The Heidelberg Township Board of Supervisors hosted a hearing June 18 on the MS-4 pollution reduction plan before their regular meeting.

Geoff Dean, township engineer with Keystone Consulting Engineers, gave a quick summary on the plan.

He said this plan is the pollution reduction program project decided upon five years ago - a much simpler and easier project to achieve.

“What we’re doing is restoring a drainage swale in Heidelberg Heights and the goal of that really is to just restore it to its original function for slow water management,” he explained. “The project is going to consist of debris environment removal, a little bit of regrading and then really just some vegetation and stabilization of this swale. We’re keeping it as short, sweet and simple as we can.”

He said that following this hearing, the next step is to submit the proposed project amendment to the Department of Environmental Protection.

“As soon as we do that and they log it received, we are free to proceed with the project,” Dean said. “We anticipate doing that as early as next week.

“Once the comment period ends and Keystone submits the proposed amendment, we’ll set up a meeting with whoever wants to be there and just kind of talk about all that needs to be done and timeline.”

Copies of the preliminary plan and the addendum are on file with the township if anyone would like to look at it, he said.

During the hearing, David Fink, vice chairman of the board of supervisor, asked Dean if Keystone plans to do the project in-house or bid it out.

“I think the idea was to do it in-house, if possible,” Dean said. “We are trying to keep the scope [of the cost] as limited as possible so it is not a big burden on the township.”

Fink also asked if a lot of landowners have signed off on the project.

Dean said the work that needs to be done is within a township easement.

“When the heights was subdivided, there was an easement established so the township has rights of entry and maintenance of that swale,” Dean said. “We may need to talk about a courtesy notification to adjoining properties but it’s with an easement.”

During the regular meeting, board of supervisor member Matthew Schneider said during his Farmland Preservation Committee report, the Lehigh County Farmland Preservation has preserved 426 farms, which is right around 29,070 acres.

He said Lehigh County [Farmland Preservation] will be allowing 100% donations on the land and properties that meet the requirements, and they will also be doing dollar bargain sales if a person just wants to preserve property and it doesn’t meet any of the requirements.

LCFP will also be doing that for wooded areas.

Township Administrator Dawn Didra reported she has been working with Goeff Dean, Katie Fabian, administrative assistance, and staff from Congressman Ryan MacKenzie, 7th Legislative District, State Sen. Jarrett Coleman, R-16th, state Rep. Gary Day, R-187th, Department of Community and Economic Development and Lehigh County regarding funding for the Rex Road Bridge and the new public works building.

“I’m also supporting the fire company’s efforts for funding for a new fire truck,” she said.

Dean said during his engineer’s report, Keystone did complete the field work for the survey of the Rex Road Bridge.

“We’re preparing a base map right now that will have some data as we get into design and permitting in the coming months,” he said.

Dean said the cost to do the work is large and suggested the board members and Keystone Consulting Engineering staff get together at a separate time to go through what is involved and what’s driving the cost.

Under new business, board members discussed a backyard poultry and rooster ordinance after a resident addressed the supervisors about the noise from chickens and roosters kept near her property.

“One of the reasons why I love living up here is because of the agriculture, but I live in a townhome,” the resident said. “For the past six years we had somebody with their first batch of chickens and roosters and now they’re on their second batch. I wouldn’t care but it’s just too dense of a space to have chickens and roosters. Also, we are dealing with rodents.”

“My question really comes done to when does it become abuse of agriculture itself,” she asked the board of supervisors.

Jonathan Jakum, chairman of the board of supervisors, said he feels like this is something for a homeowners association where you have a board of elected officials that set the rules and regulations for that densely populated area because a lot of the rules and regulations don’t apply to the rest of the township as a whole.

“I know they used to have a homeowners association many years ago, and it dissolved because nobody wanted to do it,” Jakum said. “If there were problems that were high up enough that come up, then you could come here [to the board of supervisors], and we could sort them out. That’s my suggestion on how to deal with problems like that, because I know there’s a myriad of problems because there’s a myriad of people there all living on top of each other.”

Didra said the planning commission actually has a meeting set for June 29. The planners are going to be looking at ordinances so this would be a good time for them to consider something like this particular issue and bring their suggestions to the board.