[06/22/01] Warren County can spend funds to study a proposed levee to provide year-around access to Kings Point, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

The opinion letter says supervisors may allocate an additional $125,000 as its share for a feasibility study if board members find it “is reasonable, necessary and beneficial to the county.”

District 2 Supervisor Michael Mayfield, whose district includes Kings Point, said that the board members had not discussed the opinion and its effect on the proposed $5.2 million to $8 million levee, but that the project should come up at the next board meeting.

“I think Wednesday we will hopefully decide which direction we’re going to go with this,” Mayfield said.

Choices confronting the board are whether to fund 35 percent of the cost of constructing the levee, building a bridge to the island which is estimated to cost $3 million to $4 million or continuing to operate the $250,000-a-year ferry which provides the only access to the farming, hunting and timber land when the Mississippi River rises above 18 feet.

Warren County has been working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers since 1999 on studies to construct a levee along the Mississippi River side of the island to reduce flooding in the area. The project has been on hold since initial federal funds were spent on feasibility studies and the county was asked to fund 50 percent of the cost to complete the study.

“We need to make a move to let the state know that we’re interested,” Mayfield said.

The opinion dated June 1 was the second requested by the board of supervisors and the third from the Attorney General regarding the proposed levee on Kings Point. In the first opinion requested by supervisors, the Attorney General’s Office stated that the county could spend the $200,000 allocated by the state for a feasibility study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.