JACKSON (AP) — Mississippi’s busiest passenger airport has received four bids to complete a stalled construction project that left Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport with one usable runway for months beyond the scheduled completion date, officials say.

The $13.3 million project was supposed to be finished in June 2011, but work stopped because of a dispute with the contractor over the quality of asphalt being put down.

Airport CEO Dirk Vanderleest said Friday that the Jackson Municipal Airport Authority received the bids this past week and will pick the “lowest and best” one.

Vanderleest said he hopes work will start 30 to 45 days after awarding the contract.

The runway construction project was to remove Yazoo clay, a common type of clay across central Mississippi that swells when saturated with water. It has long been known to cause cracks in home foundations and to create problems for roadways and other structures. The clay under the airport has caused a hump in the runway, airport officials said.

The original contract was with Rifenburg Construction Inc. of Durham, N.C. Rifenburg demanded arbitration on Nov. 8, 2011, over disagreements about the asphalt tests. The company was seeking $2.5 million in damages and expenses, according to airport records.

The Jackson Municipal Airport Authority’s Board of Commissioners voted on Nov. 21, 2011, to find Rifenburg in default on the contract.

Rifenburg attorney Mark Herbert has said the airport used quality tests not covered in the contract. He said Rifenburg wanted arbitration so an independent party could determine whether the asphalt met contractual standards.

Vanderleest has said the airport hopes to get back about $5.5 million paid to Rifenburg Construction.

Vanderleest has said the closed runway is “more of an inconvenience than a problem,” but it needs to be completed as soon as possible so resurfacing can begin on the other runway.

The closed runway has caused air traffic controllers to launch departures between arrivals instead of using one runway for planes coming in and the other for departing aircraft, Federal Aviation Administration officials have said. That makes for more complex operations, but officials say safety is not a concern.

The open runway has what is known as an instrument landing system for poor weather conditions, but it works only in one direction. A global positioning system must be used for planes landing from the other direction. Both systems help guide pilots, but some older commercial aircraft are equipped with only the ILS system and can’t use the GPS approach.

Vanderleest has said there was one occasion in which a flight was diverted to New Orleans because of that, though the flight later returned to Jackson. Several major airlines have said the closed runway has not caused problems for them.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Arlene Salac has said the estimated cost to complete the project is about $12 million.