City officials could soon be ready to advertise for bids for the second phase of the city’s sewer line assessment program to determine the condition of the city’s 109-year-old sewer system.

The board Monday approved a $138,600 contract amendment with Jackson engineers Allen and Hoshall to continue handling the engineering and mapping for the second phase of the assessment and mapping project.

“We hope to be able to go out for bids real soon on that (the assessment),” Public Works Director Garnet Van Norman said.

The city is under a 2013 consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency, which cited the city for allowing raw sewage to be discharged into local streams, including the Mississippi River. Under the consent decree, the city is required to assess, map and repair, replace or upgrade one-tenth of the system each year for 10 years.

The initial assessment of the first 10th of the system has been completed by Suncoast Environmental of Florence, Van Norman said.

“Suncoast is getting all the data together, and once we get it we can start getting ready to go out for bids on the first phase,” he said. “We don’t know the cost yet, but it could run as much as $3 million to $4 million a year. That’s a guesstimate. We really won’t know for sure until we go out for bids.”

He did not know when the Board of Mayor and Aldermen would go out for bids on the repairs, adding, “we are still trying to get everything ready for that phase.”

Some of the repair work has already been done.

The board approved sewer and water line work to correct potential problems in advance of the first phase of street paving under the city’s capital improvements plan. Some of the work was done as the streets were being overlaid.

The second round of paving is set to begin soon, and Van Norman said the city will follow the same policy on sewer and water line repairs when the paving begins.

“The streets designated for paving will receive priority, and we will fix any problems found during the assessment,” he said. “We don’t want to overlay a street just to have to dig it up because we have a problem.”