As the Senate debated Saturday a pared-down economic stimulus bill, officials in Vicksburg who had returned barely two days earlier from an annual lobbying trip to Washington, D.C., remained confident a $200 million list of infrastructure projects would be included in the massive package.    

Those include projects on the drawing board in some way for some time, including the Lower Mississippi River Museum and Interpretive Site and a new overhead crane at the Port of Vicksburg — either in the midst of completion or in need of millions of dollars to get past planning stages.

As lawmakers enter more contentious talks this week to reconcile the $820 billion plan approved by the House last month and bill expected to be voted on by senators Tuesday worth $827 billion, officials in Vicksburg and Warren County remain hopeful.

“We got a very favorable impression,” Warren County Port Commission executive director Wayne Mansfield said.

Mansfield said the group, which included Mayor Laurence Leyens and District 1 Supervisor David McDonald, was assured by both Sens. Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker, both Republicans, and the state’s U.S. House delegation that the local items, some of which are already in line for grant funds, would not be lumped into the same category as items in other cities and states nowhere near planning stages.

In statements issued this week, Wicker called for more targeted spending and supported, along with Cochran, an alternative plan by Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, that would have produced a bill half the size of the House version. The measure failed in the full Senate.

Both versions of the stimulus provided $27 billion for highway and bridge construction. Senators included an extra $4.6 billion for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which might provide a boost to an interpretive museum near Washington and Jackson streets. With the retired MV Mississippi IV as its centerpiece, the museum is tentatively set to open by 2011 despite being as much as $25 million short of funding.

Money for transportation projects was pegged at $46 billion in the plan drafted by Senate Democrats and moderate Republicans late Friday — $1 billion less than the House version. Senators also appeared to have trimmed funding for mass transit and rail projects, to $11.5 billion from $12 billion. Bridge and highway funding is $27 billion in both versions. Overall, infrastructure funding in the Senate version is $100.5 billion, about $36 billion less than in the House version.

Funding for national parks and repair of monuments in federal cemeteries, both of which would affect the Vicksburg National Military Park, has been rolled into both versions. Specific amounts in either was unclear. Additional debt costs would add about $350 billion or more to either plan in 10 years. Most of the spending and tax provisions expire in two years.

Prominent among Leyens’ concerns was the transfer of about $1 million of Federal Railroad Administration money toward the construction of a railroad tunnel and overhead roadway to replace the aging, shifting bridge at Washington and Clark streets closed since Jan. 23 due to concerns over its structural integrity. Traffic has been detoured to Lee Street and North Frontage Road.

“We walked away very encouraged,” Leyens said, adding the transfer needs an official congressional act in order to firm up funding. Leyens said the money is currently held up in an account that was to fund improvements to the Fairgrounds Street bridge, which is in the plans for the interpretive museum as a walkway.

About $5 million is sought for city street paving and water treatment plant is sought, along with a high-ticket item of connecting South Frontage Road between Porters Chapel Road and the Outlets at Vicksburg. Environmental studies are complete for the extension, but remains about $6 million short of construction funding.

County engineers devised a list of projects at various pre-bid stages, highlighted by a connection between Henry Lake Road and Flowers Hill Road pegged at $5 million. Tops on the county’s $152.85 million dossier was a $25 million request reflecting the estimated cost of a new Warren County jail, for which a study to plan its size, location and scope is under way.

Further upgrades at the Port of Vicksburg require about $10 million, according to local estimates. Replacing the 15-ton overhead crane and housing terminal has been eyed for grant funding for several years, but was put on hold while the T-dock support platform was undergoing a $3.4 million replacement of its own.

McDonald said the road list has been forwarded to congressional leaders and, while definite answers were few, remains hopeful about the crane project because engineering and design phases have been done.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com.