Bethlehem, PA Environmental Rules: Stormwater Management (2026)

Article 925 is Bethlehem's Act 167 ordinance. Pennsylvania's Storm Water Management Act requires each county to adopt watershed-scale stormwater plans and obligates municipalities to adopt or amend their local ordinances to be consistent with those plans (32 P.S. § 680.11). Section 925.04 cites the City's statutory authority under Act 167 and the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code (53 P.S. § 10101 et seq.). Section 925.05 applies the ordinance to land within the Catasauqua Creek and Lehigh River Sub-Basin, Monocacy Creek, Nancy Run, and Saucon Creek watersheds as delineated on official maps held by the Engineering Bureau, and defines twelve categories of Regulated Activities including land development, subdivision, new or additional impervious surfaces, new buildings or building additions, earth moving, agricultural and forest operations, stream diversion or piping, and any earth disturbance that may affect runoff onto adjacent property. Section 925.06 exempts regulated activities that add 10,000 sq ft or less of impervious cover from the Drainage Plan preparation requirement, measured cumulatively from the 1988 adoption of the City's original Act 167 ordinance, but does not relieve the applicant from State Water Quality Requirements or other applicable permits. Exempt projects are still required to use one of the listed BMPs - sheet-flow vegetative buffers or disconnected roof downspouts discharging to pervious areas. The 2019 update aligned the ordinance with the current PA DEP model and the City's NPDES MS4 permit (issued by PA DEP under 25 Pa. Code Ch. 92a, typically as coverage under the PAG-13 general permit), which imposes the Six Minimum Control Measures: public education and outreach, public involvement and participation, illicit-discharge detection and elimination, construction-site stormwater runoff control, post-construction stormwater management, and pollution prevention/good housekeeping. Concurrent state Erosion and Sediment Control rules at 25 Pa. Code Ch. 102 take effect at 5,000 sq ft of earth disturbance and are administered locally by the Lehigh County and Northampton County Conservation Districts for the PA DEP.