For the first time in perhaps 50 years, the road along the riverbank below Natchez’s bluffs is open.

For now only construction trucks and authorized vehicles can drive along what used to be Water Street and up the old Roth’s Hill Road, but eventually the city will pave Roth’s Hill, said City Engineer David Gardner.

&uot;We may be some of the first people to drive along this road in quite some time,&uot;&160;Gardner said, making the loop on a dirt road from Silver Street all the way to Learned’s Mill Road.

Crews from Schnabel Construction Co. have been working on the bluff above the site since last fall, reinforcing the hill from Madison to State streets.

Funded by federal and state grants administered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the stabilization is the second of three major phases that will reinforce the river bluff, preventing further erosion and safeguarding against potentially dangerous mudslides. The unstable, soft loess soil that makes up the bluff is the culprit.

Eventually crews will build about a 60-foot retaining wall along 2,700 feet of bluffs from Madison to State streets, Gardner said.

He said the design is &uot;pretty much the same&uot; as the first phase completed by Hayward Baker last year below Clifton Avenue. Soil nails are driven into the side of the hill to reinforce it, then the entire wall is sprayed the a thick layer of concrete.

Schnabel’s bid on the project was $5.2 million. The city has received a total of $12.5 million in state and federal grants for all of the bluff work.

The next, and last, phase of stabilization work will take in the area from Silver Street to Fort Rosalie.

City officials have tried to push that project onto a fast track, getting paperwork done early with the Corps of Engineers so that bids can be advertised soon.

&uot;I definitely think we’ll have the last phase and this phase under contract at the same time,&uot; Gardner said.

With what used to be Water Street along the river open to construction traffic as well, the roads are being traveled for the first time in perhaps 50 years.

Although the erosion of the bluff has been gradual over time, getting the entire project quickly is important. The Clifton Avenue phase was first because the houses along that road could be most threatened by a sudden slide of the silty loess soil on the bluff.

In the 1980s, a sudden slide above Natchez Under-the-Hill killed two people as mud crashed down on the buildings below.

Roth’s Hill Road will be rebuilt and reinforced in the same way Learned’s Mill Road was two years ago, Gardner said.

And Water Street — once home to the Natchez Water Plant — will become the site of a park if Gardner and other city officials have their way.