##VIDEO ID:Ahfvmu9Zjp0## for pursuant to the open public meetings act notice of this meeting was sent to the cranberry press the Trenton Times and the home News Tribune on January 5th 2024 posted on the bulletin board posted on the Township's website and send to those who requested a copy of this notice we're going to move into roll call John reinfelder here Josh gut AB John CR is excuse Gabe leaderman here okay Becky Ms here Jason milenberg is absent Teresa vicaro is absent Dela George is absent and Steven helstern here okay okay so we just look at the minutes from May of 24 May 20th 2024 take a minute if you see anything you can let me know there was items on the stream cleanup sustainable Jersey Trail maintenance and the adopt the catch Basin initiative all right do we have a motion to approve the minutes I make a motion to approve the minutes and do we have a second second thank you all in favor I I opposed and one exstension maybe abstain okay all right so thank you for coming in August we were cancelled our last last two meetings and so I felt like we just need at least one meeting to talk about mainly cranberry day but um I'll send out more information about that in the next week or so there were no there was no DRC meeting I assumed there was nothing from the planning board but Jason is not here we do not have our Parks liaison and Barbara is also away to the township committee so that moves us right to Old business and um was there anything you want to say about adopt the catch Bas at this time yeah actually I want to just follow up from the previous meeting in May um just so happens that it seems to be appropriate timing in that anj is hosting a webinar on September 10th entitled anj citizen scientist series adopted drain program where they're going to have guests from Hamline University in Minnesota and they're going to talk about their adopted catch Basin program and how it has been used to reduce litter and increase the effectiveness of the storm water system and how um we as an organ as a community can help to implement these kind of initiative so I did register for the webinar um I am going to attend it so I guess maybe in our September meeting I will bring some more information um to the to the committee um about the adopt the catch Basin program um but I know that we did get some positive feedback I know Barbara um did talk a little bit about it uh with some other people and I know that there was some some other interest so that's exciting so I'm hoping that anj uh webinar can you know help us get a little bit more yeah focused Gusto behind us to get it going so we we'll see where that goes but I'll come back in in the September meeting after this and see where we can go from there and that's all I got on that one that's great and what time is that during the is that during the day uh 7 PM 7 yeah I can forward the link to to you John and that' be great yeah absolutely and when's our next meeting [Music] September it's okay we'll check it later um that'd be awesome yeah if you get that information and we can this was a this is a program where citizens I gather will volunteer to adopt a storm drain Basin and just be aware of it if it suddenly gets very clogged with leaves branches and other debris that they would take take it upon themselves to either clear it or notify us or whatever to um so that we you know when we have these big rain events the war goes where it's designed to go especially the last week or so right especially the last week or so seems like it's feaster famine with the rain exactly um as all gardeners know this year but um that's great okay so we'll have more information on that now I did get a I know Teresa's not here and Bar's not here but Teresa did say that uh excuse me Barbara texted me if I can read this um the schedule for the inlet mapping so we have the the program I don't know if you know they're they've been going around with the Princeton High School students and uh I don't know if it's a device or an app or something yeah so it's the the argis software that they use for for mapping um things like that the high school kids have been going around and mapping all of the storm water inlets I guess the and [Music] um making a record of where they are and how many there are and their locations and trying to I guess gather uh an inventory of those for the town um and I guess that goes towards like our ms4 permit stuff and all that new storm order regulations that are coming into to effect and exactly and actually the state didn't have a complete list it turns out so and we didn't have a complete list so no one had a so we want to generate a complete list and give it to the township engineer it was it's moved up though they've accelerated it they're they're making a lot of progress but they were going to finish in the winter now they're going to try to finish in the fall so we'll see how that goes but they are going to give that list to the town so that you know a lot of times these things they also clog um or break or whatever and you just need to know where they are to for our permitting and also for sometimes you know situations change and you have to figure out is there enough capacity for the water to go out uh so that's another issue all right so that's great and Teresa's been doing wonderful work with with students on that high school students mainly High School I believe and Barb Barb's been out there too okay so this brings us to the new business which is cranberry day and um I just I was going to show a couple slides for our entertainment I can get those up there let's see how that may have to choose it's the kind of thing you have to choose the input I feel like there was an input source H Source in ready hey it's hm to oh well oh oh there you go it just need to warm up just need to warm up it's just it's easier certainly for me it's easier this way I could have just talked but it's a little more interesting I think so um some ideas for environmental commission