The sole bid to install improvements at the Vicksburg Water Treatment Plant on Haining Road was taken under advisement by the Vicksburg Board of Mayor and Aldermen Monday.

The lone bid by Hemphill Construction of $2,930,985, which is $830,985 more than the project’s estimated $2.1 million cost, was referred to Houston, Texas-based Trilogy Engineering, the project engineer, and city public works officials for review.

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen in March approved advertising the project for bids to improve the plant’s capacity and install another water well at the plant. Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said at the time the project is being funded through a state infrastructure loan.

According to a proposal from Trilogy, the project involves installing two parallel lines adjacent to two existing lines between the clarifier and filter; a backwash pump at the plant’s existing location and a new on-site groundwater well installation on the plant property.

The improvements were included in a July 2021 report on the city’s water system. The board hired Trilogy to perform an assessment of the city’s water system after the February 2021 ice storm that shut the system down.

When the report was presented, David Peters, senior project manager for Trilogy, said the plant has the capacity of treating up to 16 million gallons of water per day but the pipes carrying water to the plant’s clarifier, which is used to soften the water during the treatment process by mixing lime during the process, developed deposits and are constricted, reducing the plant’s maximum capacity to 10 or 11 MGD.

“We’re trying to go from 11 million gallons a day to about 21-22 million gallons a day and a new well,” Flaggs said in March. “This will clear us for the port (expansion).”

He said the city also has money to build another water tower in south Vicksburg, but that will be done later.