillway would be lowered by 5.8 metres for safety and stability reasons.
Executive director of stakeholder relations Cameron Milliner said the majority of work was on track to be completed before the next wet season.
"We are currently at approximately 95 per cent completed through volume of material to be removed in order to achieve that lowering of materials," he said.
"The removal of this material and the reduction in level will deliver a significant reduction in the risk of failure to the community.
"[Next] we need to go through and put some pins or anchors into the top of the dam and then apply a temporary cap to go onto of the dam wall."
Testing underway
Additional testing of the strength of the joints between the layers of compacted concrete has also commenced.
Mr Milliner said the lift joints had been identified as a point of weakness that could result in dam failure in the event of a significant flood.
"We remove the samples, and once it goes to the lab it will be put into specialised apparatus that will create a replica of the pressures that part of the dam wall would experience within that dam wall," he said.
"What we are testing here is the ability of those lift joints to sustain the load that wall experiences during significant weather events.
"Over the coming weeks additional blocks will be removed to make sure we finish the block sample testing in the next couple of months."
The test results will inform Building Queensland's investigation and report on the long-term options for the dam.
