The dredging of the Menemsha channel isn’t the first Army Corps of Engineers project in the region to suffer from delays and complications since the federal government approved more than $50 billion in recovery aid after Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

More than $5 billion went to the Army Corps, which manages many of the channels, jetties and seawalls that were especially hard hit by the storm. Most of the 152 projects in the Corps’ North Atlantic division that were tagged for funding have been completed, but a number have yet to start, and some are still under review.

The Menemsha channel was scheduled to be dredged in late 2014, but a water quality permit wasn’t obtained in time and work was put off to last October. The contractor, J-Way Inc. of Avon, Ohio, didn’t show up until December, and the project missed a Jan. 31 deadline that marked the winter flounder season. Work will likely resume next October, the soonest that dredging is allowed again in the channel.

The $2.1 million project is one of a handful in the state that are still under way with Hurricane Sandy funding. Others include the dredging of Cohasset Harbor, and repairs to the jetties at Newburyport, Rockport and Nantucket harbors.

Lobsterville Beach was severely eroded during Hurricane Sandy. — Timothy Johnson

“This project should have been done this year,” Ed O’Donnell, chief of navigation for the Army Corps’ New England district, told the Gazette this week. “Sadly, it’s extending to next year. We had hoped all of them would be complete by now.”

About $31 million was spent on Sandy-related projects in New England last year, up from $23.6 million the year before. A $1.2 million project to rebuild the Menemsha jetties was finished last May, but not without missing a state deadline to avoid the nesting of piping plovers. Projects in the state have ranged from less than $200,000 for dredging in Cuttyhunk Harbor to more than $10 million for the Nantucket project.

Some delays have resulted from an unusually high workload in the region since 2013, and the difficulty in finding contractors, said Craig Martin, Army Corps project manager for the Menemsha projects and three others in the region.

“We were pooling the same contractors between multiple districts,” he told the Gazette this week, recalling the bidding process for the Cohasset Harbor project, which ended up having no bids the first time around. “There were certainly not enough contractors to complete the work, and it had to be pushed off for a year.”

Efforts to repair a breakwater on Block Island were plagued by setbacks last year, including broken equipment and a barge accident that drew crowds to Old Harbor, according to the Block Island Times. The contract was cancelled in September. The Cohasset project was expected to be completed early this month, but Mr. O’Donnell said the contractor there has also struggled to do the work.

Other factors have complicated the repair process. Some companies are unfamiliar with New England winters until they arrive, Mr. Martin said, and the weather soon gets the better of them. Sometimes they fail to arrive on time, as was the case in Menemsha. “Sadly, it’s all too common,” said Mr. O’Donnell.

“I think a lot of contractors, they don’t know if they are going to get a bid, and they might bid two projects and try to fit projects in here and there,” he added. “New England is a tough place to work in the wintertime. They may think they can squeeze the job in at the very end of the window, and unfortunately they can’t.” One project in Maine froze over completely last year and workers had to return the following season.

The Army Corps typically awards projects to the lowest bidder, a process that comes with some drawbacks of its own.

“We don’t have the capability of getting the same contractor again and again and again,” Mr. Martin said. “So it’s a good thing and a bad thing.” Most of the contractors for Sandy-related projects in New England have worked with the Corps before, but some were brand new, including J-Way.

J-Way’s bid was slightly less than the government estimate of $2.2 million, and $806,000 less than the highest bid, submitted by Galvin Brothers Inc. of Long Island. J-Way was the only bidder without an Army Corps track record.

Perhaps the biggest stumbling block for the Menemsha project was the time it took the dredge to arrive from Georgia, where Hurricane Joaquin had led to a moratorium on some roads. That made completing the work by Jan. 31 nearly impossible. Mr. Martin said it was hard to know exactly what accounted for the different bids, but according to a record of offers available online, J-Way’s estimate for mobilization and demobilization, which made up about half the cost, was $518,000 less than that of the highest bidder.

Mr. Martin was on-Island this week to meet with local officials to plan for the next steps. He said workers would reshape the sand that has already been pumped onto Lobsterville Beach in Aquinnah, an area severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy. The Wampanoag Tribe natural resources department plans to reinforce certain areas with beach grass in the spring.

Local entities have no say in the Army Corps contracts, but in this case, the town of Aquinnah and the Wampanoag Tribe worked out an agreement with the Corps so the project would include a cooperative effort to restore the beach. Chilmark, which shares Menemsha Pond with Aquinnah, has resisted the dredging project from the beginning amid concerns that it would lead to an influx of larger boats.

Mr. Martin said he plans to follow through with J-Way’s contract, which requires that the company repair damage at the West Basin parking lot and other areas that resulted from the dredging equipment. And he appeared reluctant to close the door on the company, which hopes to return in October to finish the job.

“There is a good synergy between the Corps and the locals, and then the locals and our contractor,” Mr. Martin said. “It just depends on how things finish out. We’ll make that decision over the next few weeks.”