The Assawoman Canal is a

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

in Sussex County, Delaware. The canal links the

Indian River Bay Indian River Bay is a body of water in Sussex County, Delaware. It is part of Delaware's inland bay system, along with Little Assawoman Bay and Rehoboth Bay. Fed by the Indian River at its western end, the bay is connected to the Atlantic Ocea ...

to the north with the

Little Assawoman Bay Little Assawoman Bay is a body of water in Sussex County, Delaware. It is connected from Assawoman Bay to the south by a narrow canal known locally as "The Ditch," and is connected to Indian River Bay Indian River Bay is a body of water in Sus ...

to the south. It is bordered by Bethany Beach and South Bethany to the east and Ocean View to the west. Because of it, Fenwick Island is detached from the Delaware mainland. First proposed in 1884, the Assawoman Canal was constructed by the

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

in 1891 for the purpose of moving goods by boat without having to travel into the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

. The canal was initially dug by hand in the 1890s by immigrant labor. The canal was not

dredge Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing da ...

d from the 1950s until 2006. By the early 2000s, it was no longer deep enough to handle the boat traffic that once passed through it when it was part of the

Intracoastal Waterway The Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) is a inland waterway along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts of the United States, running from Massachusetts southward along the Atlantic Seaboard and around the southern tip of Florida, then following t ...

. From 2006 to 2010, the state undertook a dredging project that restored the canal to navigability, with a channel width of and a depth of .

References

Canals in Delaware Transportation buildings and structures in Sussex County, Delaware {{Delaware-geo-stub