Vicksburg is getting $58,500 in Federal Aviation Administration funds to assess the drainage system at the Vicksburg Municipal Airport.

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen Monday authorized Mayor George Flaggs Jr. to sign a grant agreement with the FAA, which approved the city’s grant application in July.

The money is part of a larger grant application to cover 90 percent, or $299,970 of the $333,000 cost to assess and repair the airport’s drainage system, with the city and the Mississippi Department of Transportation splitting the remaining 10 percent, or $16,665 each.

The city applied for the grant in November 2016. At the time, Public Works Director Garnet Van Norman said the work was overdue.

“The airport was built in the 40s,” he said. “It’s got old (storm drain) pipes running from all kinds of drainage basins. There’s three or four pipes that go under the runway itself and it needs to looked at and fixed.

“It needed to be fixed years ago, and they didn’t. Now they’re looking at how to assess it and try to fix it. It needs to be addressed. It’s several different catch basins around there that probably haven’t been taken care of over the last 70 years.”

Other than when floodwaters from the 2011 spring Mississippi River flood covered the airport’s south runway, Van Norman said he could not recall the airport runway being flooded because of runoff from storms.