at CR now we're going to have a as we usually have a table somewhere um usually it's in front of the the ballet school but I don't know where you know they're going to put us uh and you know we can have general information I think we should have information the garden for wildlife initiative is relatively new and I think hopefully Dela can spend some time on that I we we've done it actually at at our house we've gotten you've gotten it we have um we've gotten certified we've got a plaque and all that stuff so I'd be more than happy to share about that if Dela is not able to but 100% we can definitely do that that's really good because uh also I was thinking there were the I mean we have the handout my my wife and I are thinking of doing it um you just haven't gotten around to it but um I was thinking if we had those flyers or some a few give out plus the QR code yep you know that would be really great yeah okay okay yeah I guess we could make copies of that okay and now I what it's saying is it runs from 9 to 4 or is it 10 to 4 but it's 9 it's 9 to four kber day I think it's all day so that's well we can work I'll send out of like a little three-part people can just roughly tell me if they have time to come by and then residential storm water management I don't know if we have something rain barrel presentation there's always rain barrels are good and um but you know I that's I mean that I think is the most common goto thing for residential storm water is rain barrels not everybody has you know the wherewithal to dig up their yard and regrade and all that other stuff so true um rain Batts I think is the simplest thing to demonstrate um I don't know if the town has like a rain barrel demo or I know that when when I when I lived in Robinsville we we got stuff for our community day from anac and we reach out to anjac and they have like packets or like Community Day for for communities and and it they give out it's all the anj Flyers and all that kind of stuff so I'm not sure who we would need to reach out to to do that but that might be a resource that we can Implement as Welly [Music] um they might or Rec extension about I think they've done rain they used to do a lot of rain barrels and I did I did a demo of rain barrels many many years ago I brought two of our rain barrels down I could I could possibly bring one yeah not we could I could do that too that's not an issue yeah but um I I think I have some information I have to dig where is that I had some pictures and things but I have to find out that stuff from you know 15 20 years ago but I'll look for that we have a stuff in storage well that's the other thing yeah I need to come stop by and look at the storage we might have a lot of stuff in storage we do have um something that the county let us borrow years ago apparently and they never came to pick it up so we still have it I don't know what it is it's still in a black bag I just know it says e on it cranber day oh so let's look at it so oh it's it's we can look at it in the great we look right at it oh awesome very nice perfect and yeah and I was just wondering if we had a sign I can't remember do you have T-shirts if we have one it might be downstairs might be downstairs okay so we can check that later and these were just other things you know community so solar crur Township preserves and hiking trails you know we could just have information on that QR codes Etc but we map we have yes I'm pretty sure we have maps and maybe a bigger map of the preservers so that's a good one and go ahead I was going to say maybe uh just a collage of some of the other things that maybe we we've done over the course of the year to kind of say hey we're not just sitting here doing nothing but these are some of the initiatives that we're looking at and what we've done and what we want to do moving forward I think that could be something to Garner maybe a little bit more Community engagement people seeing what we're doing and wanting to get more involved initiatives and plans okay and maybe so you're thinking like put it on a poster yeah maybe just like a you know like a poster board with just you know just you know some stuff like that yeah nothing nothing fancy okay see that's where meeting face to face you just you can't really generate juices through it just doesn't work um but hopefully others will be brainstorming so that's good and um you know the Watershed I I mean that was a little bit abstract but you know maybe it's really about information about the Watershed Association um you know a little information you know we we're situated in this Watershed and there's this whole association that's very very active on issues related to its preservation something like that um there's that one was a little a little ill formed yet fetch in there a little yeah it's coming I don't know so all right so those were some things and then maybe others um that people you know just call out and then I had this crazy idea and uh I think I'll be able to pull it off present a macroinvertebrate discovery tag what is that okay first you have to go out and get some macro invertebrates from our local streams so basically the idea is to show people the critters that are in our local streams and it's yes it's very important to the ecosystem because they're part of the food web and they're also used by the state and other and the whole country as indicators of stream quality stream water quality so I just thought it would be a nice thing it's an interactive thing I've often found that events like this you need something that attracts children and then they drag their parents Kicking and Screaming over you know the parents don't necessarily gravitate but if you have something to grab the children the parents combine and oh by the way do you know about storm water and this and that so um I did you know I sent around that thing and basically this is this is the the deluxe model they set up in Pennsylvania with it which is actually a table it's