all right uh calling the meeting of the en Berkeley HS environmental commission to order on Monday February 17th at 7:33 adquate notice of the meeting was provided informing the public of the time and place according to the
provisions of the open public meetings law this meeting will take place via Zoom this is because the municipal building is closed uh uh and so now we need to do we are recording the meeting and need
someone to take minutes who can take minutes we need either Chris or Kim or n um I plan to leave so I don't know if that would work do you know when you're gonna leave so you can do the first half and
somebody can do after you leave we can't have Chris we cannot have Steve coralus taking minutes these not an official member yeah I I was I was I was thinking of volunteering but knowing it knowing it wouldn't work out I mean I know I plan to leave as
soon as possible um I don't know I also don't feel like this is a good time for me I might not be very efficient in getting them back out to the
group okay RIS can you do it rris is is muted so I can't tell whether he's answering or not Chris can you hear us unmute yeah you you have to unmute yourself if you're going to talk
you're trying to unmute yourself okay can I unmute you I don't know yeah you should be able to you come over here participants and then unmute him yeah I'm trying
to there we go okay so can you hear me yes now we can hear you hello hello we can hear you you're unmuted Chris okay great can
you take minutes that's the question you can't hear now dear that I don't think I can control I thought you were the technical expert here Chris so I can't help you on this
he he looks more puzzled than you did earlier so you are not muted you can talk if you talk we can hear you the question is can you take minutes and now he has taken off his
headset he can't hear can you hear you now can you hear me oh yes we can hear you can you hear us yeah can you hear now you I don't know I think I think my headphones just weren't working though turn them off ah
okay all right so again the question is Chris can you take minutes give it a shot let me just just uh open up the uh I I went to the uh I went to the
building so I was I was I got on last minute I I forgot I forgot it was a holiday again yeah when we set up this agenda I wasn't aware that the building was closed uh so we'll have to pay
attention to that in the future usually barbar reminds me you know oh on that date that the building is closed and we are recording I'm gonna all right so
now we're moving ahead uh approv minutes for January 6th all right as that anyone had a chance to review January 6th
minutes not if not we move on to the next set of minutes approve minutes for February 3rd I make a motion to approve the minutes for February third
okay and why are we getting an echo second David okay somehow we're getting an echo on the on the at least I'm getting an echo all right then that takes care
of the minutes for February 3rd hearing on agenda items only three minutes per residence uh I know you said you didn't have any comments Steve but I that because we're going through the minutes I will ask
anyway if not then we move on to plans 649 Springfield Avenue David you want to describe this yeah can you hear me yes okay good um Springfield Avenue so this is Gina's
tennis right yes yeah so just give me a second while I pull up what I drafted um did anyone get a chance to review that I had a couple of suggestions in my um
letter of recommendation I have one question while you're doing that I I have been away so I haven't been able to look at the documents was there a document that included uh storm water
management I don't think I saw storm water management it seems to me that they're not changing the footprint very much so there doesn't seem to be much by way of storm water management right I think uh that's correct that
they are not changing uh the footprint of of the building and so maybe they're uh saying okay we're keeping the storm water management in place that currently exists but I don't know what that is so if
there's a lot of drainage coming off of that area which has a lot of impervious surface uh I would ask whether that's the case yeah so um I mean it does seem like they're reducing impervious coverage
slightly a few percent but it doesn't it's not clear to me where it's difficult to it's difficult to see before and after on those plans right um I'm fairly sure there's not very much going on by way of storm water management currently yeah I wouldn't
be so should we add a a recommendation that the applicant should um [Music] um implement or consider implementing storm water management for runoff just are at least indicate what storm water
management is currently in place yes that's fair it's only a TRC isn't it right should indicate what stor management Provisions are in currently in place the other little thing thing that
I saw was the viburnum is not a native plant so that's uh but then if there are only 18 of them and 58 50% aren't they yeah
right exactly yeah the other thing you pointed out was the um the Juniper is uh not native to this area where did I see that I thought I saw that it was below
the plant schedule Oh yes it's it's highlighted yeah not is native to the Northeast us although not to New Jersey all right um
not um it's apparently a a shrub that is uh Native to colder areas so now we get into questions okay
if we're having climate change and the air and the you know the weather is warming this may not be favorable to this particular Juniper there is another Juniper uh that is called common
juniper and you could uh recommend uh the common juniper and there's a a uh variant called depressor which is fairly similar to this type of
juniper because they're proposing at a very low spreading evergreen shrub that's what the horizontal Juniper is and they could uh use use what's called common
