A new spending bill being debated in Congress could provide morethan $650,000 for infrastructure projects in Lincoln and Lawrencecounties, officials said.

The Fiscal Year 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act, a more than$410 billion spending bill moving through Congress, contains threeline item appropriations for two Brookhaven projects and oneLawrence County job.

If passed, the act would appropriate $260,000 for sewerimprovements in Brookhaven. Also, city officials said they had beeninformed of another $95,000 for installing fiber optic conduit atthe growing Linbrook Business Park industrial site.

In Lawrence County, a $299,250 appropriation would help sustaindeliveries to and from the Georgia Pacific mill, the county’slargest employer, by funding the finishing touches for improvementsto R.A. Sandifer Road, which began last year.

U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., announced the funding plans ina release earlier this week.

Congress is expected to act on the spending bill before acontinuing resolution that has kept the government going expires onMarch 6. The bill passed the House of RepresentativesWednesday.

Brookhaven Mayor Bob Massengill said his city could always useassistance for sewer upgrades. There are several projects ongoingand planned in the city.

“There are always sewer needs,” said Massengill. “When you’vegot a city of our age, you’ll always have infrastructureneeds.”

During 2008, the city worked on and toward several projects,including the approval of a $2.3 million job that covered six cityareas and the planning of an approximately $1.2 million job for theOle Brook community that came into city limits with the 2007annexation.

Massengill said the city board would decide which of its manysewer projects is funded with the omnibus money. There are plentyto choose from, however, with the city’s project recently expandedto generate “shovel-ready” projects for receiving stimulusmoney.

“We submitted several days ago a significant dollar amount ofneed as far as sewer is concerned, in the neighborhood of around$14 million,” Massengill said. “For water projects, we submitted arequest in excess of $4 million, knowing that all of that willlikely not get funded. But you have to go through the process ofapplying.”

In Lawrence County, Monticello Mayor Dave Nichols said the$299,250 appropriation would tie up loose ends on R.A. SandiferRoad, which was widened and resurfaced last year with federalassistance.

The city and county ran into trouble, however, when they foundout approximately $300,000 worth of additional work would have tobe done at the highway’s railroad crossing near Highway 27 in orderto meet federal highway guidelines. The omnibus appropriation willallow the installation of crossing arms and light signalsthere.

“That $300,000 would be 15-20 miles of roads the county wouldnot be able to seal this year,” Nichols said. “We were able to getthat in there and leave the State Aid road money alone.”

Nichols said work on N.A. Sandifer Road was economicallyimportant to Lawrence County because of the high volume of trucktraffic going to and from Georgia Pacific. He said the road wasbuilt in the 1960s, when trucks were lighter, fewer and haulamounts were much less than today’s 84,000 pounds.

“It was literally falling apart and not conducive to a businesslike Georgia Pacific,” Nichols said.

Both Brookhaven’s and Lawrence County’s projects were includedin the omnibus bill as a result of the government officials’ annualtrips to meet with Mississippi’s congressional delegation.