If all goes as planned, by spring 2020, navigating Massey’s Ditch will be much easier for boaters.

After failing to receive an acceptable bid in time to dredge for the summer season, the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control recently awarded the 100,000-cubic-yard dredging contract for the popular waterway that connects Rehoboth and Indian River bays.

Coming in with a bid of $3.6 million, Wisconsin-based J.F. Brennan Company Inc. was notified June 10 they won the contract, which runs from July 11 through April 1, 2020. There were three other bids, two from New York companies and one from a Pennsylvania company.

DNREC’s Shoreline & Waterway Management Section issued a second request for proposals in April after a January request garnered no acceptable bids.

According to a permit issued in November to DNREC Division of Watershed Stewardship from DNREC Wetlands and Subaqueous Lands Section, the material to be dredged – 50,000 cubic yards from Massey’s Ditch and 50,000 cubic yards in the channel near Lynch Thicket and Middle Island – will be placed on the Atlantic Ocean beach north of Indian River Inlet.

Charles Williams, Shoreline and Waterway Management Section project manager, said the winning bid was approximately $3 million less than bids received from the January proposal. Williams said the contractor is expected to begin work about Nov. 1, when boating season is winding down for the year. The contractor is expected to begin mobilizing on site in October.

The contract runs to April 1, but state officials anticipate the work will be done by March 1, which coincides with environmental concerns related to summer flounder, migratory shorebirds and ground-nesting marsh birds. Williams said an extra month was added to the end of the contract in case the contractor has equipment problems or loses dredging time due to inclement weather.

Williams also said the state anticipates it will be no more than 10 years before the channel needs to be re-dredged.

The 100,000-cubic-yard project almost equals the total amount dredged from Massey’s Ditch since the channel was completed in 1957. According to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers public notice in October, the federal government dredged 39,000 cubic yards in 1980, while DNREC dredged 10,000 cubic yards in 1987; 15,000 cubic yards in 1990; 7,000 cubic yards in 1991; and 30,000 cubic yards in 2002.