The company with the contract to manage and operate Vicksburg’s water treatment plant on Haining Road is looking for a similar arrangement with the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

ESG Operations Inc. of Macon Ga., was one of four companies submitting proposals Friday to operate the plant on Rifle Range Road. Other companies were Veolia North America-South of Tampa Florida, Maintenance Systems Inc. of Florence and Inframark of Katy, Texas.

The proposals were received by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, which referred them to a seven-member board appointed in November to review and recommend a plan.

Mayor George Flaggs Jr. did not know when the committee will make its recommendation.

“They have to look at them,” he said, adding just as they did with the water treatment plant, city officials will meet with the wastewater plant’s employees about the change to privatization.

Flaggs has discussed privatizing the wastewater treatment plant several times, citing the city’s rising utility costs. He said in November he believed “the time has come to look at it (privatization) for the better good of the plant operations and its employees, and with the (Environmental Protection Agency) consent decree, we just think that it’s better we outsource this and work from that respect.”

The decision to privatize the plant came as the city reviewed its utility rate structure to cover the cost of providing water and sewer service and maintaining the systems. The board is expected in June to approve increases in water and sewer rates that will take effect Oct. 1, which is the start of the new fiscal year.

The city also hired Houston, Texas-based Water Company of America to perform an audit of the system to find users who aren’t paying their fair share for what they use.

The wastewater treatment plant went on line in 1973. In the two years, it has had two major problems. A clarifier at the plant was damaged when it popped out of the ground, forcing the city to spend $1.3 million to replace it. In April 2017, heavy rains caused two nearby creeks to swell and flood the plant, putting 2 feet of water in the buildings and damaging motors in the plant’s power plant.

The city in July 2016 approved a 10-year contract with ESG to operate the water treatment plant. Veolia North America-South, one of the four companies seeking the wastewater treatment contract, also submitted a proposal to operate and manage the water treatment plant.