While a long-term fix to the federal channel's shoaling issue remains unfunded and uncertain, Westport Harbormaster Chris Leonard isn't too concerned for now — he's just glad the channel in and out of Westport Harbor is passable again.

In late October, a temporary solution to Westport's problems came in the form of a red, white and black buoy tender from the United States Coast Guard's Aids to Navigation team in Bristol, which scooped up the channel markers in the worst stretch of the river near the Spindle Rock Club and deposited them just to the east, where the water is deeper and the chance of boats running aground lower.

With the end of the boating season here, Leonard said he is happy to have a navigable channel again and will wait and see what the winter's weather brings.

"Now we have all winter for (the sand) to do what it wants to do," he said. "We're just going to cross our fingers. We have the good water, or better water, than we had."

The channel is maintained by the US Army Corps of Engineers, and for at least three years Leonard has tried to find interest on the federal level for a major dredging in the channel, which was last dredged some 20 years ago. Though he has had support from the state's federal delegation and local legislators, there has been little positive response from the feds.

He told the harbor advisory commission last week that little has changed, though he expressed relief that the Coast Guard team from Bristol came down to move the markers last month and has signaled a willingness to work with the town should they need to be moved again.

As for the prospects of a major dredging plan to re-establish the channel route mariners are used to, there's no answer yet, he said.

"Ultimately right now it's up to the army corps to make a decision to say that they want to keep that channel where it is ... or pull out the stops and spend a lot of money to shovel sand uphill," he said. "Nobody's raising their hand to spend multi millions of dollars to fix it."

Though the route has changed, Leonard still considers the shoaled route, and not the new path, to be the federal channel, and therefore the responsibility of the army corps to address "whether they want to revive it or not."

But he said he is relieved that before any decision is made on a major project, there is enough water depth in the new route to cut down substantially on the number of groundings Westport has seen over the last few years. He said he hopes it lasts.

"We're just going to let this one rip I guess, and we'll see what happens."