all right I'm gonna call this meeting of the township of Ocean Environmental commission to order uh let's do a quick roll call member Colton member Johnson here uh member godette here member Lutz here uh member Brandon indicated that he would not be here tonight member may meet here Al ranti here and Alternate AI here great fantastic statement of compliance with the open public meeting law the notice requirements of the open public meeting law for this meeting have been satisfied a copy of the annual notice was sent to the asur park crust and the coaster posted in town hall and filed in the office of the Township Clerk on June 30th 2023 we do not have any minutes for approval but we do have welcome in introductions to our not quite Council liaison this is your first environmental commission meeting you've been hanging out with the sheet tree more we're a little a little jealous um so I know that everyone in the town knows who you are but if you wouldn't mind doing a little introduction and your thoughts on the environment and concerns about the environment in town we can all kind of introduce ourselves to you and and tell you a little bit about what we do and and we'll go from there so take it away my name is Kelly Terry relatively new uh council member um but not the newest that but not the newest not the newest correct that is correct I came in I guess it's a little over a year ago back in November of 23 is when I started the position lifelong resident back up to joean Park very interested in um environmental type issues primarily for that reason um I have not attended a meeting before I've only attended M was my second for the shade tree commission um I don't know if I will be the um Council Le on um however I know that after Margie left I wanted to step in to make sure that we had a voice so that's why I'm here and we appreciate that so why don't we go around and then we'll do our members who are virtual and I'll go last so we'll start with Julia and we'll just I'm Julia you know I'm very green and I don't allow plastic bottles on the table I'm trying to f up my micro micro Plastics okay yeah and I'm happy to be here as an alternate I'm M baxy I'm also an alternate and I live in Wayside and I do care about our glad to be part of this group K let's I guess I'm the longest serving member of the environmental commission former chair actually and um I've been around for decades commission for that was s so you kind start over Okay yeah I had I had an assignment in 2009 of for a year so I left town and what were you doing in Washington Ken working as a science advisor to a senary that was exciting anyway um so anyway um I have a lot of experience writing orces and legislation and uh and other things I'm nor Colton I'm on the sh Tre commission I'm chair those things volunteer step forward everyone step back and I've been on the sh environment commission longer because there was a defunct sh sh commission got okay so that's um I'm Jack M I'm the chair of the Green Team and I'm also on the EC as a full member um yeah just tell her about your garden but my garden yeah don't you have like a hydroponic garden in your backyard oh yeah I have a hydroponic garden and it's um it's electronic so it has sensors in every bed and it automatically Waters um with drip irrigation I bought one of those Tower things that I have yet to be able to put together so I guess I just found the right guy um so yeah that's so if you want to start a community garden let me know that is we have like five through the Garden Club okay yeah our first one is how about Stephen all right oh when Ken brought me into the environmental Commission his hair was not white so been here for quite a while um been lived in town for a little bit longer and and been involved in various environmental issues throughout the community all right Mary I I've been on the en enironmental commissions I think since about 2010 or 11 um before the pandemic I I organized the um Earth Fest most years and um right now I'm working on two projects that are both related to snell Pond one is uh Gardens where they uh did the blue took down the houses and leftt blue acres and um well no the other one is related to the deer and I'm waiting for the town to uh pass the deer ordinance and then we're going to put out a web um page you know talking about deers and things we can do to manage the deer population all right and my name is edilia uh before moving to Ocean I was the chair of the chattam barough open space and historic preservation trust committee and I served on their environmental Commission in my professional life I was the municipal policy specialist at the ston brook milstone Watershed Association and the program manager of for Jersey Waterworks at New Jersey future and in addition to serving on the environmental commission I am the vice chair of the planning board so I also serve as our planning board leison so that's who we are Chuck is also yeah tend to tend to be involved in town so some of the the big things that the environmental commission has been able to accomplish in the last few years is our environmental resource inventory which is including by reference on our last master plan that we did last year and in that master plan we will actually be talking about this a little bit later in that master plan we discussed the need to do a new environmental resource inventory that was more aligned with the master plan so that they are done together and so that uh we will have one that is not in any conflict with the other so that process I'm going to talk about a little bit later tonight that we should start slowly thinking about that so that we get it done in the next few years and when we did this we got a lot of grant funding to do it which is high on the priority list to do again because a good ER like this one I think this one wound up costing is what was it you guys remember $25,000 all told something like that that yeah yeah I think we got $20,000 Grant and then we kicked in in a little extra on top of that um so with inflation it's like 50,000 I just went through for another nonprofit I went through an RFP process for Consultants to do just a strategic plan and yeah the what was costing $15,000 in like 2016 is now like 60,000 so but the $20,000 Grant we got was because of our um the New Jersey sustainability you mean the the uh sustainable Jersey sustainable Jersey because we were certified certified as I guess it bronze at that time um allowed us to apply for the grant and is that what I picked up for you guys then in November yes the bronze okay but but anyway um that was the highest award there were only four of