The Salisbury Township MS4 coordinator is being given a salary boost.

Township commissioners voted 3-0, with two commissioners absent at the July 28 meeting, to approve a $15,000 hike for Sandy Nicolo, Salisbury Township assistant zoning officer, code enforcement officer and MS4 coordinator.

“We have done the evaluation,” Salisbury Township Manager Randy Soriano said of Nicolo prior to the commissioners’ vote. “I think everything is working out that will allow us to continue with the MS4 program.”

Soriano told commissioners the original motion to appoint Nicolo as MS4 coordinator included a provision for a review of his work. Soriano said this included reviewing how much time Nicolo devotes to MS4 work.

Nicolo’s annual salary is $63,000. Commissioners appointed Nicolo MS4 coordinator Oct. 8, 2015, with no salary increase.

“It’s about a third of his time devoted to that program,” Soriano said.

Soriano said he researched comparable rates for such work and it is about $22 an hour. He said the 2017 budget would include the $15,000 for Nicolo’s MS4 work.

“The impact on the budget this year will be very minimal,” Soriano said. The money for the increased stipend for Nicolo will be taken from the budget’s unappropriated fund balance.

Of Nicolo and the MS4 mandate, Soriano said, “One of our employees [Nicolo] is qualified and willing to do it.”

After the July 28 meeting, Soriano, in response to a question from a reporter for The Press, said the $15,000 increase for Nicolo would be prorated for 2016.

Nicolo presented an MS4 update report to commissioners July 14 and to the Salisbury Township Environmental Advisory Council July 20.

The three-page “2016 MS4 Report Update” lists projects, programs and procedures completed or not completed. The goal is to have goals completed by the end of 2016.

Most of the 87 Best Management Practice items, which are listed under Minimum Control Measures categories, have been completed in the township, according to the report.

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 by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

Municipalities are required to fulfill six MCMs: 1. Public Education, 2. Public Participation, 3. Illicit Discharge Detection and Elimination, 4. Construction Site Runoff Control, 5. Post-Construction Storm water Management, and 6. Pollution Prevention for Municipal Operations and Maintenance.

Nicolo is tasked to address all MCMs, but specifically Numbers 3 through 6.

The STEAC is tasked by the township board of commissioners to implement the first two of the six MCMs.

David J. Tettemer, Salisbury Township consulting engineer, Keystone Consulting Engineers, Inc., completed a $25,000 contract April through September 2015 to get the township MS4 program up and running.

Under the federal Clean Water Act, a municipality must have a MS4 National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit to cover stormwater discharges and to maintain compliance with the permit.

Salisbury provided sufficient information and has met conditions of the Administrative Order and Section 308 Requirement for Information of the Clean Water Act issued May 29, 2014, according to an EPA letter received by the township April 14, 2015. The township’s five-year NPDES permit, issued in 2014, is good until 2019.

Salisbury Township, along with other Lehigh Valley municipalities, received notice June 25, 2014, of a 30-day deadline to provide the EPA with evidence of MS4 compliance.