OTTUMWA — John Hall got a green light from the City Council Tuesday evening.

The council approved hiring Hall, an environmental attorney with Hall & Associates of Washington, D.C. He’s one of the contacts the Ottumwa delegation made during the D.C. trip in April.

Public Works Director Larry Seals told the council Hall & Associates is a “full-service legal/regulatory/technical consulting firm that specializes in innovative environmental solutions,” including National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting, compliance and enforcement.

Seals also said Hall has provided a proposed scope of work addressing combined sewer overflows (CSO) concerns. Hall believes a group approach would be the best strategy for obtaining increased flexibility in the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ (IDNR) state program implementation.

“Group approaches increase political leverage and reduce the costs of attaining the desired outcome,” Seals said. “The likelihood of success will also increase if the concerns of CSO communalities can be presented as a broader concern for all Iowa communities.”

To initiate the work, Seals and his staff recommended accepting Hall’s firm for $20,000, which is the cost of the first meeting. That fee will be shared by Clinton and Keokuk, two more cities with infrastructure headaches.

Funding will be allocated from the sewer revenue fund, Seals added.

In his May 6 letter to Mayor Dale Uehling, Hall said the $20,000 should be “sufficient to complete the preliminary review of the city’s current compliance situation, to develop a plan of action and to have [Hall & Associates] attend a meeting with other affected parties in Iowa.”

Councilman Bob Meyers said he met Hall, who told him the state of Iowa and the Environmental Protection Agency “may ask [cities] to comply but there is no federal law.”

The percentage of a resident’s median income spent on sewer costs concerned Councilman Gordon Aistrope.

“By 2012, 1.96 percent of the median income will go toward CSO compliance,” he said.

If the city approves a 20-year consent agreement, then the percentage of median income for sewer fees rises to 4.47 percent.

“That puts the city in dire straits,” Aistrope said. “Those who are born today would be paying that 4.47 percent.”

In other action, the council also approved recommending the Burlington Depot’s eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places. Architectural Consultant Molly Myers Naumann prepared the nomination on behalf of the Wapello County Historical Society.

Then the historical society hosted a public meeting of the Ottumwa Historic Preservation Commission May 14 at the depot. The commission recommended the eligibility to the council.