them given in the state got one of them yeah this this one this is a lot of work by a lot of people and there's a lot of really good information in it so it's a it's a good resource if you don't have a copy because I know all the council members got a copy when we did because we printed up 50 I don't know if there's any kicking around in the planning office I know I don't have any more but I'll see if we can find you a c it's online too but okay I shouldn't say that you know printing it is an easier way to absorb some of it because we don't want to kill but you have a really good PDF reader 50 people that gave that I didn't it was um Mike but yeah I think it's part of the contract we got 50 hard copies so every member of the governing body got it every member of the planning board the zoning board um key members and staff every member of the environmental commission and I think that brought us pretty close to 50 I don't know if there's any extras so but having that should make uh updating it to even align it with the master plan a lot l was expensive yes I mean a lot of it you know the hydrology of the Town hasn't changed the the streams are roughly where they are with some you know sedimentation in parts of De Lake not withstanding but yes a lot of the data is still you know it's not the same LP to to collate at all as it was the first time so hopefully it'll be easier anyways all right do you have any other questions for us and what we do not at this time okay great just going to absorb all right so let's dive into our agenda on the website I dropped the ball I need to get the contact information up there for D and for the county health department that we discussed last time that's on me I was going through my notes this morning I'm like knew I forgot to do something last month so um that'll get up there I don't know if there's anything else that anyone's thought about for the last month that we want to put up on there on our website GRE now that we have a real date yes absolutely yeah um we are think we're kicking around an idea to have the schools do a poster contest for GRE Fest this year okay uh Diane is heading that Dian brand is talk to the high school and she's at she's at the middle school the teacher at the middle school so she's going to kick that around between the two when we're going to come up with some kind of contest and we got to figure out who's going to judge it maybe the judge it is it the green test it's uh but the judging comes before that we're just we're trying to we're trying to get the students involved in creating a like a flyer for it what are they going to win I don't know yeah well I have a suggestion only because I've seen this done to great success is that the winner could have their design put on a T-shirt and their award could be their t-shirt I think the cranberry environmental commission did that one year yeah because then you yeah they they really really like you can give him a gift card something M to a t-shirt though yeah something else for the website Tre giveaway right are we going to give Tre trees away oh that we just talked about yeah yeah but what do you mean by for the website just stuff that we're going to put on the I mean you saw that they recently we've done the whole Municipal website so we have a a a better page and a page that is we get figure out what we're do sure's turns up the the green Fest is not too late to be coordinated with okay but the you have to get them by 24th or 25th of April M and uh 15 refrigerators I forget so we're probably going to give him out just right around that time maybe Sunday before that and uh probably the way we did the first one of those giveaways at the senior center next to the pool M just that was convenient by parking there and so so forth so between the Garden Club and uh commission even the environmental commission you know was spending some time there we had a lot of time this this time I was thinking maybe from like say it's from 102 or something and uh so that we'll put something in about that we get it fin the giveaway the third grader giveaway which was always an environmental commission thing back in the day uh they're not giving away the free treat third graders this year I thinking of trying to get more trees but you can't count on it first of all the tree giveway what you get how many for the tree giveway they have um they're going to have the state selling Tu Lings okay from various things but I spoke to the person who down there alsoo they haven't got the order form out yet because they still they're grown and you know from seed and they going to see what what made it what didn't make it go from to sale that might be but I found another Nursery in South Jersey that sells sinkings the only difference is the tubings are in Tu the other ones were they dipped them in a jaill at this Nursery but the southern Nursery they just sort of dig them and keep them moist and you so they they're going to dry out faster okay you get them away but so we need to promote the giveway but but for the this for the third grade for the third grade so we give it to the Border band you give it to the school system give it to the Hill school and I give it to shro yeah and search day so point is I think it still work got to figure out which ones to get from that place I got to get to Dave and say how you want to handle this fund it and so on and so for okay in the past I think we did pay for stuff out of our budget we couldn't lean on like a local Nursery to do that like their Community Farm or somebody like that No No's grown some this the place that I used to used to get him from is even in a business I like cool this other place that we got stuff for that rain garden over by by the tennis place the rain Garden I called them but they're to pricing this is individual plants and pots and everything I said this place was called kochore Nursery that's where we used to get him from years ago I said what happened to croch I say oh we bought their proper and you need about the question but then no but then they told me about this guy place called acrom that's way down in South Jersey that does ceilings and I got there Pi them up and I got the catalog and I spoke to them about 300 it's a little over 300 you know usually we get 350 like last year it was convenient we got more than we needed necessarily because the ones we didn't give away went right into the tree giveway you know and that could still possibly happen with this time also you know of course um they like an earthquake kind of program and so on and so forth but the timing is kind of weird depending when we do it was uh when we have