Progress was made Friday afternoon toward relocating the endangered Washington Street water main, as Mayor Paul Winfield executed a memorandum of understanding with the Vicksburg District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The memorandum of understanding allows the board to firm up details of the pipe fix with Corps engineers and potential contractors, City Attorney Lee Davis Thames Jr. said, so that bids and proposals can be prepared.

The meeting with the Corps is expected to be held Wednesday, with proposals opened and awarded the following Monday.

“We will be getting at least two quotes, so it will be competitive,” Thames said.

Winfield’s authorization came at a called meeting of the Vicksburg Board of Mayor and Aldermen attended by Winfield and North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield. South Ward Alderman Sid Beauman was not present.

The Corps of Engineers will pay the cost of moving the water main away from the unsettled area on Washington Street. The current plan is to shift it one block west at Main Street, a block south via Walnut Street and back to Washington along Jackson Street.

About 10,000 residential and business water customers in the city, and a few rural areas, are served by the pipeline or its offshoots. Thames said when work begins, city water customers might be without water for a short period of time but officials are planning for the outage to occur between midnight and 6 a.m.

The 36-inch pipe — the primary conduit of water into the city from well fields at the Port of Vicksburg — was discovered to be in jeopardy March 26 after a land shift on Washington at Jackson Street, near an under construction interpretive Corps of Engineers center.

Both city and county officials have declared emergencies, which enables immediate action to be taken and qualifies the city for reimbursement in the event the pipe breaks.

Besides the memorandum of understanding — an agreement between two parties in the form of a legal document but not fully binding like a contract is — the only other item on Friday’s agenda was an authorization for the mayor to sign a contract with the federal government for “relocation, rearrangement or alteration of facilities.” The item was not taken up by the board because specifications and pricing details are still incomplete, Thames said.

Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com