NATCHEZ — Construction that should have started several weeks ago on the Robin’s Lake Road dam repair project has still not begun.

And residents living near the faltering dam are concerned.

“This is a scary thing,” Fran Brellenthin, a resident living near the dam said.

The lake is undercutting the road and thinning the dam that separates the lake from the spillway behind it.

And while the dam has been in need of repairs for years, residents like Brellenthin say the repairs are needed more now than ever.

In mid-October the Adams County Board of Supervisors worked diligently to acquire an easement that would allow the county to build a temporary road to the project site.

An easement was needed because the bridge that provided the shortest route to the dam is not strong enough to hold the heavy equipment needed to repair the dam.

However once the easement was signed the county’s contractor, T&F Construction, was supposed to start work almost immediately.

But now that the temporary road is in, work has yet to start.

Curt Thomas, co-owner of T&F, said as of now work will not likely begin until the end of January.

Originally work should have started almost as soon as the county built the temporary road leading to the dam.

But Thomas said while the county was trying to gain the easement that work at T&F started stacking up.

And as they started new jobs, Thomas said, the Robin’s Lake project just got pushed back.

Thomas said that after calls from T&F to the county to see when the road would be completed went unanswered he had to start other jobs.

And residents living near the dam say this type of delay is something they have seen in the past.

Brellenthin said that in the over the years attempts to repair have come and gone.

“This is something that needs to be fixed,” she said. “It really can’t wait much longer.”

And Brellenthin would know.

Each day Brellenthin walks on the road on top of the dam looking for minute variances from the day before.

“You can see daily changes,” she said.

Brellenthin said only recently she discovered a spot where the road appears to be sinking near the water’s edge.

Brellenthin is a local champion for the dam’s repair and has lived near the dam for several years.

On Monday when Brellenthin heard of the new start time for he project she said she did not know if the dam would hold for that long.

“That is very disappointing,” she said.

In February 2004 after some heavy rain the lake actually ran over the road closing it down and stranding some residents in the area.

And Brellenthin said another night of rain like the rain on Sunday could be detrimental to the dam.