Environmental conservation efforts were again a topic of interest at the Aug. 1 Hellertown Borough Council meeting.

Christine Mildner, Operations Manager of MS4 Services from Barry Isett and Associates provided an extensive presentation on the borough’s Municipal Separate Storm System Program’s Pollutant Reduction Plan.

The plan - required under 1972s federal Clean Water Act - aims to measure and control the pollutant load in sediment runoff reaching borough waterways such as Saucon Creek, Silver Creek and Polk Valley Run.

Mildner elaborated on the borough’s recent and ongoing efforts to manage stormwater by implementing Best Management Practices, including swale greening at Dimmick Park. A similar design to better absorb runoff from Durham Street into Silver Creek is currently in development, she added.

Mildner also presented several options (mostly landscaping-related projects in and around water sources like the creeks) for additional BMP installments. These would help the borough to attain the necessary level of reduction in sediment to its drainage basins mandated by the law, she explained. However, the council did not immediately choose to take any further action.

In other news, council President Thomas Rieger asked his colleague Andrew Hughes and Mayor David Heintzelman to join him, borough Manager Cathy Hartranft and public works Director Barry Yonney in charting a path beyond the end of the borough’s 2023 contract with the Saucon Valley Compost Center. The motion was made in light of the recent formal severing of ties with Lower Saucon Township, in conjunction with whom the current agreement was established.

Heintzelman also promoted the upcoming Hellertown Community Day, scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 20, “We have a full day, a lot of fun for everyone in the community and beyond,” he said.

The mayor also said “things are coming together” for the annual Spirit Parade, set for Sunday, October 23. Three bands have already committed to march, and organizers would like to have three or four more, Heintzelman added.

Lastly, the council unanimously appointed Elaine Lipp to a vacancy on the Hellertown Borough Authority’s Board of Directors. “I think we all know Elaine,” Rieger said of the longtime borough resident and jokingly offered his “congratulations… or condolences.”