High stages on the Mississippi River the past six weeks and a wet start to the year have halted completion of repairs on flood-damaged levees at Buck Chute and near Lake Albemarle, though the Army Corps of Engineers is satisfied they’ll hold up if the water rises again this spring.

The river has fallen slowly since it last crested in Vicksburg, on Dec. 23 at 39 feet. Still, backwater from the river and December rain covers areas where Phylway Construction LLC has taken dirt to shore up the landside of the mainline levee from sand boils that threatened both sites during the Great Flood of 2011. A final step, planting grass, could be delayed until April or later, but berms and stainless steel relief wells are already in use, said Kent Parrish, senior Corps project manager over Mississippi River levees.

“We’ll have no problem,” Parrish said. “This is 100 percent stable. About half of those wells have already flowed this year, with getting to 39.”

About 6.9 inches of rain fell in Vicksburg in December, or 1.3 inches more than normal for the month, according to the National Weather Service.

Since September, a 1,700-foot berm has been built and 30 relief wells installed to ease pressure from seep water deep below the ground at Buck Chute, west of Eagle Lake, the southernmost tip of the mainline levee system in Mississippi. Sand boils at the system’s weak spot prompted construction of a temporary berm in the weeks before the river reached 57.1 feet in May. Muddy Bayou Control Structure was opened to elevate Eagle Lake about 12 feet above normal stages to ease water pressure on the levee.

“We think we got the problem fixed,” Parrish said. “But, if we have a 2011 again, we’ll see.”

At Lake Albemarle, 60,000 more yards of dirt need to be moved into place to reinforce 1,500 feet of weak earth where five sand boils cropped up as the river rose last spring. The two sites are on the same $3.1 million contract Phylway won in August and the job is considered about 75 percent complete, Parrish said.

Some of the $3.1 million in work was infused with a cut of $802 million in emergency repair funds marked for flood protection on the river in the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act signed by President Barack Obama in December.

A long-range goal to raise about 11 miles of levee between Albemarle and Buck Chute remains “down the road” but not forgotten, Parrish said. One segment is under contract, he said.

“Eventually, this whole levee right here has to be raised about 4 feet,” Parrish said. “But right now we want to address these real, critical spots that developed during the flood with the supplemental money that we have.”

Costs for documented damages in the Mississippi Valley alone from the historic flood approach $1 billion, according to the Corps. The entire emergency bill totaled $1.7 billion and aimed at needs in the 14 counties in Mississippi declared disaster areas during the flood.

The Mississippi River and Tributaries System — a series of levees, floodways and control structures between Cairo, Ill., and the Gulf of Mexico — prevented more than $120 billion in damages during the flood, according to the Corps.