The costs of needed repairs to the U.S. 80 Mississippi River Bridge will exceed available funds, leaving members of the commission that oversees the county-owned span looking for alternate sources of money.

The Vicksburg Bridge Commission was presented cost estimates Wednesday for the erosion-control project, about $4.1 million, and repairs to an expansion joint, about $1 million.

Added with current projects that include an $800,000 contract to make repairs to the bridge’s east approach and a $1.7 million track replacement project with Kansas City Southern Railway, the cost will total about $7.6 million, about $700,000 more than what’s in the commission’s bank account today.

“We’re about to get our backs against the wall,” said Commissioner Bob Moss. “We’re almost out of money.”

Also on the drawing board is the conversion of the bridge roadbed into a pedestrian and bicycle path. Engineers with ABMB, a local firm that is drawing up plans for the park, presented the commission with their initial report and cost estimates of about $1.6 million for the park. The cost of repairs to the road deck has also been estimated at about $1.6 million.

Added with the cost of other repairs, the total funding needed for all the proposed projects is about $10.8 million.

“The next problem is how are we going to pay for all this,” Moss said.

Engineers with ABMB say one possible source of funding is the federal government. The firm has already approached federal officials about the portion of the erosion control project that will help stabilize and preserve National Park Service property at Navy Circle, said Lynn Wolfe with ABMB.

The bluff is the source of dirt that has been sliding and is threatening the stability of the bridge. Erosion problems under the span are also threatening two natural gas pipelines, creating urgency with the project.

Wolfe presented commission members with a three-phase plan that will stabilize the area immediately around the pipelines and the bridge supports first. Phase I cost estimate is $100,000 and would be funded totally by the bridge commission.

Phase II of that project would be the construction of new retaining walls and terracing of the bluff and is estimated to cost about $1 million. The final phase, which they hope will include federal funding, will cost about $3 million and would be similar to the project to stabilize the bluffs at Natchez where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has completed a project.

Wolfe said plans could be ready by the commission’s next meeting on April 6.

A separate project being designed by HNTB Engineers of Baton Rouge will reopen the expansion joint between piers 3 and 4 of the bridge. Bridge sections at the expansion joint there, one of about seven across the bridge that allows for the expansion of steel during the warmer weather, are pressed together and could cause a buckle in the roadway if it is not repaired before summer.

“What has happened is with the movement of Pier 2 over 75 years the expansion joint has almost closed,” said bridge superintendent Herman Smith.

Built in 1930 and purchased by Warren County in 1947, the bridge has shifted to the west over the past 75 years. Most of that movement has been seen at Pier 2, the second concrete pier from the Mississippi bank, but movement has been recorded at other places.

Similar movement has been recorded in the Interstate 20 bridge and is being studied by the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development.

Warren County has operated the U.S. 80 span akin to a private business by charging per-car tolls to the KCS for use of the tracks that run parallel to the roadway and rentals rates for utilities attached to the structure.

Since the North American Free Trade Agreement increased rail traffic to Mexico since 1994 the bridge commission has built up a reserve of $6.9 million including about $1.8 million from utility leases. Federal law prohibits spending tax dollars on the bridge.

Although the span has been closed to vehicular traffic since 1998, railroad traffic continues at a rate of about 16 trains per day. The commission has proposed increasing the toll from $4 per car to $14 per car in order to fund all repairs. So far, KCS has opposed that increase as well as the proposed park plan.