Erosion behind the third base dugout at the Sherman Avenue ballpark is threatening it and a nearby church, forcing the city to seek federal money from the Natural Resource Conservation Service to fix it.

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen Friday approved a resolution to apply for Emergency Watershed Protection Program Recovery funds to cover 85 percent of the project’s estimated $600,000 cost. The board is trying to renovate the park’s baseball field for youth baseball.

“We had a significant rain event that allowed us to apply for this money,” said City Attorney Nancy Thomas. She said she was unable to get information from NRCS officials when the money would be available.

The park sits in a hill overlooking a residential area on Riviera Boulevard, which has several homes sitting at the base of the hill that are affected by the erosion. Mount Zion No. 4 Church, which is next to the park is also threatened. The eroded area by the dugout is presently blocked off by an orange net barrier.

Vicksburg has had near record rainfalls since January with most of it falling in March, when a total 12.19 inches of rain fell locally — the third most for this area during March, according to National Weather Service records.

“It’s a bad erosion on the back side (of the park) by the dugout, where the water has drained; it’s just washed it all out,” Public Works Director Garnet Van Norman said. “All those homes are down below it, and all the dirt that’s going off that ball field is going into the backyards of the houses, and the church next to it is in the same shape.”

The city will have to fix the problems at the park and the church, he said, adding, “You really can’t fix one without fixing the other one.”

North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield said he surveyed the erosion area to check the extent of the problem.

“It involves a greater portion of that hill than we anticipated,” he said. He said he also found water was undermining about 30 percent of the ground.

“So it’s (the project) a lot bigger than we expected, and when you have rain the way we’ve had over the past few months, it doesn’t take long for a small project to turn into a big project,” he said. “That’s why it’s going to cost so much money. We want to do it right because there are houses right below that, and we don’t want to get caught in a position where it involves anyone else’s property.”