juniper and I I'll send you the Latin name Juniper is communist right uh yeah but there's a variation depressor that is native to New Jersey there are there are some shrubs that some jiper shrubs that get a little
bit taller but this if they can find uh a a uh variant that's low growing that's what they're intending to
plant otherwise I don't have any comments I saw that there's two depresses there's the Ora and adec yeah whatever you know whichever one is is going to suit there needs for
as a low growing uh uh Juniper okay so I will amend the the letter recommendation to note that um the applicant should identify whether
storm water management Provisions are in place and recommend this Juniper uh common juniper depressor as an alternative being negative toj okay then do I hear a
motion motion to approve the recommendation as uh modified and we are seconds second that all right then we consider that that
approved and we're moving forward to 22 Princeton Avenue 22 Princeton so this is one that we reviewed a couple of months ago um single family residence on Princeton
is has a standalone freestanding garage they intended intended to demolish that and replace it with the new garage um that was going to be quite large and adjacent to the rear property
line they've since revised the application reduced the size of the new garage and set it back 10t from the rear property line that's the change from what we reviewed two months ago and I think we
may have we may have recommended that I haven't gotten a chance to look at what recommended um setting it back 10 ft from the rear property line so okay that's now not an issue um so all of the coverages are
within the maximums required by ordinance so there's no there's no excess impervious coverage um so we've noted that trees will not be removed we noted that runoff will
apparently flow into Township property we've asked for the storm water management plan to be reviewed by the engineer that's about it really okay any comments recommend against this one
okay any comments or questions if not do I hear a motion motion to proceed with the draft recommendation as drafted second I'm sorry who is that Angus Angus
okay you're you're not a uh always clear on my computer I'm not hearing you clearly all the time okay then we have so who made the motion David you made the motion yes second
Angus okay onward Scout projects go projects um so this is perfectly a Scout project um the county is going to repeat the um invasive Blitz that they did in April of
last year um I think I don't remember the date off top of my head it's something like the 5th of April first weekend in April um so again they're throwing this open to the community but Scout groups in particular so I will
um make my own troop and Troop 68 aware of this we had a group from my Scout Troop there last year excellent okay and the principle there is that at that time of year early March just about
the only things Greening up are invasive species so that makes it easy for Scouts armed with tools if it's green cut it out and where exactly do they do they have a specific area David
um Dan benia sent groups all over the Union County all over um watch Young reservation last year okay reservation not the P River Park not Pake River Park no this is um watch reservation
okay right if nothing else then community garden we don't have I was just so it was the 5th of April right David I believe so if it wasn't the fifth I'll let you know thank you okay thenk community garden I don't
know anything going on I uh does anyone else have anything to report on community garden all right if not then stormwater ordinance so I asked you to take a look at this uh ordinance that was presented at
the previous uh meeting of the township so this was presented by a representative from NECA engineering and apparently coordinated
between negia and Margaret Ellis but uh I didn't hear anything from Margaret that this was happening I just saw that it was on the agenda but technically it's in the conference session and when I went to
comment or ask questions the mayor said no you can't ask questions about this only on agenda items so there's something about the way the agenda is set up that you're not allowed to ask
questions about uh certain parts of the uh agenda on uh at the council meeting I was there in person um so then I I picked up a copy
and I then uh scanned it and sent it to everyone um the beginning of the ordinance is similar to
uh what New Jersey future has that they um are certain requirements to storm water management to re minimize pollution caused by storm water and the other whereas statements and then the scope and
purpose flood control groundwater recharge pollutant reduction Sal be G through the use of storm water management measures including green infrastructure strcture best management practices and nonstructural storm waterer management
strategies so that's most of the first page anyone have any c questions or comments there and then the applicability that begins at the bottom of page one continues on page two
applicable to Major developments and then shall be applicable to all exempt developments and minor developments as defined Below in 13.1 17320 we'll get to that in a minute compatibility with other permit
and ordinance requirements development approvals issued pursuant to this article are to be considered an integral part of development approvals and do not relieve the applicant of responsibility to secure required permits so that's General
requirements and then goes on to definitions and defining the word sh because apparently some judges think that the word shall is not mandatory but in this ordinance the
word shall is mandatory and then exempt development any development that creates less than 500 square fet of new net imp prvious surface any further any exempt development shall
not meet the definition of minor development so here if the development creates less than 500 square fet of new net impervious surface the New Jersey future uh
