ILWACO — Two channels necessary to the survival of two south Pacific County ports will receive funding for dredging operations from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Port of Ilwaco will receive $876,000 for Baker Bay — the port had requested $1.64 million — and the Port of Chinook will receive $930,000 for its channel, the Corps revealed in a work plan released March 4.

Congress only appropriated $40 million to the dredging of small ports across the nation and Ilwaco Port Manager Guy Glenn, Jr., and the port commissioners knew their request was a long shot. The $876,000 is still a substantial amount, Glenn said.

“We’re very pleased with the amount,” he said.

He hopes it will address the worst spots along the channel, but does not know when discussions will begin between the port and the Corps about the scope of the dredging.

The Baker Bay channel, which opens into the Columbia River, should have a depth of 16 feet at low tide. It is as low as eight or 10 feet in certain places. Large boats currently need to wait for high tide before they can enter the bay and U.S. Coast Guard vessels attempting to enter the bay have reported scraping bottom.

“We worked very hard for the funding of both of these projects, which is twice the funding we have historically received,” wrote Jim Neva, former Port of Ilwaco manager, in a Facebook update.

Both ports received support from U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., who urged the Corps to prioritize Washington’s small ports.

Neva and Glenn, along with other members of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, had planned to travel to Washington, D.C., over the weekend to talk about dredging and other port issues. Despite the recent news, Glenn and Neva still plan to go.

“Now we will be able to thank the people who helped us,” Glenn said. Also, there are still many other issues to discuss, he added, including long-term maintenance of the channel, “So we don’t have to go through this every time we need funding.”

Read more on chinookobserver.com.