The dam was completed in 1960, after a construction that lasted about ten years. The mountain spring of Bicaz is built under Russian influence, it is a weight dam, which means that it keeps behind the support, by its own weight, the nearly 1.3 billion cubic meters of Bicaz accumulation lake.
For almost 60 years, 1.6 million tons of concrete have been holding the waters of the largest inland lake in Romania, so big that it has a captaincy, which belongs to that of Galați.
The colossus between Moldova and Transylvania, managed by Hidroelectrica, is 127 meters high, of which 30 underground, a 430 meter crown and has not only the role of keeping the lake of 31,000 hectares in spine, but also to supply water. for the hydroelectric power station Oak that connects it with an adduction tunnel dug in the mountain, with a length of 4.8 km.
At the construction site, no concrete mountain was poured, but 30. Specifically, the dam is made up of 30 concrete blocks, so it is almost impossible for it to completely give up in the event of a disaster. In case of overload, that is to say above the water limit, there are four mouths of discharge over the dam, a few meters below the level of the floor. To these are added four drainage berths at the base of the dam, ie at the initial level of the river, which allow the total emptying of the lake.
At the base, the dam is 119 meters wide and is like a hive, crossed by tunnels full of measuring instruments, including high-grade seismographs, which recorded, among others, the 2009 Sumatra earthquake. Concrete blocks are also constantly checked for any movement (horizontal or vertical), and the third verification system is the pendulum type. At the peak, the dam is thinned to 11 meters.