proposal is saying 250 and also the New Jersey future proposal you know uh is talking about 250 and other places for minor
developments and apparently the uh engineer uh was revising this as he was talking to say 500 square feet so here we get into an area that um
is is a question as to okay what are other towns doing and um the New Jersey future ordinance let's see if I can find it and put it up
okay I think this is it okay I think I found it bear with me a second see if I can get to the page okay so I'm I need to correct my impression from New Jersey future and I will see if I can put this
up on the screen share all right is this this visible to [Music] everyone New Jersey future in the middle column here uh includes definition for minor
development minor development and individual development as well as multiple developments should I make that larger is that is that better readable is it readable okay I wasn't sure how your screens
are and in the right hand column uh New Jersey future says minor development means an individual development as well as multiple developments that individually or collectively result and 500 square fet
1,000 square fet or 2500 so New Jersey future is giving you options there to say 500 a th000 or 25 as 100 as the minimum uh
and I'm not sure you see 250 I don't see 250 either that's why I wanted to put this get this up it's I 250 or 2500 yeah 2500 but not 250 right 2500 but not
250 so 500 is in the New Jersey future and I want to see if there's another space that comes up I thought there was examples of townships that
have been cited but I'm now now what I'm I'm looking for it I'm not finding oh here we go so for major development that's where they are listing examples so 500 square feet is uh What
uh New Jersey future is saying as one option or a th000 square feet or 2500 square ft now my impression is that this is an increase of imperious surface not that
the imperious surface exceeds the maximum but even if it doesn't exceed the maximum an increase of 500 square feet would mean it's a minor development you follow what I'm trying
to say yep so in other words if we look at you know this example where um this was the Princeton example where the lot coverage was
22.3 so it's below the maximum allowed but they increase by 500 and just assume that that 500 square ft does not increase above the maximum allowed they are still going to be required
to uh do uh that still qualifies it as a minor development and therefore uh there needs to be storm
water management so now going back to the to the document oh and here here's where there was the discrepancy you have the exempt development saying less than 500 squet
of new net imp peria surface but then below that is minor development any development since January 2025 the results in cumulative cumulative creation of 250 square feet or more of
new net impervious area so I think that the engineer corrected that 250 to 500 you're still sharing the other document Richard I'm still sharing the other document ment but I
can I don't have that uh up but I think I do now can you see the other document the you still see the the spreadsheet you still see the spreadsheet all right me see what happens stop
share reshare yeah I was seeing the same thing that you were Richard that um there's a couple of places where they Define exempt and one uses 250 one uses 500 right and then and the so now I think now I think you see
the ordinance yep okay I'm trying oh here we go so this is Page Three any development since January 2025 that results in 250 square
fet so this was a conversation I had with uh Tom Saro what his recommendation was and at the time that I had that conversation he was recommending 250 square feet and I thought that was a
good idea and I think the Raritan ordinance which we had uh sent to Margaret uh also said 250 squ feet let's see if I've got that
all right and here so I have to stop share then I have to reshare and I go to this View and and here's so here's the Raritan
Watershed uh ordinance applicability non- major development they instead of calling it minor they call it non- major and they talk about the construction or Redevelopment resulting in the increase of 250 square feet Oops
I don't want to do that so that's that was where we were picking up if I'm recalling correctly the recommendation of an increase of 250 square ft uh when you think of what is 250
square feet um in simple terms that's 25 ft long by 10 ft wide that's almost half the size of my
little uh house in uh I'm I'm in a room that's uh 10 feet wide by 10 feet maybe maybe a little less than 10
feet and my suggestion would be to to keep the uh increase of 250 square feet any thoughts on anyone's part I think I'd defer to the township on
that because ultimately they're the ones who are going to have to [Music] um carry the cost of um working with the homeowners to to implement them and somehow follow up on
the maintenance and I'm I'm very skeptical about Main Main and how long these things will actually last when they've been installed I'm skeptical how well homeowners will actually maintain them
so um I I kind of think that I would defer to the Township in terms of how many of those they want to have to track right and but the thing is any
kind of storm water uh strategy is going to require some sort of inspection and maintenance that the state wants people to do even if you put in a dryw you you need to uh inspect
that uh according to the state uh and I haven't looked at the storm water best management practices to see how often that's supposed to happen but it is supposed to happen setting aside what's supposed to happen what I suspect will happen is
that homeowners will install these storm water management provisions and then over time be it two or five or 10 years um their lives will change they'll not pay attention they'll maybe sell the
