Close to four years after it began, rehabilitation of a tiny section of the Annisquam River will culminate in what could become a slippery mudfest.

At an official dedication of the Dun Fudgin salt marsh restoration project Tuesday morning, a group of Gloucester preschoolers and high schoolers will help plant 2,600 salt-tolerant grass tufts where an abandoned concrete saltwater swimming pool used to be. Depending on the weather, there could be some real mud slinging.

But whether or not the youngsters mess around, the dedication will be a tribute to the individuals and agencies whose vision and hard work have brought the project to fruition.

The late Stubby Knowles, Gloucester's former shellfish warden, had for years talked about his wish to remove the Dun Fudgin saltwater pool, once was a popular spot for bathers, and rehabilitate the one-acre site on the shore of the Blynman Canal. David Enos, an oceanography instructor at Gloucester High School, picked up Knowles' battle flag some years back and, with the aid of city, state and federal agencies, Gloucester High School and Torromeo Industries Inc., helped bump the marsh revitalization to the top of a list of nearly 100 projects for the entire Gulf of Maine.

"We were looking for a pilot project to bring coastal wetland rehabilitation into the public eye," said Eric Hutchins, Gulf of Maine habitat restoration coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Gloucester. "Basically we pushed the envelope. We wanted something that our agency could partner up on with the city. We would all ante up the time and finances to make it happen."

A dead zone

According to Max Schenk, the city's public health sanitarian and chairman of the city's Conservation Commission, the reinforced concrete pool was built by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, but fell into disrepair and went unused and abandoned for the past three decades. In an area where marine life once thrived, Schenk and Hutchins said the pool had become a sediment trap and dead zone. Clams, worms, periwinkles, fish and wading birds once made the Dun Fudgin area their home; the goal of the project was to bring that life back.

The pool's location behind the high school meant the project could be localized and provide a terrific outdoor classroom experience for the students.

Though the pool appeared to be bombproof, concrete had spalled off to reveal the reinforcing steel bars underneath, which had rusted and begun to expose razor-sharp edges. The 3-foot thick base and 3-foot high walls took nearly a week to demolish with an industrial-sized pneumatic hammer on a front end loader.

After removal of all the concrete earlier this spring, the marsh was regraded to what scientists and engineers think the original levels of dirt and mud were. Boulders were removed and the site cleaned. Only Tuesday's grass planting remains, Hutchins said, and hopefully the marsh will rebound.

Students get involved

For Gloucester High School students, the close proximity of the project proved to be fortuitous, as they only had a two-minute walk and they were on site. Students in Enos' class last fall helped map the area and collect specimens.

"I'm surprised at how much I remember," said Iris Quesada, 18. "I thought I'd forgotten it all."

Classmate Thomas Lesch, 18, agreed. "It was interesting to see how just a couple of feet down the high tide line revealed more and different organisms. Hands-on learning is definitely more influential than class learning. I can remember more from that one day than any time in a classroom," he said.

Though the high schoolers were just laborers that day, sifting through mud to measure the sizes of clams, taking latitude and longitude coordinates, recording wind direction and performing specific tasks step by step, there were moments of fun and surprise.

"The bloodworm was pretty cool," said Ryan Russell, 17. "We didn't expect to find that. It's a gooey, kind of nasty, fleshy creature whose head comes out of its body to attack you." Russell was mum to say if he deliberately dangled a fingertip in front of the worm's mandibles or not.

"We'd lived close to the water forever," Quesada said, "but we'd never stopped to look at what was there."

"I think the pool definitely needed to come out of there," Russell said. "It was dangerous. There was exposed rebar everywhere."

"It will lead to a healthier ecosystem," added Zach Levesh-Raabe, 18.

After helping out on a project that was carefully watched by so many organizations, the students all said they were pretty happy to have been a part of the process.

"I'd like to come back and see what becomes of it in the next few years," Quesada said. "I'd like to see that."

Wetlands history

The Dun Fudgin area is located at the point that the Blynman Canal begins, behind the high school's tennis courts and right across the Annisquam River from Cape Ann Marina. Some form of the canal has existed since the 1640s, when the Rev. Richard Blynman, one of Gloucester's first settlers, dug a narrow channel from the harbor to a streamlet in the Annisquam.

The origin of the name "Dun Fudgin'" is open to interpretation, but local legend says that once the canal was widened and dredged, boaters could ride the current through the gut and no longer had to pole, or "fudge," their way. In this manner, then, they were "done fudging."

It was neighbors living in the Dun Fudgin area who told Schenk the once-popular swimming spot was a Works Progress Administration project from the mid-1930s. The Works Progress Administration was a substantial facet of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal in 1935 - a way to get unemployed workers back out and being productive at a time of national economic stress. Until it was shut down in 1943 to make way for the jobs machine of World War II, the Works Progress Administration was the largest employment base in the country - especially in rural areas such as Gloucester. Dams, buildings, roads and parks were carved out during those years. Even murals in some city halls were painted by out-of-work artists.

Coincidentally, the linear trenches through salt marshes around Gloucester, such as the ones down by Good Harbor Beach, were carved out by WPA workers about the same time as the Dun Fudgin pool was built on the Annisquam. The theory behind the trenches, said Schenk, was that once standing water in the marshes was drained off, mosquitoes would no longer have habitat in which to lay eggs. However, common sense these days dictates that mosquitoes find it somewhat easier to breed in freshwater. Even if mosquito larvae did somehow manage to survive in the briny pools - called salt pannes - immature baitfish would find them to be a juicy delicacy.

As the grasses planted this Tuesday root and hold sediments fast, organisms will start to make their return. Eventually, baby fish will find their way in to the artificial salt panne excavated in the marsh, Schenk said.

With time, the Dun Fudgin marsh will rebound, Schenk and Hutchins said. Over the next few years, Gloucester High School students will conduct periodic observations of the marsh and record the health and progress of the area.

If you go:

* What: Dedication of the Dun Fudgin salt marsh restoration project.

* When: Tuesday, May 22, from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m.

* Where: Behind the Gloucester High School's tennis courts, near the Dun Fudgin boat ramp

* The lowdown: The dedication culminates nearly four years of planning and rehabilitation of what, prior to the mid 1930s, was a healthy and productive coastal habitat.

* Also happening: Gloucester preschoolers and high schoolers will help plant 2,600 baby salt tolerate grasslets where a saltwater swimming pool once was.

* Who's coming: State and city officials, including Mayor John Bell, Rep. Anthony Verga, D-Gloucester, NOAA Deputy Regional Director Chris Mantzaris and state Deputy Secretary of Environmental Affairs Philip Griffiths.