After six years and spending an estimated $6 million in sewer repairs and upgrades, the city of Vicksburg has been released from its consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen accepted the EPA letter lifting the decree at its Friday meeting.

“I don’t think the people understand what just happened,” Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said. “We’ve been relieved from what we have to do on waste water to comply (with the EPA). These do not come every day. You’ve got so many cities in the state of Mississippi that are under these.”

He looked at public works director Garnet Van Norman, telling him, “I’m surprised you’re not standing and shouting out.”

The city during the administration of then-Mayor Paul Winfield signed the consent decree in 2013 after an EPA report cited the city for allowing raw sewage to be dumped into the Mississippi River and other local streams during a five-year period.

Under the terms of the decree, the board agreed to pay a $17,000 fine, develop an ordinance regulating the disposal of grease and cooking fats in the city’s sewer system, and agreed to assess, map, repair, replace and upgrade one-tenth of the city’s 112-year-old sewer system over the next 10 years.

Van Norman and city accounting director Doug Whittington said the estimated $6 million represents how much the city has spent so far on assessing and fixing the system.

“We still have more to go,” Van Norman said.

And although the city is out from under the decree, Van Norman said, it will still have to comply with the order to assess and fix the sewer system.

“We just won’t have to send in periodic reports on what we’re doing,” he said. “We’ll be working on our schedule, not theirs. But they will come back and check on us to make sure we’re doing what we’re supposed to do.”

Flaggs told Van Norman, “You need to be commended and the city needs to be commended for what you’ve accomplished. This is a major accomplishment.

“The government says that you have satisfied them to a level that they respect that you know what to do going forward, or go forward with this process without them holding your hand every step of the way.

“I never thought this day would come.”