A bid to widen and deepen the waterway to Vicksburg’s port has been extended, keeping alive hope that funding can be secured to pay for it.

The bidder, 4H Construction of Cleveland, agreed to extend its bid 90 days, until Jan. 20, said Warren County Port Commission Director Jim Pilgrim.

The announcement came at the commission’s monthly meeting Monday afternoon at the Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber of Commerce. The bid is for $4.7 million to dredge the Yazoo Diversion Canal from the Mississippi River to the Port of Vicksburg.

The part of the total that remains unfunded is about $500,000. Efforts within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to secure that amount are in the works.

The project has been in various stages for at least 10 years. Without the extension, the bid would have expired Friday.

The only way Corps funding can be obtained is for the project to be included in an appropriations bill for the fiscal year’s budget that is currently before Congress, Pilgrim said. Private or other federal dollars could be obtained and used for the project, Pilgrim added.

The balance of the funding for the project has been secured through prior Corps appropriations, $1.5 million from the City of Vicksburg by way of the Mississippi Development Authority and the federal Community Development Block Grant program and $164,168 in county funds through the commission.

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