house and at some point it's going to cease to be maintained and then you go back to having the runoff so my concern is that we be we'll be adding impervious surface in exchange for what turn out to be temporary storm
water management Provisions so I think this only works if you actually have followup and have this put on the deed and right so what I'm hearing you say David is no matter what kind of storm water
management is being done it could happen that it's ignored so yeah even a drywell installed could stop functioning yeah uh so then what happens uh is then
you're going to have storm water runoff uh the G infrastructure approach and generally when I say green infrastructure I'm thinking in terms of uh bio retention uh with vegetation so
not simply a hole in the ground that is filled with stones but uh a a a vegetated uh uh infiltration area
uh that is is going to be fairly easily visible you don't have to dig any dig up anything you don't have to take lift up a a cover and try to see how how that water is being retained in that uh dryw
you can see how the drywell is functioning you I mean you can't see how the drywall is functioning but you can see how a rain Garden is functioning because it's either uh allowing the water to seep down into the ground or
not so if you and if you neglect the vegetation the the water is generally going to seep down into the ground because of the way it's built so even if you're neglecting that that rain Garden it's functioning
yeah that's a fair point I get that I mean I would just make that suggestion to the town and and I would check with Tom sa Faro again uh uh and also the other uh thing I would like to
try to do is contact ruers and see if they have a comment on this to see if the if what I am saying is exaggerated that's that's where I'm coming from I don't want to be the only person
who's uh asserting this cont to let the township drive it I'm sorry David I I didn't hear what you said I'm content to let the township drive this in terms of um what they set as the
Criterion they're going to have to be the ones who live with the implementation uh that's true they're going there has to be you know uh some uh control that's coming from the
town so that if a house is sold that storm water man management system that's in attached to that house uh needs to be maintained they can't simply fill it in
and say we're done with that uh uh rain Garden we're just going to put in a a lawn I will raise the issue as a question rather than telling the uh the town that's what
we want if that works for me all right moving on to can I ask just one question so so so right now what you're gonna do is is you're going to you're just going to raise a question with the town about whether um 250 is not going to be
considered as a like either a minor or a major construction yes that's what you're going to do and and are are you still going to be um getting in contact with rodus for their opinion yes okay
okay but just as a question a question for the town not uh telling the town that they must our opinion is that they must do it that's not what I will do so you're just going to confirm with them that that's what going to confer exactly
understand so now we're going on to major development and generally I think any of the statements on major developments in this ordinance are uh following the storm order best management
practices uh and uh I think uh even if that uh diff slightly from the New Jersey future it's something that seems to be okay though I was trying to focus more
on the minor Development Area coming down to page three at the bottom see if I can get that back up so I'm going to go share uh is this it
I think this is okay minor development at the bottom of the page three any project meeting the definition of any a minor development should be a minor mil shall be designed to include the following storm water management measures water
quality soil erosion and sediment control measure shall be installed in accordance with the standards for soil erosion sediment control in New Jersey so they don't say what those standards are so the homeowner is going to have to look up what that
means any senses Sense on your part that that's a problem or should there be more detail here it is a problem it is a problem I brought that up to um Margaret when we spoke a few weeks
ago um I did a quick search I cannot find New Jersey standards on erosion yeah it's not obvious where to look for that and I'm in a I'm a commissioner so an average homeowner would have no clue where to go with that
yeah I agree I don't I I think there should be either a reference to a document or it should be explained y overall this is not particularly well
written it's got we David we sent our our versions in as apparently apparent they were ignored number two rate volume
control SE pitch pits and or any other approved infiltration measures SL stormw bmps shall be provided in provided with a capacity of 3 in of runoff or four
each square foot of new impervious area Stone used in the infiltration devices shall be 2 and 1 12 in clean Stone and design void ratio of 40% okay any comments on this one
this seem to be clear to people well it I I didn't hear it this is this is this is like the draft that we Margaret shared with you and I and we sent some comments back it it says nothing about green
infrastructure right it just it just goes straight into seepage pits right and that's basically it for minor development and okay so the capacity of of three inches of runoff for each
square foot so does that mean that if it's 10 square foot or just for the sake of making it easy if it's 10 square feet those 10 square fet of new impervious
area then the infiltration pit or whatever you want to call it the bio retention system shall be uh built to take in three Ines of runoff for those 10
square feet is that how you understand it yeah that's what it says uh and in that sense it sounds like you know uh what I was using was what rutkus
