Mayor George Flaggs Jr. returned to Washington, D.C., Monday at the invitation of the Trump administration to discuss infrastructure, taking with him a request for $195 million federal assistance for major infrastructure projects in Vicksburg.

The meeting with President Trump and administration officials came as the president outlined a $1.5 tillion infrastructure program plan using $200 billion in federal funds with state and local governments providing matching funds on at least a four-to-one ratio.

The administration said existing funding sources such as sales taxes already levied highway projects may count towards a local match.

“Considering the place seating, I think it went extremely well. I sat between the president of the United States and Secretary of Transportation; that can’t be bad,” Flaggs said.

“I talked about small cities being able to improve their water quality and wastewater treatment, and how they would be able to afford it. When (Trump) starts talking about $200 billion for local infrastructure, you can get no better than that.”

He called the meeting productive, and commended Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant for “piggybacking” on the city’s projects.

Flaggs’ list includes three priority projects:

• Multimodal Port of Vicksburg: $125 million.

“The multimodal port is something totally new,” Flaggs said. “That’s a game changer by itself. That’s 500 jobs and creating more opportunities for Vicksburg than ever before, because that’s a whole different port and it’s been thought out what we need in order to become competitive.”

He said Bryant presented the multimodal port plan to the president’s infrastructure committee.

“When you look at the distance of Continental (Tire) and the Nissan plant (from Vicksburg) and the distance between Jackson and the Gulf Coast, that’s a game changer,” he said.

The plan calls for developing a new Port of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River to take advantage of Vicksburg’s location on the river and its access to Interstate 20, U.S. 61, the Vicksburg Airport and CSX Railroad.

Flaggs has been one of several city and county officials interested in getting Warren County, the port and the Ceres Industrial Park ready for companion industries and suppliers that will serve the proposed Continental Tire Plant expected to be built west of Clinton.

He has proposed a $7 million U.S. 61 North bypass road that is expected to shorten the distance between the highway and Interstate 20, and reroute 18-wheelers away from downtown. Presently, 18-wheelers heading north to the Port of Vicksburg take a route that puts them on Washington Street to Levee Street and then back on Washington, creating traffic problems downtown.

• Environmental Infrastructure: $50 million.

Flaggs is asking the administration to continue Environmental Infrastructure accounts to help fund projects like waterlines and wastewater treatment plants, and restoring funding or the Section 592 program for projects.

The city’s auxiliary waterline project is funded in part by a $2.45 million U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 592 grant, and Flaggs is seeking additional funding help for a waterline project, which had a $3.565 million cost in 2015 that has now increased to about $5 million.

The mayor is also proposing construction of a second wastewater treatment plant possibly south of the present plant on Rifle Range Road. Vicksburg is presently under an Environmental Protection Agency consent decree to assess, rehabilitate, upgrade and repair its 111-year-old sewer system. Flaggs projects the city will spend about $50 million over the next seven to eight years.

• Hennessey Bayou Watershed Restoration: $20 million.

Hennessey Bayou flows into the Mississippi River south of Entergy’s Baxter Wilson power plant and substation, which distributes electricity generated by the Grand Gulf Nuclear Power Station and serves customers throughout Mississippi and Louisiana.

The bayou during the 2011 spring Mississippi River flood began trying to cut a new channel to the Mississippi, causing erosion problems and forcing the closure of the Kemp Bottom Road bridge that goes to Baxter Wilson and threatening the plant property.

Flaggs said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Vicksburg District is working on the problem.