Contractor J-Way Inc. of Avon, Ohio has resumed dredging the Menemsha channel after a rocky start last year, although town officials are doubtful the job will be finished by Jan. 31, when a state deadline marks the arrival of winter flounder.

At their meeting on Tuesday, Chilmark selectmen said the company is off to a slow start, with a blown bearing earlier in the day threatening to sideline the project for days.

“It’s behind schedule, and things are not going smoothly,” selectman Warren Doty said.

The federal project stalled early this year after missing the same winter flounder deadline. But equipment remained in place for months, including a 1.5-mile pipeline along Lobsterville Road in Aquinnah, raising the ire of local officials. The Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the channel, terminated its contract with J-Way last May, but later signed an agreement to proceed in the fall.

Between late December last year and Jan. 31, the company pumped about 16,000 cubic yards of sand onto the beach, with another 45,000 cubic yards remaining.

“Everything has to go perfect from this point on,” selectman Bill Rossi said Tuesday, looking ahead to the January deadline.

Sand from the channel will again be pumped along Lobsterville Road to a section of beach that was damaged during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Some of the sand will also be used to replenish Squibnocket Beach in Chilmark. Selectman James Malkin said an auxiliary pump to increase flow along the pipeline has yet to arrive.

In other business, the selectmen voted to allow the Tri-Town Ambulance service to begin offering free transportation to elders for scheduled health care visits. A $6,000 grant from Elder Services of Cape Cod and the Islands in September will support the program, although Chilmark emergency medical technician Alan Ganapol said Tuesday that it would also rely on donations. Anyone over 59 and living in Chilmark, West Tisbury or Aquinnah will be eligible for the service. Mr. Ganapol anticipated a training for Tri-Town workers in the near future.

Mr. Rossi believed the program would have the added benefit of helping emergency responders get to know their community. “I think it’s a very positive step,” he said. “I’m really happy you are doing it.”

Selectmen also agreed to support the formation of an Islandwide sustainable energy committee, an effort that began in Chilmark this summer. Among other things, the committee would develop a sustainable energy master plan for the Island, and provide coordination and communication among the six Island towns, according to a charter issued in October.

Robert Hanneman, a Chilmark resident and professor of engineering at Tufts University who spearheaded the effort this year. The committee would not replace the other energy committees in Edgartown, Oak Bluffs, Tisbury and West Tisbury. Each town will have one or two representatives, he said, but only one vote on the committee. The West Tisbury selectmen have also endorsed the effort.

Mr. Hanneman said he was unable to gauge Chilmark’s interest in forming its own town-level energy committee. “We have a limited number of things that we could address on a town basis,” he said, “but it’s not zero.” In the meantime, he agreed to function as a “committee of one.”

The selectmen also plan to revive a long-dormant community group that owns most of Lucy Vincent Beach and was responsible for building the Chilmark Community Center. The nonprofit Chilmark town association (formerly the Chilmark town committee) was incorporated 61 years ago this week, but stopped filing annual reports in the 1990s.

“I think we should activate it,” Mr. Doty said, proposing a meeting to see which of the most recent directors would like to continue, and to propose new members. A meeting has yet to be scheduled.

Also on Tuesday, the selectmen accepted a donation of an upright piano for the Chilmark Community Center from town resident Don Guiney. The nearly pristine Everett piano will likely replace another at the community center, where musical events occur throughout the year.

Mr. Doty called it a “pretty good-looking” piano and moved to accept the offer.