MARION — After a big final push, the sludge at the bottom of Marion’s Wastewater Lagoon is fully excavated.

Excavators and bulldozers occupied the lagoon off Benson Brook Road, as a two-week final effort to clear sludge progressed. Prior to that, the sludge was removed using a centrifuge. But a peanut butter-like consistency at the bottom of the lagoon prevented easy removal.

So the town decided to bring in heavy machinery to finish off the job, and haul the remaining 495 tons of sludge off to a landfill in Maine.

“And that’s on top of the 980-to-990 [tons] we pulled out the first time,” Department of Public Works Director Nathaniel Mufano said.

Some trucks will still need to come to remove the final remaining sludge currently piled in a corner of the lagoon, but the large-scale excavation effort is over.

Workers at the lagoon dug down — eight feet on average — to the bottom, where there’s a mixed layer of solid clay and “gravelly points,” Mufano said.

Town Administrator Jay McGrail said it was nice to see people “walking around without dirty shoes” at the bottom of the lagoon after announcing it was empty at an Aug. 18 Select Board meeting.

Though the tone of the meeting was chipper as McGrail announced the sludge had been successfully excavated, Select Board member John Waterman said he’s always reminded of the project’s cost.

“Unfortunately, whenever I hear about it I think 10 million dollars,” he said.

The town paid a lump sum of $609,097 to a removal company to take the remainder of the sludge away from the facility.

Mufano said switching to the lump sum approach ended up saving the town $49,500 on the cleanup cost, compared to the original centrifuge removal method.

But, he said, the decision to pay in full wasn’t a finance-based call.

“Most importantly, it simplifies the process,” Mufano said.

Still, finances are a problem when it comes to the lagoon lining project.

The town received a grant of $250,000 From the state with help from Rep. Bill Straus in April, but the rest of the project’s bill has yet to be alleviated.

The Select Board expects more money to come from the state, but hasn’t received any word since the last grant. The board decided to draft a letter to Straus, which will give an update on the project’s status and request an update on incoming funding.

“Ultimately, we are weeks away from the liner process being started,” McGrail said. “We are in the homestretch.”

The town now has two options to weigh for the installation of a liner to the lagoon — required following a lawsuit from the Buzzards Bay Coalition claiming toxins were seeping into Aucoot Cove from the lagoon.

The original plan for the bottom of the lagoon was to remove any additional sand remaining after the cleanup, and replace it with new sand before installing the liner. Now, the town is weighing a second option: Installing a “multi-flow” matrix system underneath the liner, which Mufano said would help with drainage and the venting of natural gasses, if needed.

While the multi-flow matrix system may actually be cheaper than replacing sand, Mufano said “hopefully we won’t need it,” because the project will also see the installation of a drainpipe system as a primary form of groundwater and other waste removal.

The liner is expected to be fully installed by Jan. 2. For now, Mufano said it’s nice to see some progress on the much-delayed effort.

“Nice to see it without the water in there,” he said. “We’re getting close.”