I know one of the guys who works on the dredging, and my understanding is that they're only taking off the humps now. They have not been making the channel any deeper the last couple of years; they're just taking off the humps that build up, because as the flow meanders it does build up humps in the river.
They've taken all of the different tributaries of the river, of which there were probably about six originally, and they've made them into one big one. When you stop all that fresh flow from going down those smaller channels, they just silt in—and it is incredible. My father's place, which is just upriver from mine, used to be a big unloading platform where they unloaded the rocks to build the dikes around Westham Island, right across the river from Steveston. You couldn't get in there now on a five-foot tide; it's just mud right out front. And they'd bring the big tugs and barges in there.