CHARLESTON -- Mississippi County commissioners are hoping the latest news regarding the levee is just a mistake and not a change of plans.
Presiding County Commissioner Carlin Bennett asked Robert Jackson and Steve Jones, associate commissioners, during their regular weekly meeting Thursday if their recollection about plans for the restoration on the Birds Point-New Madrid levee was the same as his.
Bennett said it has been his understanding that Phase 1, which is nearing completion, was to include building the levee back to a height of 55 feet with a base wide enough for the second phase which would take the levee back to its original height of 62.5 feet.
Jackson and Jones agreed that was the plan as stated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer during numerous meetings.
Bennett said his recollection is also that the three top bidders for work on the first phase were to be the only three eligible for Phase 2 work.
According to an emailed update on the work on the levee received last week, Bennett said, Phase 1 work is now being described as including areas breached while Phase 2 will work to bring the entire system up to 55 feet.
"There was no mention in there of going to 62 and a half feet in Phase 2," he said.
Bennett said he is hoping it was just a mistake but as far as he and other county residents are concerned, it would be "a pretty doggone good-sized mistake."
As the county's primary contact with the Corps for the project, Dennis Abernathy, retired Saturday, according to Bennett, county officials will now need to get contact information for his replacement, Regina Kuykendoll-Cash.
"I've met her one time but don't have her phone number or know anything about her," he said.
Bennett said this remains an important issue for county residents.
"We need to get to the bottom of this. I think the people around here deserve to know," he said.
Based on prior discussion of Phase 1 and Phase 2, area residents are hoping to see the levee restored to its original height of 62.5 feet by the end of December, Bennett said.
"That's what we've been told over and over and over again," he said.