The Board of Mayor and Aldermen is looking for an engineering firm to plan and design the extension of the levee surrounding Vicksburg Forest Products.

The board at a special called meeting Monday authorized City Clerk Walter Osborne to advertise a request for quotations for engineering services.

Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said the Mississippi Legislature approved $1.2 million for the project, which would protect a section of the city’s main waterline and provide room for Vicksburg Forest Products to expand. The project’s cost has not been determined.

“As you recall, we had a (waterline) to blow out; it was submerged under 10 feet of water,” Flaggs told the board. “If this levee had placed there we probably would have been dry. So this levee is very important to the 592 (waterline) project and the future of Vicksburg and at the same time the Vicksburg Forest Products expansion.”

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen in May approved an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Vicksburg District for technical assistance in relocating the levee.

At the time, preliminary plans involved building a new levee along the north side of Haining Road at Long Lake Road and into the existing levee. The levee was originally built to protect the former Anderson-Tully mill.

During the May 2017 flood, a valve on the section of the main waterline west of the levee broke, forcing the board to declare an emergency and hire a contractor to build a dike around the submerged waterline so the valve could be replaced.

The problem also forced city officials to close the water treatment plant’s main valve to prevent backflow and issue a boil water notice that ran for three days.