LOWER MISSISSIPPI DELTA REGION HERITAGE STUDY.

SEC. 1103. LOWER MISSISSIPPI DELTA REGION HERITAGE STUDY. (a) In General. —The Secretary, in consultation with the States of the Delta Region, the Lower Mississippi Delta Development Center, and other appropriate Delta Region institutions, is directed to prepare and transmit to the Congress within three years after the date of the enactment of this title, a study of significant natural, recreational, historical or prehistorical, and cultural lands, waters, sites, and structures located within the Delta Region. This study shall take into consideration the research and inventory of resources conducted by the Mississippi River Heritage Corridor Study Commission. (b) Transportation Routes.— (1) The study shall include recommendations on appropriate designation and interpretation of historically significant roads, trails, byways, waterways, or other routes within the Delta Region. (2) In order to provide for public appreciation, education, understanding, interpretation, and enjoyment of the significant sites identified pursuant to subsection (a), which are accessible by public roads, the Secretary shall recommend in the study vehicular tour routes along existing public roads linking such sites within the Delta Region. (3) Such recommendations shall include an analysis of designating the Great River Road (as depicted on the map entitled “Proposed Delta Transportation Network” on pages 102-103 of the Delta Initiatives Report) and other sections of the Great River Road between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana and an analysis of des-108 STAT. 4514ignating that portion of the Old Antonio Road and the Louisiana Natchez Trace which extends generally along Highway 84 from Vidalia, Louisiana, to Clarence, Louisiana, and Louisiana Highway 6 from Clarence, Louisiana, to the Toledo Bend Reservoir, Louisiana, as a National Scenic Byway, or as a component of the National Trails System, or such other designation as the Secretary deems appropriate. (4) The Secretary shall also recommend in the study an appropriate route along existing public roads to commemorate the importance of timber production and trade to the economic development of the Delta Region in the early twentieth century, and to highlight the continuing importance of timber production and trade to the economic life of the Delta Region. Recommendations shall include an analysis of designating that portion of US 165 which extends from Alexandria, Louisiana, to Monroe, Louisiana, as a National Scenic Byway, or as a component of the National Trails System, or such other designation as the Secretary deems appropriate. (5) The study shall also include a comprehensive recreation, interpretive, and visitor use plan for the routes described in the above paragraphs, including bicycle and hiking paths, and make specific recommendations for the acquisition and construction or related interpretive and visitor information facilities at selected sites along such routes. (6) The Secretary is authorized to make grants to States for work necessary to stabilize, maintain, and widen public roads to allow for adequate access to the nationally significant sites and structures identified by the study, to allow for proper use of the vehicular tour route, trails, byways, including the routes defined in paragraphs (3) and (4) or other public roads within the Delta Region and to implement the comprehensive recreation, interpretive, and visitor use plan required in paragraph (5). (c) Listing.—On the basis of the study, and in consultation with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Secretary shall inventory significant structures and sites in the Delta Region. The Secretary shall further recommend and encourage cooperative preservation and economic development efforts such as the establishment of preservation districts linking groups of contiguous counties or parishes, especially those that lie along the aforementioned designated routes. The Secretary shall prepare a list of the sites and structures for possible inclusion by the National Park Service as National Historic Landmarks or such other designation as the Secretary deems appropriate.