Two more east side residents have registered runoff water complaints with the Salisbury Township Board of Commissioners.

The residents claimed separate reasons for the alleged water runoff problems.

Meanwhile, township officials said a meeting has been scheduled with Pennsylvania Department of Transportation officials concerning two other east side residents’ runoff complaints.

Daniel Freed, who lives along Gilmore Street, said at the April 28 meeting, “All my neighbors on my street ... we can’t mow our grass. It’s like a swamp.

“It’s been like that ever since the street was done,” Freed claimed.

“And now with standing water and mosquitoes and the Zika virus ... ,” Freed said, listing his concerns for the warm weather season.

“The work was done to replace cracked lines and to prevent ground water from getting into the sanitary sewer,” Salisbury Township Director of Public Works John Andreas said.

“That’s not storm- water or surface water. You’re under the influence of groundwater,” Andreas said. “Gilmore and Paoli was a constant icing problem. People would get stuck in ruts.

“A lot of the area on the east side was built on filled-in areas and swamps. That’s why it acts like a sponge. You can’t totally relieve it,” Andreas said.

“I can stop out to see if there’s anything I can do to suggest,” Andreas said to Freed.

Salisbury, along with other Lehigh Valley municipalities, is under an Environmental Protection Agency order to reduce groundwater infiltration into sanitary sewer systems.

“Removing inflow infiltration is something we’ve been doing for a long time,” Andreas said.

“Don’t we have a responsibility?” township Commissioner Debra Brinton asked, referring to the effect of township improvements on the homeowner’s property.

Explained Salisbury Township Consulting Engineer David J. Tettemer of Keystone Consulting, Engineers, Inc., “They did the sewer and that acted as a relief valve. By plugging the holes in the pipe to reduce infiltration, you’re reduced that relief valve.

“This is one of the side effects. You fix one thing and it pops up some place another.

“As John [Andreas] mentioned, there’s not much you can do with groundwater,” Tettemer said.

Chris Hindley, who lives along East Emmaus Avenue in the vicinity of the Fairview Avenue intersection, and the second resident at the April 28 meeting to complain about water runoff, said, “There’s a lot more going on with PPL and also there’s a house being built,” the result being his sump pump goes on twice per hour.

“My driveway is washed out and the cracks in garage walls is all the result of that,” Hindley said, claiming “all the undergrowth is gone” in the PPL right-of-way where new electrical wire transmission towers have been erected on a northern slope of South Mountain along East Emmaus Avenue at Fairview.

“It’s created a slide,” Hindley said of the PPL work.

The PPL Electric Utilities transmission line rebuilding project is in two phases. The first, the Elliot Heights Project, to be completed in June, extends roughly from Elliot Heights in west Bethlehem, across Lehigh Mountain through William H. Laubach Park to the East Emmaus Avenue area, where it ties into the Hosensack-Seidersville Transmission Line Project. Single-shaft steel poles about 95-feet-tall are replacing existing poles and lattice-style towers.

“I have easements going up both sides of my property,” Hindley said, claiming PPL put in a temporary road “right up the middle.”

Hindley also complained about the grading of the ground around a nearby house being built.

Tettemer said he would look at the house construction site and its grading to make sure its in accordance with the subdivision plan.

“If we have to, we’ll send him [the owner of the house under construction] a letter to make sure his erosion control is in place,” Tettemer said.

Sandra Yodzio, who lives along Byfield Street, complained to commissioners at the April 14 township meeting about runoff problems she claims are caused by stormwater drainage pipes in the vicinity of East Susquehanna Street, a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation maintained highway.

A Byfield neighbor, who did not want her name mentioned, also complained of runoff problems.

Andreas said he is meeting with PennDOT officials the week of May 1 concerning the women’s complaints.