Nearly seven years after government-funded dredging added 6 feet of depth to the waterway connecting the Port of Brunswick to the Atlantic Ocean, much of that extra room for cargo ships has been erased by tides and storms piling fresh layers of sand and sediments into the channel.

Edwin Fendig III, who has spent three decades as a harbor pilot steering the hulking ships between the ocean and Brunswick's docks, says the water is now so shallow that roughly one in four ships can't travel the shipping channel at low tide. Though shippers importing goods through Brunswick pay about $15 million each year in federal taxes collected to pay for keeping harbors clear, only a fraction gets spent for that purpose.

"I can't ever remember the channel being maintained properly. Ever," Fendig said. "There's been a time or two that they got it all out. But only a time or two. This is a battle we fight every day."

The Port of Brunswick is getting at least some relief this year. Contractors hired by the Army Corps of Engineers got underway in late January with a $6 million contract to dredge 5.3 miles of the channel that follows the Brunswick River and extends out to sea. The work is expected to wrap up Feb. 20, said Billy Birdwell, a spokesman for the Army Corps in Savannah.

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