A long-time Lehigh Valley environmental activist and former Salisbury Township commissioner and planning commissioner member is warning that township residents may have to pay for a proposed Lehigh County Authority upgrade.

However, the township consulting engineer isn’t so sure.

“Almost all of Western Salisbury will hook up to that parallel line,” Jan Keim, environmentalist and former Salisbury commissioner and planning commission member said.

Keim, who attended a July 11 LCA meeting, as did Robert Agonis, Salisbury Township Environmental Advisory Council Task Force member, said a new sanitary sewer system line is proposed from roughly the location of Keck’s Bridge along Keystone Avenue in western Salisbury to the LCA Allentown Treatment Plant along Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, Allentown.

Portions of the parallel line, as Keim referred to it, would traverse Salisbury.

“How does that affect the Salisbury residents cost-wise?” Keim asked. “Are we going to have to pay for their [LCA] mistakes?

“I strongly urge that you request they [LCA] make a presentation” [at a township meeting],” Keim urged commissioners.

The impact of the $461-million upgrade by the LCA on Salisbury government and residents is uncertain.

“I haven’t seen the details,” David J. Tettemer, Salisbury Township Consulting Engineer, responded to Keim. “This is still a fluid situation between the LCA and the treatment plant.

“There’s a western Lehigh partnership,” Tettemer emphasized. “Salisbury is a separate signatory,” Tettemer added.

“There are costs that western [partnership] is going to pay separate from Salisbury,” said Tettemer.

Ratepayers in Upper Macungie Township, Lower Macungie Township, Alburtis borough and Macungie borough, which compose the Western Lehigh Sewerage Partnership, are being asked to fund an estimated $32 million of the first phase of the project to rehabilitate the county sewer system, it was reported at the July 11 LCA meeting.

Previously, Tettemer told a reporter for The Press at the July 14 Salisbury commissioners’ meeting, “They [Salisbury Township residents] will be affected, but not to the extent that the western Lehigh areas will be.”

When asked what the financial impact on Salisbury might be, Tettemer said July 14, “At this point, we’re not aware of what the full scope of the responsibility of Salisbury Township will be.”

Salisbury and other Lehigh County municipalities are signatories to the LCA. The $461-million upgrade is to occur during the next 50 years. A new western Lehigh to Allentown sewer line could cost an extra $120 million. It is not certain if that line is the parallel line to which Keim referred.

The LCA is under a federal mandate to improve its sanitary sewer system to prevent overflows into Little Lehigh Creek at the Allentown Treatment Plant in the event of heavy precipitation.

The western partnership municipalities are required to prevent inflow and infiltration into storm sewer pipes. The added water causes the sanitary sewer system to overflow.

Salisbury has an ongoing program to repair its stormwater system.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency and Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection are giving the LCA and county municipalities until the end of 2017 to begin “Rainstorm Ready,” a plan to mitigate the inflows.

A memorandum of understanding between the LCA and the municipalities is in the offing.

Improvements to stormwater infrastructure have been made by Salisbury, as well as by Emmaus Borough, South Whitehall Township and the Coplay-Whitehall Sewer Authority.

The EPA had ordered sewer overflows to be eliminated by year-end 2014. An extension was granted.

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, 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.

Salisbury provided sufficient information and 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.

Sandy Nicolo, Salisbury Township assistant zoning officer and code enforcement officer, was appointed MS4 coordinator by township commissioners Oct. 8, 2015.

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 EPA and enforced in the commonwealth by DEP.

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.