like a beverage table that he converted to a thing I don't it's a little too big for what we we don't have the space so I have some smaller thing you I have a lot of stuff I have I have a lab at record so I have a lot of stuff and I also was able to get some more modestly sized things I'm going to test out probably this weekend just to see uh and basically it's bubblers on the side and those are ice packs so you bring ice packs and you have thermometers this is another thing for the kids you know what's the temperature they can see the temperature they can go in and start finding the critters and then I'll have I'll bring one of my they call it a um dissecting microscope so it's for not super high power and they can look at these because these things are like a centimeter or half a centimeter a lot of them and then I also got a big magnifying glass you can just put it on it I do have a water quality analysis probe so we can also incorporate that to show water temperature pH and all that stuff as well so we can incorporate that as part of so awesome because um I have one but it's so enormous oh no mine's a little handheld one with cable and you can just drop it inop it yeah yeah perect awesome you know fi work yeah I mean because they're saying monitor oxygen I was like well I'll monitor temperature don't I mean I think that'll probably cover the oxygen um but yeah and basically you you know you collect the critters and you put them in here you bring them in little boxes in a cooler and then you bring them out and you know you basically let the kids hunt for them and look at them and try to identify them whatever they you know whatever ask questions about them but at the same time we can tell them that you know these sorts of organisms indicate healthy environment these sorts of organisms indicate you know not so healthy environment the last I couldn't find data for this stretch there was one sample done way Upstream in cranberry and it wasn't looking so great but I think it was like right next to either the Jamesburg um treatment plant I'm not not Monroe the Monroe treatment plan excuse me well I'm not sure where it was exactly but the invertebrates weren't of the high quality but I don't know by by the time it gets down here it could be a different story so I was gonna go first behind the firehouse because there's a good access and then if that doesn't work I'll go to the millstone you know and there many I have little other places I go um so I thought that would be cool and then um you know basically the the people the kids look at it with you know magnifying glasses under the microscope and it's just I think it it works I've done this at ruter I'm I come from a marine background so I did this with marine organisms but I think this is better because it's local it's freshwater you know I do that is so important because I'm just learning that yes and they have wonderful ones this this Stroud uh Water Resource Center in Pennsylvania is amazing I had heard about them before but you know these keys are wonderful because they you know they give you all the parts that you need to look for because these are like and also these are like aliens you know crazy you know scary monsters when you look at them up close the kids won't realize they have claws and antenna and Tails and crazy crazy stuff so it shows you the parts but then it's it's the typical um what do they call it the bu camera you know the system of identification if it's this it's this you go here to here and they this is a simple one that's just 16 pages so we could have this and you know kind of go through it I I kind of have a sense I hope we get these ctis flies are ctis fly larvey they build their own little homes with stones or some of them make this perfectly Square home you should go online and see some of the pictures now I don't know if we're going to get those here those were from Pennsylvania get their hopes up but um you know we'll see what we get that's why I'm G to try to go out and see you know what do we get um but yes so we have a key like this but then awesome I've taught stream study you have so I've done this hundreds of times you're [Applause] inton oh okay okay aage one page thing I've seen I've I I have a onepage PDF maybe it's the same one um but yeah just you know and don't have to get too heavy into it but you know if it sometimes you get kids often they want to dig into it you know and so you want to have something for for them to really think about and what's nice is they color these by you know good bad or indifferent so I think purple was not good let's see here purple somewhat s oh this is sensitive to pollution so blue is sensitive so those are the ones that indicate better Environmental Quality purple is somewhat sensitive it's on the fence and then orange are the tolerant ones those are the ones that can you know take over when it get the water quality goes really bad so that's what I thought I would do now of course so there are things so I don't know what to you know macro invertebrate Discovery tank nobody knows what that is maybe I'll creeping crawling Critters of Cranberry Creek I don't know something we'll have to have you know we'll have to sell it at something else but come see the crawling Critters of cranberry Brook that's the the PT Barnum and me you know you got to figure out the marketing and then there oh this was one of the keys that I mean not Keys just um commonly seen ones you know and so like I said pollution sensitive pollution pollution tolerant oh and I was thinking of making some stickers of some of the bugs for the kids you know because they're really cool looking when you get them up close so I'll see if I can get my act together to make some stickers um this is the guide I was just showing you and everyone of course course could identify this one as a as a mayfly these are one of the better ones the the what are they call the I can never remember these words ephemeroptera the ephemeroptera the