Repairs to a slide area on the south end of Riverfront Park were halted Jan. 4 after workers at the site struck oil.

According to a report with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, a track hoe for contractor Central Asphalt dug up a scoop of oil believed to have been left over from a former tank farm that was in the area while removing soil.

DEQ spokesman Cody Fisher wrote in an email that the hole was refilled and the site was stabilized. “Since there is no active release occurring, MDEQ is researching who the potential responsible party may be prior to remediating the site,” Fisher said.

He added DEQ will continue to monitor the site and deal with any other release that may occur until officials can develop a plan remediate and clean up the problem.

“There appears to be no active threat at this time,” he said.

Although there is some speculation the oil may have come from a pipeline, Brian Robbins with project engineers Stantec said officials will not know the exact source of the liquid until further excavation is done by DEQ.

“There is a pipe involved, but whether it’s a pipeline, no one will know until they get in there,” he said. “We have shut everything down there. We’re not going to continue doing any work because we don’t want to do anything to have that liquid spread and cause further problems. We’re going to leave this to the experts.”

City public works director Garnet Van Norman and Board of Supervisors President Richard George said they remember a tank farm in that area of the park in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, “But that was way back from the riverbank,” George said.

George said the city and county bought the property where the leak was discovered in the early 1990s. He said there were no problems with any foreign liquids when the park was built.

“This is the first time we’ve seen or heard of anything being excavated; that was unknown.”

City and county officials closed Riverfront Park for 90 days starting Dec. 3 to let Central Asphalt of Vicksburg repair the slide area on the south end of the park and resurface the play areas.

A section of the bluff on the south end of the park began slowly sliding off the bank in April 2015, taking part of the park’s perimeter fence and walking trail, and threatening one play area, part of which sits on the slide.

The city and county boards have each contributed $150,000 to the project, which was delayed while the Mississippi River level fell so the repairs could be made.

The city and county will contribute the extra money to make up the $24,374 difference between the bid and the original amount set aside for the project.

To fix the slide, a contractor will have to excavate topsoil along the top bank of the river — a project that will require removing some playground equipment to provide enough room to make the repairs, which involves dirt work and rehabilitating underground drain pipes that were part of the cause of the slide.