was proposing as a a guide that a water quality sto storm of either an inch and a quarter or an inch or an inch and a half but here it's seems like it's a
three inches of runoff part so in other words if you're building an impervious area of 10 square feet or 100 square feet that bio retention system has to
be accepting three inches for each square foot of of that new impervious area so if it's 100 square feet you have to do the calculation so that that bio retention area is taking in 3 in of run offer that
100 square ft am I making sense there yeah I'm just trying I'm just trying to work out the math as you're speaking so if it was like 10 square feet that would
be 30 in or is it just 3 in well it's it's 10 square feet and of impervious area or and then you have to to do a calculation for that 10 square feet of uh so let's take its 10 square
fet times uh 3 in 3 in is uh a quarter of a foot right so you'd be multiplying the 10 square feet times a quarter of a foot
to get the total amount of runoff and then you'd calculate how big that infiltration base or bio retention area needs to be to capture that in other words you're converting the cubic feet
into gallons and then a a building a bio retention area to accept that those that number of gallons of runoff yeah so they're using a a 3-in rainfall of this is using a 3-in
rainfall event exactly I think we've discussed elsewhere a 1.5 in rainfall event right exactly because the states the uh if you look at the stor water best management practices manual the
state uh wide uh rainfall uh for a water quality storm is generally an inch and a quarter but uh the experts are saying we should be
increasing that to an inch and a half here it's at 3 in and there's at least one other uh uh model ordinance that is is uh recommending three inches of
runoff as the Cal as the basis for the calculation so I think that's a good thing that they're actually increasing the amount of runoff for each square foot of impervious area what I am wondering
is uh how they're defining how that uh bio retention area or infiltration area is built because it's saying Stone shall be 2 and A2 Ines of
clean Stone in Rain Gardens you're generally not us using 2 and2 in of clean Stone uh you're using uh Bank Run sand which is a very coarse sand uh and
uh and mixing that in with the soil uh and the amount the ratio depends upon how uh what kind of percolation test uh you have so the percolation test
uh helps determine and how much sand is mixed in with the soil so to me this is a kind of poorly written way to describe how
this bio retention area should be built so I think that's a description of what should be put into a um French drain oh yes I or a drywell drywell yeah that's what that's
what they're describing they're not describing a rain garden they're not describing a rain Garden exactly they're totally ignoring the rain Garden aspect so that was another of the comments that we provided
to to Margaret we provided some um proposed wording around um rain Gardens and other provisions rather than going straight to um drywell
right okay we also provided the links to the ruers um information resources on storm water management rain Gardens that didn't go in so basically all of the
stuff that you and I and Margaret talked about didn't make it into to this draft right and that was intended to make this draft more um homeowner friendly as in intelligible and usable to an average
homeowner without needing for them to go to an engineer yes for permitting so all of that didn't make it in all right the infiltration measures storm water BP bmps shall be designed with an overflow
to the surface which shall be stabilized directed to an existing storm water conveyance system or in a matter to keep the Overflow on the developed property to the greatest extent feasible all right um there has to be an out an exit
built into the storm water management system once a rain Garden fills up assuming that the rain Garden would fill up uh in a you know in a very heavy storm then that uh you have to allow for
the any excess water to flow out that's basically what this paragraph seems to be saying what I'm not sure about is if the new impervious surface is not a roof area an equivalent area of existing roof
may be directed to the filtration system so if the new impace surface is not a roof area well then isn't it going to take the storm water uh isn't they're going to be a
storm water sorry wrong statement if the new impervia surface is not a roof area it doesn't matter shouldn't that storm water from the new impervious surface be directed to an infiltration system and
then in addition to that any existing roof that uh is uh there could also be uh directed to an infiltration system I'm not sure what
this is trying to say are they saying well the new impervious surface is not a roof area so then don't build an infiltration system for the new impervious surface just use the
existing it so it says may right maybe maybe direct so so so what it's saying here is that if you were to say build a patio 100 square feet that didn't exist before so you're adding 100 sare fet of impervious surface right you what you may choose to
do is you you may choose to um take 100 square feet of your roof which is not currently um being infiltrated and infiltrate that water instead right so
so they simply asking if you add 100 100 square F feet of impervious surface you infiltrate 100 Square F feet of new storm water even if you're taking it from a different piece of your property right and this to
me is going against what uh in general we're trying to encourage storm water retention on the property so that would mean that the existing
storm water that's exiting from the property continues to exit from the property instead of reducing your storm water Runner but the purpose of this ordinance is not to reduce burun off from from the
