From Staff reports.

Warren County will be awarded $206,000 from the Delta Regional Authority to further defray the cost of replacing the bridge crane at the Port of Vicksburg, a release from the regional economic development board said Friday.

Acting through the Warren County Port Commission, the county had already secured $678,000 in grant funds toward the project earlier this year from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Mississippi Department of Transportation.

The commission is expected to kick in about $390,000 from its own funds to supplement USDA grant funds carried over and still awaited. Altogether, the $2 million effort will replace the current 15-ton bridge crane that handles routine movement of goods to and from barges, rail cars and trucks.

The DRA’s grant program for 2006 totaled $7.8 million and funded infrastructure improvements in eight southern and midwestern states – Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee.

The governors of those states comprise the DRA board, led by a federal co-chairman appointed by President Bush. The board decides which projects are funded based on the amount of money available each year.

The DRA was created by Congress in 2000 to enhance economic development and improve the quality of life in the areas it serves. Congress has mandated 50 percent of the DRA’s appropriations be used on transportation and basic public infrastructure projects.

This year’s two largest awards went to fund water system and sewer projects in Memphis and Monticello, Ark. Another for $400,000 will go to the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board and to St. Bernard Parish to design a wastewater treatment plant that will restore about 10,000 acres of wetlands for storm protection, the release said.