The proposed auxiliary waterline could soon be going out for bids, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen learned Tuesday.

“We’re about there,” city attorney Nancy Thomas said. “The plans and specs are complete, and we’re having to get permission from KCS to bore under the railroad tracks and we’ve got to get the go-ahead from the health department and an easement from the county. Once we get all that, we can go.”

Thomas’ comments came as the board approved filling a request for permission from the Kansas City Railroad to bore under the tracks on the west side of North Washington Street to move the line from the city’s water treatment plant on Haining Road under the street to the east side.

Mayor George Flaggs Jr. has predicted the project will be completed by March 2018.

Under the proposed plans for the project, the backup waterline will go south on North Washington Street to connect to an existing 30-inch line on Jackson Street. The project has taken a sense of urgency since a valve broke on the city’s main waterline in May, forcing city officials to shut the line down for four days and issue a boil water notice.

Discussion of an auxiliary waterline began in 2010 after a landslide at the construction site of the Corps’ Jesse Brent Lower Mississippi River Museum and Interpretive Center on Washington Street threatened the city’s main waterline.

IMS Engineers of Jackson was hired to handle the water project in November 2010 during the administration of former Mayor Paul Winfield, and proposed a route that took the waterline from the water treatment plant on Haining Road, under North Washington Street, across the Vicksburg National Military Park, then down Fort Hill Drive to tie into the existing line at Jackson Street.

The city in 2015 received bids on the project from four companies; all exceeded the project’s estimated budget from more than $3 million to more than $5 million.

The highest of the four was $8.57 million from T.L. Wallace Construction of Columbia, with DirtWorks Inc. of Vicksburg coming in at $8.346 million. S.J. Louis Construction of Texas and Hemphill Construction of Florence had the lowest bids of $7.626 million and $7.329 million, respectively.

City officials believe the proposed route was one reason the bids were so high.

The board in 2015 fired IMS after paying the company $212,331.50 between Feb. 15, 2011, and Aug. 29, 2014, and in January 2016 signed a $193,589 contract with Dallas-based EJES, which has an office in Jackson, to review, re-examine and possibly redraw the plans in an attempt to keep the waterline project within budget.