property it's not increase it not increas it but that I'm sorry David but that to me is part of the problem we're not decreasing we're already experiencing
seeing uh flooding not only we Berkeley Heights but there's flooding because of existing storm water runoff whether that I understand that but you can't you
can't there's not a solution for that well the solution you canot you cannot put an ordinance out there that says that requires homeowners to reduce their impervious surface all all that we can do in this case is try to catch new impervious surface and
ensure that that area is infiltrated and doesn't add to runoff we cannot mandate properties to actually reduce their runoff oh I least this ordinance well if not through this we need to be focused on what we can and cannot do with this
ordinance well you have a point but nevertheless are we going to allow the Army Corps of Engineers then to to build a big uh Dam and capture all the the the storm water that's running down uh
towards the Green Brook area and Scotch Plains that's the way to solve this as far as this particular Clause is concerned that that point a to me it's consistent with the spirit of what this ordinance is trying to do
which is to not increase and it gives a bit of flexibility to the homeowner to choose which source of storm water run off on their property they choose to infiltrate no no doubt about it it's
just that I I would love it if we could encourage people to uh disconnect their uh down spout from the street and retain storm water on their
property okay uh can't argue with you it's it's true that's the intention of the ordinance as you said soil testing the applicant shall be required to demonstrate that the proposed seepage pit system will not adversely impact any
adjacent structures basement foundations okay how is he demonstrating that except to say the the uh CIT bit system is is not
going to overflow onto uh another person's building I think this is basically what um they're talking about that the percolation and permability testing uh confirms that infiltration is
viable uh no doubt about that that needs to happen but now all of a sudden and I'm not arguing here uh you need to do this uh through a New Jersey licensed professional engineer so you're going to have to pay an
engineer to check whether the seasonal groundwater table is 2 feet or more below the bottom of this BMP y so again we provided this this is
an area where provided some proposed wording to Margaret to make a a more sort of homeowner friendly version of this for small developments yeah there's really doesn't differentiate
between adding a patio and adding an apartment complex it's it's one size fits all yeah the uh so then the way the exception to this
is allowed in two right I don't I don't know why we've got something that says three and two maybe that was the scan that uh uh happened but waiver from requirements is that the township
engineer can s can wave this requirement so maybe that's the way that they're going around around this that in other words the township engineer will say Okay dig down two feet and see if
you have if you hit water and if you don't hit water then I'm okay so that's to waiver for require any questions or comments on that so I've got a question on where where I
mean where does this draft ordinance stand will it come up again for votes was this the introduction prior to it being introduced for a vote or was this just a discussion session which which was different it wasn't even a
discussion s session in the sense David that members of the public could raise questions it was simply presented by the by the engineer and the uh Township Council asked a
couple of questions about it and then they went on to the next uh item that they were covering any this not really discussed can it come up for a vote now
no it hasn't come up for a vote it's not on the next agenda Tuesday's agenda doesn't have the right and it was a poor presentation as well I was there oh
yes okay this is if that was the the formal introduction and next time it will come to the township for to the council for approval or was that just an an informal presentation prior to it being
introduced that's what I'm wondering well I wish I could answer that question because that was not um you know brought up at the meeting I can help you with that it was listed as a second conference session
item and the usual um procedure these days has been to have a conference session on something that's going to be a subsequent um ordinance so you know okay at some point they will introduce it and you can go to
a meeting and make comments on and introducing it and then of course on Final hearing a couple of weeks later they'll have a separate specific hearing just on that and you get to do that but hopefully having listened to what you guys were saying is is you you you you'll kick this can
again well that's right there have to be two uh uh Township meetings in which this are any ordinance that's going to be presented is on the agenda for discussion and people can ask
questions so and then make comments questions or comments questions or comments but the point is that at the second session then they are they take a vote they don't take a vote at the first
session they take a vote at the second session well they you're correct they take a vote to ruce it and they can table it because there's sufficient problems that are raised at the session so they can table it and not introduce it and I to kill something early rather
than wait for the final session but it sounds like this one didn't have the first session yet right correct correct oh nice to meet everybody happy president day I love George Washington he was the
president of the United States he called the apple tree and he this is Manu choa this is Manu Cho man troper you're in a meeting with
the environmental commission and we're discussing something else you're welcome to attend the meeting but can you mute yourself please okay okay so just to finish uh uh what Steve was saying
