Police at the William Tyrrell dig site have drained the creek after installing a pump to reduce the water level and expose areas to fossick through for evidence of the missing toddler.
Hydrologist Professor Jon Olley, who found murdered Queensland schoolboy Daniel Morcombe's remains in 2011, spent most of Thursday working around the now-cleared creek area.
Police will be searching through mud for remains to be examined by the professor.
Rural Fire Service officers yesterday finished removing tonnes of undergrowth and thinned trees around the creek bed edges ahead of 'doing the creek bed' today.
Just before operations began today, a team of 50 police, RFS and ambulance officers, as well as civilian personnel and scientists posed for a group photo on the site and cheered.
They then donned gum boots to walk into the muddy creek bottom.
An electrical pump emptied the waterway from a creek near the Kendall property where William Tyrrell went missing overnight on Thursday and the area is now clear for expert work to begin
Hydrologist Professor Jon Olley (centre), who found murdered Queensland schoolboy Daniel Morcombe's remains in 2011, spent most of Thursday working around the now-cleared creek area
NSW Police spent hours yesterday meticulously combing the dirt of cleared bushland in Kendall, NSW for clues in the disappearance of toddler William Tyrrell in 201
An electrical pump emptied the waterway from the creek overnight on Thursday and the area is now clear for Professor Olley to commence work.
It is one of three areas in Kendall, including the house from which William disappeared in 2014, being searched by Strike Force Rosann.
The dig site through which the now-drained creek runs is about the size of two city terrace house blocks and is joined by fire trails with the backs of the houses along the street where William vanished.
A few minutes before 9am, Professor Olley was called over to the edge of a pool of stagnant water which runs through a culvert underneath Batar Creek Road and feeds into the newly-drained creek.
RFS officers notified police they had found an item - which looks like a piece of cloth or dark plastic - which had washed up onto the side of the stagnant
