The Army Corps of Engineers will hold a town hall meeting in Porterville on Sept. 23 to update the community on the Lake Success dam project.

The existing earth-and-clay dam built in the 1960s needs to be rebuilt.

Col. Thomas Chapman will give an update on the project, explain the delays, and answer questions about planned property acquisitions on the Tule River below the dam. The meeting starts at 6 p.m. at the Porterville City Council chambers.

The dam needs to be rebuilt because an earthquake could make it start to fall apart and, in the worst-case scenario, send a wall of water into Porterville. For now, the lake is being kept lower to keep pressure off the dam.

A new dam received the OK from Congress in 2006 and preliminary work began. But new drill tests indicated that an earthquake would do less damage than feared. This delayed the project while the Corps decided how best to rebuild the dam and at what cost, and how much property would need to purchased downstream, a spokesman said.