we uh will I would suggest that we contact uh the town and follow up with our questions on this that's where I'm coming from yeah I
agree you you and I put some time into talking through this through with Margaret and providing some suggestions and most of those didn't make it into this draft so I think it's fair to follow up and ra raise those points
again and make some of those suggestions again especially in regard to minor development yeah yeah I I I'm not so concerned about major I think we have that the town has that
fairly well covered already I think it's the minor okay I'm going to stop sharing unless there's anyone else who wants to make comments on on the rest of the
ordinance I can I make a comment on the ordinance okay I can make a comment um you guys do a beautiful job oh well thank you now for somethinge all right then we're moving
on the next item on our agenda adopt the drain Jim are you still with us yes I am okay okay so a couple of things with respect to adop a drain I've been in touch with the National
adopted drain program I spoke to them about doing a national contest they thought that was a great idea um they are discussing internally what the parameters of that type of a contest
would look like and once they have more of a solidification of what that rubric will be um they're going to let me know so that we can be one of the first municipalities nationally to participate um so I will keep everyone informed
about that okay next uh Richard and I received some Communications from Liza with respect to our um no more scary drain contest um she was unaware from the
correspondence of the contributions to the adopted drain program made outside of that contest uh she also was not aware of the positive results that that contest yielded um I explained that we
followed our regular procedure for advertising the contest um I provided her with our annual report and showed the POS which showed the positive results that we got from not only the contest but from our regular
participation over the the uh 2024 Year and that we did make a positive contribution by cleaning up over 500 pounds of litter and leaves for the year um and mind you we now have SE
over 7 and a half% of the drains in town adopted so um I shared with Liza that this year in 2025 we will have a um more widely publicized cont test um and I am
happy to take suggestions from you my colleagues at the environmental commission as to what that contest might look like and what we might want to do for that contest I have not thought of the time that we would post that or um
what the theme might be but um if you can reach out to me and give me any thoughts that you might have that would be wonderful um and then I also reached out to Laura menden Hall who teaches um AP environmental science at Governor
Livingston high school she's also the faculty adviser to the environmental Club um she wrote back to me that her students that she she would float out to her students and promote the adopted drain program um I asked her if her
students could also submit some testimonials about their participation in the program that we could use for a later time and she said sure just let me know what you would like um I did circulate to everyone five questions
that I came up with I don't know if any anyone has had a chance to read those over but if you have any thoughts in addition to the five suggested questions that I proposed um
if you could please send those post me um this week before the end of the week that would be great because then I could share them with Laura and that is all I have and and the question uh Kim were you going to write
something up about the annual report for adopted drain I I will write something up about the annual report so that we can put it in tap into and so we can put something in the newsletter okay
terrific yeah I've been uh away so I haven't had a chance to really look at things but uh I'll take another look at your email about the questions okay yeah I mean this way if we have my thought was if we
can start getting testimonials we can help use that and incorporate those testimonials and other things that we might do all right and thanks very much Kim
and that uh Segways into the recork recycling I haven't had a chance as I said I've been away most of this past week so um I haven't gotten a chance to follow up but I did check the
recork um website and um so what they are asking people to do um the I guess the question bottom line would be if a liquor store say or a
restaurant was taking corks in would they be willing to pay to ship the corks to the recork company and next topics or anything else on Recycling and cleanups oh um David and I um um chatted
via email um and David correct me if I'm wrong his cleanup that he's doing with the the confirmation class is going to occur in Lower Columbia Park so um I will be coordinating something in April
I I don't have a date yet because I still don't know my travel schedule yet but um I'll be doing something in April at um SNY Park cleanup okay so we got two places for
cleanups Snider Park and Lower Columbia yes topics for the township newsletter any updates there so um again I'll I'll be putting in something for the the adopted drain program okay and we should also be putting in something
for people uh to get saplings all right uh then bake River Park and trails anything there if not okay uh onto the rggi grant so uh I had to
um update the bit speec for that for the next phase I did that before I left uh and then uh it doesn't seem to be on the agenda for uh tomorrow I will ask La uh
lies of what happened because um I thought that she had she wanted to put that on the agenda for tomorrow and that was uh uh a bits speec that Tom Baka was supposed to look at as well so I don't
know what's happened there but uh you know the this bits speec process is is one that is lengthy you have to advertise or publicize that you have a bid speec you have to give the bid the
