Salisbury Township officials will visit the site of stormwater runoff complaints on the township's east side.

Linda and Kenneth Smith raised the issue at the July 24 township board of commissioners meeting.

"When it rains hard, there's a ton of mud. It put big potholes in the driveway. The neighbor's home was flooded," Linda Smith said. Smith lives along Public Road.

A neighbor, David Eckhardt, said he has cleaned storm sewer grates. "If I don't, it comes over like Niagara Falls into my yard."

The neighbors claim the runoff problem was made worse when curbing was installed.

"The addition of that curb changed the direction of the water," Salisbury Township Department of Public Works Director John Andreas said.

The neighbors said the water flow is so voluminous it carries rock and cinder blocks. It has dug a six-foot-wide, eight-foot-deep swale.

Andreas said the runoff is on private, not township, property.

"That is not our street. There's not even an existing paper street," Andreas said.

A paper street is a street planned on paper, or a property map, to be built and taken over by a municipality.

"Adjacent property owners must maintain it," Andreas said of the runoff area in question.

There are two storm drains in the area. The stormwater pipe is said to be not large enough.

"This has been going on for 10 years," Eckhardt claimed.

Salisbury Township Manager Randy Soriano recommended Andreas and Township Consulting Engineer David J. Tettemer of Keystone Consulting Engineers, Inc. visit the neighbors' area.

The hope is a solution to the runoff problem can be recommended. However, it's uncertain the problem can be solved without a significant expenditure of money.

"We've had a number of storms in the past three years that have been well beyond the 100-year-storm," Andreas said.

The 100-year-storm term refers to the worst-case storm, which used to occur infrequently.

"It's a difficult situation. You can't change where water wants to go," Andreas said.