Additional federal grants for Vicksburg Tallulah Regional Airport appear to be at risk if the City of Vicksburg scraps its participation as a one-fourth owner of the Mound facility.

Letters were sent immediately following today’s decision by the city board terminating the current agreement to fund basic operations along with Warren County, Tallulah and Madison Parish. A 25-year contract inked by the local governments in 1983 expires this year. Participation has cost each owner $20,000 to $30,000 per year — about the cost of a patrol car. Most of the regional airport’s operating income is derived through fuel sales, hangar rentals and user fees.

“We’re hoping to enter into a new agreement,” City Attorney Nancy Thomas said Tuesday, adding the city is angling for a 10-year pact.

However, a 10-year pact may not meet Federal Aviation Administration rules. The agency, which paid 90 percent of construction costs and has provided millions for improvements, requires grant recipients to agree to keep sponsoring airports up to 20 years after the money is awarded.

“It means they have to keep it an airport for 20 years,” said Lacey D. Spriggs, manager of the FAA’s Texas-based Southwest Region Airports Division, adding a $4 million grant awarded this summer for a lighted, parallel taxiway obligates all four sponsors until 2028.

Each partner has paid varying amounts, between $20,000 and $30,000. Fuel costs and a need for a multi-unit T-hangar will bump the necessary stipend to more than $34,000, according to VTR’s budget for this year.

Though meetings of the airport’s advisory board convene monthly, the last face-to-face between the four managing entities was in April 2007. At the time, Mayor Laurence Leyens implored the five-person board to come up with a detailed list of long-term goals to justify the city’s continued involvement.

Meanwhile, the city has ramped up work at Vicksburg Municipal Airport on U.S. 61 South, the newer airport’s tacit rival for business, which was restored to the Federal Aviation Administration’s list of airports eligible for grants last year. The one-paragraph letter gave no explanation about how Vicksburg Municipal had become eligible again, after having been removed in favor of VTR when that airport opened in 1993.

About $1.3 million in Katrina-related disaster recovery money awarded to the city in April has been eyed for a new fire station on the Vicksburg airport property, updating and replacing a fire station opened there when the City of Vicksburg annexed the area in 1990. Along with the new fire station construction, city officials plan to remodel the airport terminal in the next 18 months.

Benny Terrell, the city’s appointee to the VTR board, said another meeting is being arranged with the four owners about the city’s desire to shorten the term of the contract “even with the provisions set down by the FAA.”

“When you’re dealing with four government entities, you’ve got to make sure you have everyone involved,” Terrell said.

Warren County and the airport’s Louisiana partners reported not receiving any correspondence from the city on the latest attempt to rework the contract.

“It’s a little bit surprising,” Tallulah Mayor Eddie Beckwith said. “You’d think they would at least give us a courtesy on that.”

Madison Parish Police Jury President James J. Griffin declined comment on contract talks until its attorney can review Vicksburg’s letter.

Wrangling over the two airports has been almost nonstop. Construction of VTR, about eight miles west of Vicksburg, grew out of a study on whether Vicksburg Municipal could be improved. That study revealed FAA grants were available for new construction of regional facilities, and elected officials at that time saw it as an opportunity to get an all-new, expandable airport to replace Vicksburg Municipal, built in 1950.

Warren County supervisors threatened pulling out of the regional deal several times. Ten years ago, Vicksburg officials voted to close the city’s airport. That led to a lawsuit by industrialists, businessmen and civilian pilots who favored Vicksburg Municipal and continued to operate it, privately, for four years.

In 2002, the state Supreme Court ruled the city had the authority to close the airport, but a newer board of mayor and aldermen favored keeping it open.