NATCHEZ — Adams County Supervisors selected a construction company Monday to begin phase two of the Belwood levee project.
Supervisors opened 12 bids on Friday from various companies from as far as Clarksdale and Baton Rouge and as close as local construction companies in Natchez.
Camo Construction Company, based out of Vidalia, received the bid, after bidding approximately $25,000 less than the engineering estimate provided to supervisors.
The engineer’s estimate predicted costs of phase two to be as much as $650,820.
Camo Construction bid $625,640.25 for the work, which would include clearing and excavating 1,000 more feet of levee as well as seeding the levee constructed in phase one, among other duties.
Construction on phase two will start, Adams County Engineer Jim Marlow said, after the contracts have been signed and a start date is set.
“This type of work, the weather plays a big part in whether we can do anything,” Marlow said. “We just approved the bid today.”

Marlow said then end goal is to have the levee extend all the way to River Terminal Road.
The first phase of the project constructed approximately a levee approximately 3,800 feet long on the old Belwood Country Club industrial site.
The second phase will add an additional 1,000 feet of levee to the existing structure.
Marlow said a third phase will be necessary to complete the project, but that funding and planning for that phase is not yet finished.
Phases one and two were funded by a grant from the Delta Regional Authority, which supervisors lobbied for earlier in Washington, D.C.
Phase one was completed with approximately $1.2 million, board attorney Scott Slover said.
The second phase cost approximately half of that amount.
Former board president Mike Lazarus and vice president David Carter will travel to Washington, D.C., to lobby for funding for phase three of the project in late January.
“The idea is by the time we get funding for phase three, phase two will be completed,” Slover said.
Completion of the project, which began in June 2017, could bring in new manufacturing companies, Slover said.
“This is very valuable real-estate,” Slover said. “There is a high probability that it will be placed with a manufacturer upon completion.”
The only barrier to finishing the project, Slover said, is funding.
“The challenge is always the same challenge,” Slover said. “You want to make sure they know this is a quality project that will be of some benefit to the people.”