GREENE – With information from a recent engineering report, the Allen Pond Improvement Association decided Thursday against abandoning the dam and will call an emergency meeting to plan repairs. The cost is estimated at $1,500.

Approximately 60 people gathered Thursday night at the Greene Fire Department to hear what the association’s dam committee and Maine Department of Environmental Protection Dams and Hydropower Supervisor Dana Murch had to say about the state of the structure and the petition process.

The 140-foot-long dam, which dates to before 1850, was reconstructed in 1961. Its right dike leaks, and state officials estimate that if it gave way or was torn down, the water level could drop anywhere from 4 to 7 feet.

Murch reported on an inspection by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resource Conservation Service on Sept. 20.

“The dam is leaking slightly more than when inspected by the same engineer in 2000,” he said, and is slowly deteriorating, but “That failure will not be a catastrophic blowout, but rather will be more of a continual increase in leakage that would make it impossible to maintain summer water levels.”

Murch started to explain the lengthy petition process for abandoning the dam when a heckling audience protested the mere thought of giving up ownership.

Some association members were upset they were not informed of the group’s intentions to petition for abandonment and said too much decision-making power was granted to a dam committee the association established.

Dam Committee Chairman David Casavant said the committee has a responsibility to act when problems occur with the dam and believed raising awareness of the dam’s condition and starting the petition process was in the pond’s best interest.

With a new estimate of approximately $1,500 to fix the leak, Casavant said a petition is no longer an issue.

Currently, the association estimates it has about $7,000, which could reduce the chance of asking members to raise money to fix the dam. Casavant did mention, however, that a chunk of that money would have to go toward placing a fence around the dam to help reduce liability.

Association President Diane Dubois said she was pleased with the high turnout and involvement sparked by the dam issue.

In the last year, the association’s numbers have doubled, and Treasurer Darlene Thompson said nine new members signed up Thursday night.

“The next step is to hold a meeting to see what work needs to be done to the dam,” Dubois said. “We will send out notices of our emergency meeting 10 days before our meeting. We are looking to do it in October before some of the property owners head south for the winter.”