NATCHEZ — Adams County officials said they are at work finding a long-term solution to the recurring flooding on Robins Lake Road.

During Tuesday’s meeting of the Adams County Board of Supervisors, the supervisors hired Jordan Kaiser & Sessions to work on a design for the dam at Robins Lake that will later be reviewed by the Dam Safety Division of the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality.

Adams County Road Department Manager Robbie Dollar said the dam doesn’t allow enough water from the 50-acre lake to pass through to keep the lake from toping the dam after a heavy rain — which is what happened earlier this month when the shoulder of the road sloughed off and caused some of the culverts to pull apart at the seams.

“Whatever we put in needs to be designed to carry 7,000 cubic feet of water per second,” Dollar said. “It needs to be designed by an engineer with dam experience and whatever he designs needs to be submitted back to MDEQ for their review and approval before we do anything to Robins Lake.”

Emergency management director Robert Bradford said a voluntary evacuation had been issued Jan. 2 for some 15 to 20 residents in a neighborhood downstream from the dam as a precaution, though no houses were flooded.

Also during Tuesday’s meeting, officials said the dam is not their only concern caused by erosion.

The Board of Supervisors will have a special-called meeting at 9:30 a.m. Friday morning two discuss the dam as well as various Emergency Watershed Protection Program projects — one of which is at a county building at 140 East Franklin Street.

Dollar said water that collects in the parking lot on the property is causing erosion issues underneath the corner of the building.

Board president Ricky Gray said the supervisors could list their most immediate concerns during Friday’s meeting to present to the state officials during the annual legislative breakfast meeting Monday, organized by the Natchez Adams Chamber of Commerce.

“We are in one of the oldest communities and our soil is soft,” Gray said of the erosion. “Maybe some of the new people in office will give us special consideration, because it is never going to stop raining.”