Due to meet Thursday, Dec. 1 at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall, the Newport City Council will have plenty to talk about, including a public hearing for Truth in Taxation at 6 p.m., and a resolution regarding delinquent utility accounts. Contained in the consent agenda following public comment for items not on the agenda meanwhile are four approval items:

•The minutes from the November 3, 2022 Council Workshop

•Two gambling applications for Capital City Strutters NWTF of Cottage Grove with reference to Tinucci’s Restaurant for the dates of Feb. 12 and Feb. 23, 2023 respectively

• A list of city bills totaling $131,135.11 Also on the agenda and contained with the engineer’s report is a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the City of Newport and the South Washington County Watershed District (SWWD) with regard to construction of an underground BMP device at 16th Street and Cedar Lane.

The BMP, which stands for best management practice, is meant to capture 22 tons of total suspended sediment or 31 pounds of Total Phosphorous (TP) per year. The move comes as part of Alternative Stormwater Compliance associated with the Wilson Lines Project from 2020.

That project, which saw Wilson Trucking Lines propose improving its gravel parking lot with bituminous

The City of Newport is among those areas tributary to the Mississippi River within the South Washington Watershed District. Controlling the runoff of nutrients like phosphorous help protects river health, with the council due to consider an MOU related to this Thursday night. Image courtesy South Washington Watershed District.

surface, necessitated a plan for the resulting runoff from the impervious surface.

The terms of the Memorandum of Understanding have the City of Newport using $22,440 now held in escrow from Wilson Trucking Lines for the project to improve their gravel parking lot along with $5,700 of ARPA funds, for a total of $28,140 towards the BMP construction.

While the ordinary solution for phosphorous is a wet detention pond in which the phosphorous could settle out, Newport’s high bedrock and low infiltration potential, make a wet detention pond infeasible in this instance, with the BMP taking its place instead.

No further obligations on the Wilson Lines Project with regard to TP treatment following payment of the $28,140 by the City of Newport to the SWWD.