biders or potential biders time to put in their bids and then you have to make a decision on those bids uh that's a process that can take several weeks even a month or so we're looking at you know
it's mid February so we're looking at maybe mid-march before something happens and um there are other uh towns that are putting out bids for planting trees so
the suppliers of trees uh may be out of certain species this is uh something that I'm worried about the community energy plan Grant uh is also something that has a deadline of
February 28th and Alvaro is out of town so I will uh uh check with Liza and also Margaret illis and Susan po uh as to how we're moving forward with that because we're
supposed to be doing uh filling out a form for this grant and the Greenacres grant for hand tools I think that uh opportunity is passed am I correct there David yeah if I remember correctly it
was a February 5th deadline okay so then I'll take need to try to connect with Dan get his agreement and try and look for a future opportunity okay and then ER okay back to you David
yeah ER that Grant was applied for successfully on well applied for on Friday which was the deadline we're applying for a $10,000 Grant the township has agreed to fund $2,000 and then the balance will be made up out of the
Exxon um EC fund so um and the resolution is on the agenda for Tuesday I saw that yeah and thanks for your help getting all those letters of recommendation Rich those look those
will definitely strengthen the bid I hope so I hope they do yes I feel fairly good about this one I think going for $10,000 the township has got some skin in the game so I I do think we'll we'll get this
one and then B City USA um I'm waiting to hear whether the town has paid its um dues for bcity USA trees for schools and residents that order has been placed we'll get that uh
those trees uh uh the week uh before Arbor Day or the uh I think Arbor Day is on a Friday so that Monday or Tuesday we should be getting those trees budget we I think have talked
about the budget in the past I don't think there's any update except that possibly uh including the 20 from the town in uh the budget for the ER uh no update on the community garden
plot back back to the budget yes please the me the the message from Liza and also the draft ordinance say that $2,000 is coming out of the township Professional Services budget yes we
don't need to forecast that okay and then yep the stuff I I wrote Chris not Chris WR BR I thought that um somebody else was in charge of uh
the um business and Civic uh committee but uh anus are you there still is Angus still there or not yes Angus did you go to the meeting for skip the stuff he went to
the business and Civic meeting on Friday hus are you asleep go once going twice Angus nothing he is not replying so um he was going to talk with Chris Wang and and go to the meeting on Friday
Chris Wang uh uh apparently is very much in favor of Chris of skip the stuff so I'm hoping that uh we can have some positive feedback on that uh
um if Angus can come back and tell us what uh what happened at the meeting give me a second here all right move on with the agenda and see if Angus comes back anything else before we open the
citizens hearings on any environmental issues anything else from the commission no if not then anyone uh who would like to speak and I guess we lost
Manu but Steve cares is there I am here and um I have nothing further thank you okay thank you and we're still waiting if Angus is coming back and I
cannot seem to Ping him I've tried to to send a text message but he's not replying so we'll have to wait to see what he has to say on on that for the next
meeting uh in any case my expectation from Chris's Chris Wang's email was that um the they are in favor of doing this and some uh some restaurants may already
be doing it uh apparently door Dash has a box when you order through door Dash uh there's a box that you have to check if you want uh
utensils so it's already the default setting not to supply stuff yeah I thought that was an encouraging response that I saw the email from I'm not sure who it was now but um one of the restaurants owners I
thought that was encouraging yes exactly uh but Angus was supposed to have a discussion with the with them at the meeting and so I don't know what came of that um our next meeting is March 3D
uh I don't think we're having any more conflicts with the building being closed oh one one more thing and that was from near we should try to include that in our meeting minutes and that
was um she may changes to the form there was an issue uh raised with whether the names and addresses in the uh form to the green challenge uh
you know had to be supplied to sustainable Jersey there don't have to be supplied to the sustainable Jersey but I suggested that the form have a box to check that the person replying as a
Berkeley Heights resident that way that would be saved to the form so that we're able to document okay um uh that a certain percentage of the Town residents have replied and that was the requirement of the of the
action uh NE writes it does not say on the action description that we should be prepared to send a list of names but if they don't require to submit uh and Samantha did not say it was needed I would rather people be encouraged to do the challenge than get the points if more people would be
willing to do it uh but if we could uh just have people check a box I'm a Berkeley Heights resident and I'm going to do it I think we've got ourselves covered is there no other comments or questions do I hear a motion well I'll just say that sounded good given I
brought this up at a prior meeting so thank you once again I'm waiting for a motion I make a motion to adjourn this meeting at 901 second second okay thanks so much everyone have
a a good night okay good night everyone everyone