ah, so it appears the deep cores are really dewatering wells, with big pipes on them... similar to dewatering efforts needed to -build- a dam to begin with, with the sheet piles around the periphery acting as the primary cofferdam...
If you look back in the archives, you'll see the original problem here is that water is flowing -under- the dam in this section. All the work to this point has been to try to mitigate that flow, through a series of pilings and concrete 'plugs'. Basically, the first two tries haven't worked sufficiently, so they're trying it again. This time, they appear to be removing the entire weir, likely to get better access to the areas allowing the water to flow beneath.