The economy in Southwest Washington is already benefitting from an as-yet-unfinished project to deepen the Columbia River’s shipping channel, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray heard during a round-table discussion today at the Port of Vancouver.

The $190 million project to deepen the channel from 40 to 43 feet will be finished by the end of this year.

Construction got under way in 2005, following almost two full decades of planning and lobbying by ports, business interests and labor groups along the river. Critics characterized the project as an economic boondoggle that would harm aquatic life in the river, but proponents told Murray today that the investment has already paid dividends.

A $230 million grain elevator is under construction in Longview.

“This project would never have happened without the promise of this channel deepening project,” said Ken O’Hollaren, executive director of the Port of Longview.

The deepening project got a $29.6 million jolt of federal economic stimulus funding to finish the job this year rather than two or three years later.

The final piece of funding allowed contractors to use underwater explosives to scour out three feet of hard basalt in the river bottom between Ridgefield and St. Helens, Ore. The blasting occurred in November through February, resulting in 600,000 cubic yards of shattered black rock.

Murray told local business and labor leaders that the deepening project ensures the river will remain the “lifeblood” of the economy in Southwest Washington.

“Clearly, this is going to create economic vitality in the long term,” she said.

Protecting that channel will require a massive new investment by Congress through the Army Corps of Engineers, however. The jetties that protect the mouth of the river, originally constructed between 1885 and 1917, are eroding badly.

The corps estimates it will take 18 years and as much as $470 million to rehabilitate them.

“All the work that we’ve done to deepen the channel to 43 feet could be undone,” Murray said.

The jetties tamp down waves from the ocean, while also serving as a barricade against beach sand that would otherwise clog the shipping channel. The Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, an industry group based in Portland, noted that the jetties protect a shipping industry that annually hauls more than 40 million tons of cargo valued at $16 billion.

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