mayfly order there's the E why did you not remember that word epher ephemeroptera you know there's the ple copter and the tricopter and the ephemeroptera those are the EPT those are the good good ones those are the good ones and then there's the Chiron I know the chironomids those are midges and aletes are worms small worms so when the quality goes down the chironomids which are basically these n midge Flies that are we we have the larve and they go through their breeding um in the water there have been a lot of studies of them because they live in polluted water and people use them to study the transfer of pollutants from sediments into fish and birds and things like that because they're in the they're in the middle of the food web so I many of my colleagues in Canada this is a side worked on them I don't know I'm going off off message here uh but then the Predators are really cool too because if we can find some dragonfly or damsel fly larvey those are really cool looking too so anyway I thought it would be fun and um so hopefully U I have all the materials I have a a net that I use I go to Salt marshes and collect grass shrimp um but it's the same net it's just a deframe net same exact thing and um you know I've got buckets and pump and and air pumps and things all that kind of thing so I think we're all set the only thing was the stickers have to figure out but there are these websites you know you send them a picture and then they send you stickers so I'm going to check that out I don't think it' be to prohibited so you look for a stamp dragonfly stamp something that's true too stamps stamps that's a good one if I can't find stickers where's that oh yeah here tattoos stamps and Tattoos we did tattoos that's right like 20 years ago we had I don't know someone gave us these were they bug tattoos or animal tattoos okay stamps tattoos without kids leaving with exactly marks everywhere face painted okay good stuff all right so we can we can go out of there supposed to shift back to the other one doesn't matter okay all right so I think that gives us a good you know solid amount of stuff for cranberry day um one thing I did want to mention I we had this Reinhardt property thing I went to on Saturday Gabe was there there was a walk organized by pen medicine in the library in the Reinhardt property on Plainsboro Road and I got an email from a citizen who said that it was very overgrown and there were there was one tree down but um Gabe and I walked it most of it and it was overgrown in Parts definitely overgrown in Parts but certainly manageable as a trail um but we did spot a few things we just weren't you know I didn't I didn't know what it was so they moved their walk is tomorrow and they moved it to the cranberry Brook preserve so there should be no problems I think it's you know maybe mostly senior so it might have been a little bit uncomfortable but not really that bad but um there were you know I we took note of some things that were going to there was a tree with a trail marker that was down you know we can replace we can fix that I took photos of these things one of the logs that was down was kind of nice to be there I don't know maybe we not worried now right in the beginning there's a ton of poison ivy but that's really the only place it is it's just right in the beginning and you just step through and you're fine I mean you don't have to step through the poison ivy you step over the poison ivy but that might have been offputting to some people because it's right in the it's the first thing and it's a lot of poison ivy so I don't know um I'll have to consult with the township and others about you know maintenance I mean is it just up to us to maintain it so you know figure that out because I certainly haven't had been able to really walk most of the preserves because I was out and about you know people busy but now I can you know but um anyway so that'll be an issue you know just to figure out how we do that going forward because we have you know of course cranberry Brook preserve and um unami Woods across the way and and Pino Pino Trail now the Pino Trail is is maintained by the that's the other thing it is M I think it's a little over maintained but it is maintained um but it's worth us walking it and so if you have a chance or if you do have to walk it um and you see something that we can address can always just email okay there was there was poison I like growing on the trail on the trail and there were in the woods part um so as you walk in along the river and then it curves to the right and you go through the woods there there are some trees that are down down okay but I mean you know they're put off the ground they're easy to step over but I mean it could be with people with limited ability might be hard for them to step um and then right when you come out of those woods as you're walking sort of along the woods in the field that grass is a little bit High um but like once you loop around and start coming back through that's pretty much low there's some wet spots but I mean we've had so much rain yeah so there's just a little bit of poison heavy and trees poison heavy down trees okay sounds good good so I don't yeah poison that's another thing I don't know if there are rules about what we're supposed to do like can we use Roundup can we use other things in The Preserves I don't know if there's any policy on that so that's a question I'm going to have to ask the town um for treatment recommendations I mean maybe it's fine and you know it's allowed and they can spray one time you know I think that's probably okay if it's not continuous okay so uh that's about all I had unless anybody else had items of new business we can and the public is not here so uh no comments from the public uh with that we can probably adjourn and take a look at the mysterious black bag in the office then I'd like to make a motion to close yes second all in favor of adjournment say I opposed thank you it closes the meeting