MONTICELLO — Thirteen officials from Lawrence, Walthall andCopiah counties and the state journeyed to Washington D.C. recentlyto pitch an economic development idea to the movers and shakers ofthe federal government.

“If this project comes to pass this could be one of the biggesteconomic benefits southwest Mississippi will ever see,” said MayorDavid Nichols.

Nichols, who originated the plan, said he thought of it a littleover a month ago, but it took time to make the rounds of localofficials to put it into motion.

The idea was sparked, he said, when he learned that Louisianawas studying possible evacuation routes for New Orleans.

“One of the routes being studied was Highway 25 from Covington,La., to the Mississippi state line at Walthall County and in theirplan was to four-lane Highway 25,” Nichols said.

The mayor said he realized there was a problem with utilizingHighway 25 as an evacuation route, but it was the same problemwhich plagued the other routes under study as well. The problem wasthat once Louisiana four-laned Highway 25, traffic would flowsmoothly until it hit the state line.

At the state line it would join Highway 27 and converge into twolanes. This would create a bottleneck at the state line and impedethe evacuation. Therefore, he reasoned, it would make sense tofour-lane Highway 27 as well.

“But more importantly to Mississippians than the evacuationroute is that it gives the three southwest Mississippi countiesinvolved a four-lane corridor from north-south,” Nichols said.

Coupled with a completed east-west Highway 84 four-laningproject, he said, Lawrence County would be ideally suited for moreindustry.

“That’s the first thing an industry looks at – How are we goingto move our goods?” Nichols said. “Transportation is the key toindustry.”

That was the plan Nichols pitched to officials along theproposed route. The response was overwhelming. As Nichols plannedthe Washington D.C. trip, 12 local officials agreed to attend orsend representatives.

Accompanying Nichols on his trip March 26-28 were: LawrenceCounty Beat 1 Supervisor Carey Hedgepeth; Paul McLain, executivedirector of Lawrence’s Community Development Association; JeffDungan, county engineer for Lawrence and Walthall counties and thecity of Tylertown; Walthall County Supervisors Shelton Stogner andKen Craft; Georgetown Mayor Carl Berry; Georgetown Alderman GregPhillips; Crystal Springs City Clerk Linda Caston; Jeff Knight,city engineer for Crystal Springs and Georgetown; Chuck Nelms ofthe Mississippi Development Authority; Janet Sullivan of theMississippi Department of Transportation; and Saiyed Rabbani, aMonticello industrial prospect.

The group’s first meeting was late March 26 with Wayne Burks, aformer Mississippi state legislator and Central District highwaycommissioner now serving on the National Transportation SafetyBoard.

“We showed him the project and left him a bunch of information,”Nichols said. “He’ll be a good ally to have once actual requestsfor funding are put forward.”

Nichols said Burks was very favorable to the plan during themeeting.

Tuesday was the busiest day of the trip as the group visitedwith the influential Mississippi congressmen in Congress.

Their first meeting was with Sen. Thad Cochran and two of hisaides, Chief of Staff Mark Keenum and Rachel Spence, who handlestransportation issues for the senator.

The group then met with Rep. Ronnie Shows and two of his aides,Chief of Staff Glenn Rushing and Legislative Director PhillipAlperson.

The last meeting of the day was with Sen. Trent Lott, Senatemajority leader. Two of his aides were also present, Chief CouncilStan Harris and Council and Director of Projects Angel Campbell. Inaddition, Lott had invited Kyle Ruckert, the legislative directorfor Rep. David Vitter of Louisiana’s First District. The evacuationroutes under study all flow through Vitter’s district.

Ruckert provided a Louisiana perspective to the meeting andhelped coordinate a meeting with Vitter for the next day.

“In the Wednesday meeting with Congressman Vitter, he offeredsome alternate routes, but was still committed to looking at anyand all routes and said he would work toward funding the studybetween Mississippi and Louisiana.”

The first step in getting the evacuation and four-laningprojects approved would be a $5 million evacuation route study. Thestudy would evaluate the feasibility of an evacuation corridor fromNew Orleans to Vicksburg. A project to four-lane Highway 27 fromCrystal Springs to Vicksburg has already been approved, so theproject being considered would include Highway 27 from theLouisiana state line to Crystal Springs.

“I went to D.C. with the expectation that we might have a 5-10percent chance of getting something done this year,” Nichols said.”After the trip, I feel we have a better than 50-50 chance ofseeing some action on this project this year.

“I was pleasantly surprised that all of them are going to worktoward the first step of this project this year,” Nicholsadded.