[10/31/01] A federal funding bill steps away from final approval is the beginning of making the Motor Vessel Mississippi the centerpiece of Vicksburg’s downtown redevelopment.

A conference committee of the U.S. Senate and House has approved the Fiscal Year 2002 Energy and Water Development funding bill that contains $600,000 to begin the planning for a museum, cofferdam and conversion of a former Army Corps of Engineers flagship towboat in to an attraction at City Front, said Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss. All that remains to do is for the Senate and House to approve the conference report and send it to the president.

“That’s great. That’s what we’ve been waiting for,” Mayor Laurence Leyens said this morning.

The mayor, who toured the boat shortly after taking office in July, said the money will be used to begin the architectural work on a floating enclosure at City Front to protect the Mississippi, for an adjacent museum and interpretive center to explain the work the Corps of Engineers does in the Lower Mississippi River Valley.

Money for the preliminary work means the federal government may act in 2002 to provide an additional $9 million to begin work.

“It will cost almost $10 million when it’s finished,” Leyens said.

He said the interpretive center will be the centerpiece of the downtown revitalization work Leyens and Aldermen Sid Beauman and Gertrude Young are planning. The city’s first act was to approve a $17.5 million issue of municipal bonds it is in the process of selling now.

Former Mayor Joe Loviza worked in 1996 to acquire the MV Mississippi when the boat was retired by the Army and replaced with a new flagship for the river fleet. It had been promised to Memphis, but officials there said they didn’t want it.

The towboat was brought to Vicksburg and moored at City Front for a while. It was then moved to the harbor after Former Mayor Robert Walker, in 1997, said restoration and display of the boat would not be a priority for his administration.

Since then, Vicksburg has incurred storage fees for the boat and it has deteriorated from lack of maintenance.

Also as part of the downtown redevelopment, the city bought the Levee Street Depot for $215,000 this month from Drs. Karl Hatten, Sam White and John Bower. That building will also be used as part of the whole City Front project.

Also included in the $116 million for projects in Mississippi is an allocation of $4 million for the Yazoo backwater project.

“It will be used to advance detailed engineering and design, to begin needed real estate activity while we are still reformulating the plan,” said Patty K. Bates, a spokesman for the Vicksburg District.

The District has been working on revising the plans for work in the area of the Mississippi Delta just north of Vicksburg since 1991 and released a draft of a proposed plan in August 2000.

Among the provisions of the plan are reforestation of privately owned land at federal expense; restoration of critical fish spawning and rearing habitat; raise water levels during low water periods; restore habitat for black bear and restore habitat for migratory birds.

When announced, the project had an estimated cost of $181.6 million.