Assawoman Canal dredging completion a month away

Chuck Williams of Delaware’s Division of Soil and Water Conservation has been involved with the dredging of the Assawoman Canal for 20 years. But he can’t retire quite yet.

Williams said this week completion of the project, first expected in June, will now take another month. “We’re looking at early to mid-September,” said Williams.

“We have approvals from the Army Corps and the state to continue until the job is done.” The dredge is working its way northward. Most of the dredging between Route 26 and the canal’s northern entrance in White’s Creek is complete.

“We have to dip out an area north of where the Loop Canal empties into the Assawoman Canal,” said Williams. “We’ve hit it twice already but sediment from Salt Pond and the Loop Canal keeps flowing in.”

He said a shortage of state employees to work the project and the fact that the dredge is now working in sand have slowed progress.

“We’re having to pipe the spoils farther now and sand is heavier.” Williams said the only complaints that have come in so far have been about jet skiers going too fast.

“I called Jim Graybeal at the enforcement division and he’s going to beef up security.”

Assawoman Canal is a very narrow, no-wake waterway connection between Indian River Bay to the north and Little Assawoman Bay to the south.