The Salisbury Township Environmental Advisory Council would like to see the township enact a tougher anti-dumping ordinance.

Robert Agonis, STEAC task force member is urging a minimum $300 fine be set for littering of materials less than 10 pounds. Agonis is proposing fines be based on a $30 per pound rate. Costs for cleaning up illegal dumping should be included in the fine structure, according to Agonis.

The proposal occurred after another cleanup at Walking Purchase Park, which yielded large quantities of trash.

“The rate of illegal dumping in Salisbury Township has accelerated in recent years and is now having disastrous impact in our Walking Purchase Park, where polluted runoff from illegally dumped trash flows directly into the Lehigh River,” Agonis said in the letter to commissioners. Agonis presented the letter at a recent STEAC meeting.

STEAC member Rodney Conn made a motion, seconded by Jane Benning, to send the recommendations to the board of commissioners.

Agonis theorized some neighboring municipalities do not contract for trash removal. “Far too many are finding it considerably less expensive to take their trash and mandatory recyclables to dump in our township.”

“Fines are capped at $300,” Agonis said, and the township’s solid waste ordinance “maximum fine is only $1,000.”

“Right now, we [Salisbury Township] are a very easy target,” STEAC Chairperson Kreg Ulery said. “I would like to see that ended.”

Township Director of Planning and Zoning Cynthia Sopka recommended township officials meet with Allentown and Bethlehem officials regarding illegal dumping in the township.

Commissioner Joanne Ackerman, the township board’s representative to STEAC, recommended a meeting between the township, Fountain Hill and Bethlehem officials.

“Our request is that you take up this issue and make it a priority to lessen the township’s appeal as a convenient-free illegal dumping ground. Our initial sense is that we need to enact ordinances with appropriate fines,” the letter stated.

“For the EAC, this public education effort dovetails well with our MS4 public education requirement. Much of the Walking Purchase Park dumping pollutes the Lehigh River.”

The April 24 Walking Purchase Park cleanup resulted in two and one-half dumpsters being filled with debris.

Walking Purchase Park is approximately 500 acres between Lehigh Mountain and the Lehigh River in eastern Salisbury.

MS4 is an acronym for Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System, with the “M” standing for “Municipal” and the numeral “4” representing the four “S” first letters of each word in “Separate Storm Sewer System.”

MS4 Stormwater Management Program Protocol requires Minimum Control Measures to enforce the MS4 program, mandated by United States Environmental Protection Agency and enforced in the Commonwealth by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

Municipalities are required to fulfill six MCMs: public education, public participation, illicit discharge detection and elimination, construction site runoff control, post-construction stormwater management and pollution prevention for municipal operations and maintenance.