Four years after it was proposed, 10 feet right of way along North Washington Street and the blessings of the Mississippi Department of Health are all that stand in the way of advertising for bids for Vicksburg’s auxiliary waterline, city officials said Wednesday.
The 30-inch line will provide emergency water service to the city’s estimated 10,000 customers if something happens to the city’s 36-inch main water line that runs along Washington Street. The project is estimated at $3.2 million, with $2.45 million of it coming from a grant from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Broken out, the city’s match to finance the work comes to $841,821.
“Right now, we’re waiting on the Health Department’s approval and the county giving us an easement on North Washington Street,” Public Works Director Garnet Van Norman said. “Once we have those, we should be able to go out and advertise for bids.”
He said representatives for Jackson-based IMS Engineers, the project engineer, are working with Health Department officials, adding, “that should be completed soon.”
The easement required from the county involves a 10-foot strip of land south along North Washington between Anderson-Tully and the city’s right of way along the street. City officials have already secured a right of way from Anderson Tully to take the line across its property.
The easement was originally requested in June. Mayor George Flaggs Jr. Wednesday sent a letter to the supervisors asking them to grant the easement when they meet Monday.
“I’m just trying to keep the project on schedule,” Flaggs said. “I want to make sure they have it on their agenda Monday.”
Board of Supervisors President Bill Lauderdale said he has talked with Flaggs “and I told him we’re getting ready to take it up,” adding, “I hope we’ll be able to bring it up Monday.”
Lauderdale said issues involving the supervisors’ battles with former Circuit Clerk Shelly Ashley-Palmertree and property tax disputes with the casinos delayed action on the city’s request.
“We want to be able to help the city with its project,” he said.
The line will start at the water treatment plant at Haining Road, go south along North Washington Street to a point south of Vicksburg National Cemetery, where it will cross park property to Fort Hill Drive and then to Cherry Street, where it would connect with an existing city line on Jackson Street.
Plans for the auxiliary waterline project began in 2010 after a sudden shift in the soil on Washington Street during construction of the Corps’ Lower Mississippi River Museum and Interpretive Center threatened the city’s main 36-inch water line. The line was later relocated.
On November 2010, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen hired IMS to perform the engineering for the project. There had been little action by city officials on the project after IMS’ hiring until November 2013, when Flaggs called a meeting of IMS representatives, city officials, and Corps and National Military Park officials.
Since then, city and park officials and IMS representatives have addressed several issues, including resolving a wetlands problem where the line enters the park through a drainage area for Mint Springs.
In April, city and county officials approved an interlocal agreement that allowed the city take over the maintenance and repair of Fort Hill Drive, clearing the way to run the line south along Fort Hill to connect with the line on Jackson Street.
The agreement was necessary because the street is a county road that was deeded to the county by the National Park Service in 1936.