The Salisbury Township Planning Commission has reviewed and recommended approval of revisions to the Kline’s Island Sanitary Sewer System Regional Act 537 Plan.

The township planning commission voted 5-0 with two commission members absent at the April 23 meeting, to approve recommending the revisions to the township board of commissioners.

The KISS Interim 537 Plan “provides detail of the region’s corrective action plan related to the hydraulic overload condition which occurred in 2019 after Pennsylvania received the most annual rainfall since data began being collected in 1895,” the Lehigh County Authority website states.

“As a result of the hydraulic overload condition, the Kline’s Island Sewer System Signatories working group, with the assistance of ARRO Consulting, Lititz, Lancaster County, has developed this interim plan for the period of 2021 to 2025,” according to the LCA website.

A copy of the nine-page Final Interim Act 537 Plan is at: https://www.lehighcountyauthority.org/

The City of Allentown’s Kline’s Island Wastewater Treatment Plant, which is permitted to treat up to 40 million gallons of wastewater per day, provides regional wastewater treatment service for 15 municipalities, according to the LCA website. Salisbury Township is among the municipalities. LCA operates wastewater treatment plants in three other townships and the pretreatment plant in Fogelsville.

“You have 60 days to approve it,” Attorney John F. “Jack” Gross, Managing Partner, Gross McGinley, LLP, Attorneys at Law, solicitor for Salisbury Township, said before the planners’ vote at the April 23 meeting.

“It has to be done. We’ve been talking about this for years,” planning commission Chairman Richard Schreiter said before the vote.

“We’ve been reviewing Kline’s Island for its issues for the last seven years,” Charles Myers, operations manager, Municipal Engineering Services Department, Barry Isett & Associates, Inc., consulting engineer for Salisbury Township, said before the vote.

Eighteen municipal planning commissions have received the revisions for review, Myers told township planners.

“The [KISS] plant suffers infiltration and inflow,” Myers said.

“It [KISS] has caused sewage to come out of it and go right into the [Lehigh] River,” Myers said.

“It forces everyone to do a full sewer module even if it’s one residence,” Myers said of housing projects proposed in county municipalities.

Salisbury Township has an ongoing Infiltration and Inflow program. Infiltration refers to groundwater seeping into pipes. Inflow refers to stormwater entering a system through manholes and improper connections.

“They’re lining the inside of the manhole and putting seals on the lids,” Schreiter said.

“They’re doing one manhole at a time,” Schreiter said of the township I&I program.

The I&I program is administered by Director, Salisbury Township Public Works Department, Jim Levernier, working with Barry Isett & Associates, Inc. and township commissioners and officials.

“This is the first of two steps,” Myers said of the planners’ recommendation. “Then it goes to public comment.”

In other business at the April 23 meeting, planners voted 5-0 to recommend to township commissioners:

- Acceptance of the time extension requested by LTD Renovations, LLC to extend the plan recording requirement to Dec. 31, 2025, for the conditionally-approved minor subdivision project at 760 E. Paoli St.

- Acceptance of the time extension requested by LTD Renovations, LLC to extend the plan recording requirement to Dec. 31, 2025, for the conditionally-approved minor subdivision project at 900 E. Paoli St.

The May Salisbury Township municipal meeting schedule in the meeting room of the municipal building, 2900 S. Pike Ave., includes: 7 p.m. May 8, board of commissioners; 7 p.m. May 14, zoning hearing board, canceled; 7 p.m. May 22, board of commissioners and 7 p.m. May 28, planning commission.