ELLSWORTH – It’s been a long time coming, but the last phase of the dredging of the federal channel up the Union River is almost completed.

On Saturday, Mike Damp, secretary of the city’s harbor commission, and Bruce Chandler, the city’s dredge coordinator, joined the crew from Burnham Associates Inc. for one of the final runs down the river to dump dredged materials taken from the area around the city dock. The job was supposed to end April 15, but the company recently received a three-day extension in order to finish the work.

As he has done hundreds of times during the course of the two-year project, Capt. Ted Augustine eases the 40-foot push-type tugboat and the 140-foot scow away from the dredging barge and points them downriver, beginning the 5-mile trip to the dump site near Tuppers Ledge in Union River Bay.

Augustine is quiet while the scow is in the river, concentrating on keeping the loaded vessel off the rocks that line the shores. At his elbow, a computer program marks the progress of the scow down the river, but he relies mainly on the compass and the list of course settings handwritten on a piece of paper.

“You have to pay attention,” he said. “If you drift as little as five feet, there are obstructions you can run into.”

The crew plots each trip by the tides, planning to leave the harbor about an hour before high tide. The scow can carry about 650 cubic yards of material, but is rarely filled to capacity. Filled, the scow would draw about 12 feet of water, according to Glenn Towne, first mate and safety officer, and would likely bottom out at spots in the river.

“It’s a treacherous river,” said Towne. “At low tide, you’d be amazed at the rocks and ledge there.”

That’s the reason the crew is there.

Creation of the channel was authorized by the federal River and Harbor Act of 1870 when Ellsworth was a busy shipping port and a major center for shipbuilding and lumber production. Work on the channel was completed in 1871, establishing a 4-foot-deep channel at low tide. Subsequent work was done to improve the channel and to increase the depth to 6 feet. The last work done was in 1910 and 1911 with maintenance dredging along sections of the channel.

In the years since then, the channel has filled in with silt and with sawdust from the many sawmills that at one time lined the river. At some places, the silting has reduced the depths to 3 feet or less at low water.

The project, which has taken two dredging seasons to complete, called for taking approximately 60,000 cubic yards of material from the river in order to create a 5-foot depth in the channel.

In addition to the sawdust, which they expected to find, the dredging also brought up a large amount of other debris from the century-old lumbering operations, including slab wood and pilings left over from the river drives, according to Robert Casoli Jr., the Army Corps of Engineers’ resident construction representative and quality assurance officer for the project.

They also found more and larger boulders than expected, Casoli said, some weighing as much as about 25 tons.

“There was some difficult digging there,” he said

When the scow reaches the disposal site just southwest of Tuppers Ledge, the crew members hammer free the locks that allow the doors in the bottom of the load chambers to open and dump the dredged materials on the site.

Although a formal report on the project will come later this week, Casoli said, he thought it had been successful.

“We’ve had a real tight-knit crew,” he said. “Everybody has been willing to work together. There’s been a lot of cooperation between the crew, the city and the corps. That’s what makes a successful job.”

Local officials are pleased with the results. Having a channel that is usable at all times will open up Ellsworth as a potential destination for more boaters, according to Mike Damp, a member of the city’s harbor commission.

For many years boaters have been warned away from the river because of the shallow water. All-water access will attract more boaters and will create an economic boom for Ellsworth, Damp predicted.

“This is going to bring more people into the inner harbor,” Damp said.

“It will open up access to the downtown area. People will come in and stay for a meal, or for the night. More boats are going to have access to the city.”

Ellsworth will become a destination, echoed Chandler, who has helped to coordinate the necessary permitting for the project with the Army Corps.

“This is a beautiful river,” he said. “People will love the drive. Boaters are always looking for different places that they haven’t been to before.”

The improved channel will also draw commercial fishermen, Chandler said. Although it is a long run up the river, he said, all-water access will attract fishermen.

The availability of a nearby buyer is also an attraction, he said.

Although the federal portion of the project will be completed this week, the city also plans to dredge an area around the harbor. That project, which was designed in conjunction with the federal project, will allow the city to create additional mooring spaces near the city dock. That dredging will take place next year.