the giveaway for example the day after I get the give the day the Friday before the giveaway as far as the the hill school's concerned that's when they they want on vacation because it's all Passover the next day right the day after we give them away the next day I'm going to be heading to my daughters for a few days year so the target is April 25th 26th I think Sunday the Sunday before pass so Target day and the day before Earth died yeah it's close to Earth Day and Arbor Day is like in September I thought no AR day is the last Friday in April or something whatever it is yep yeah so the perfect week would be the week of Passover which Happ to be the week of pass actually the days in I couldn't get easily enough so um so anyway that gets kind of complicated but I think we can make that sort of happen and that's that's worth that see okay so as soon as we have times let us know and put them on the website I will I will and years ago before there were free trees um the environmental commission was always sponsoring the tree giveaway for kids in school right um second and third graders it was second graders then we skipped the year so we made it to the third graders so we've been doing third graders and and the environmental commission out of our budget used to just buy the trees but they were like 25 cents a piece the see the ones in South Jersey they depending they're only going to be be Buck a buck and a half I asked how much they think the tuings are going to be she said maybe $3 or something which is preferred for you well the tuings would be better if depending on when we get them only because they're in they're in a little tube and they last you could water them a little easier if you had to but you you have to figure out what's happening before forever you know I'm going to send Dave Brown the thing suggesting saying that it could cost ,000 or so you know the other ones might cost say 600 instead of a th whatever so see if I can get a donor that'd be nice but but we've we've done it for years now fact before they had this free giveaway thing like those first few years that we had the greenfest trees that they gave out of the library was at the library we bought those newy you state forestry Nursery everything's going on the nursery they just don't have enough people people are quing there and going out they call me these other places I pull the new J sh Tre ation the woman answers oh hi Norm you know but she used to be at the at the new urban community forestry thing some just we all right we got some other things on our agenda so unless anyone else Angelie I don't mean to cut you off no I I was just gonna ask if if we could put that unwasted phone number on our environmental commission's website because there's been issues with like pickups like they'll change the day because of the weather oh okay so this way like people know like where wait which way you the the plastic film I found out about the plastic fil I qu because I I had my stuff out on Monday and it was not picked up right so it turns out that I called the the Public Works people and whoever answered said well they have nothing to do with that on that's why we want have number gave me a phone number for someone that wound up with a uh and this is like in the morning of Monday which wound up as a machine that I left a message on okay which I never got a call back on and then somewhere Tuesday at some point after my wife was say you know there's stuff still out there I have to look at hey it's gone imagine that I had three people come in today alone and two yesterday asking about information or a phone number that because it's not being picked up it's not being picked up and the things is I think it has to do with the weather and and because because it's plastic right it's going to get all wet and it's not a closed container so I know it's like a pilot program so then it's confused for people because they don't not everybody knows it's a pilot program but I know like I have a entire tub in my closet because I it was raining or and then I don't know because it's it's not clear like I it's maybe if there was a number we could just call and confirm each time I took mine I took mine I put in it turn out to be a big bag so I stuff the bag in the bucket upside down so that it did right they basically run off the top plastic right for the record mine was picked up day Monday Monday yeah we will get a number for them that would be great no but they didn't answer the number I had to but you left the message and then it got picked up so someone checked that message I don't fix oh God so do you not want to put the number on the website no no I think they just what I'm saying is I think they just kept that's what we're going for this is about the website all right I'll try I'll try to gag myself all right the I have on the agenda the tree ordinance interview in next steps and I had the tree audit that got carried from last month because we didn't have the data in the format to be useful I'm holding that to March because I want to have a conversation and I tried to have a conversation with Colleen what's Colleen's last name mayor mayor who is the new Ron to talk coordination about all of that issue with her and I have not had that and I don't want to continue to have conversations until we are all on the same page that seems not a great way to start a working relationship between the EC and them so yeah can I say three things Absolut quick things about one we're still in limbo waiting for the state guidelines so I mean hav done anything yeah um two uh Norm has suggested at the very least changing the construction ordinance to up the fee or make the fee consistent with the other tree ordinance and that could probably be done fairly quickly I Che that as a do out from the last yeah I mean that's a possibility of just asking the council to do that and three um and I think I sent you email of saying there are only four licensed Tree Experts in MMO County which I find shocking because remember there used to be dozens of certified Tree Experts so I don't know what's happened they got old they old they branched out yeah so I so we require a licensed tree expert in town and and Bill Brooks is not so uh he is a licensed tree expert no he's not he's not licensed no it gets really complicated because there's licensed Tree Experts there's licensed arborists there are tree Specialists there are at least a half a dozen very similar sounding titles with different credentialing levels so I we're going to have to you know make a change to the ordinance in that respect um because otherwise things he signed off may not be legal and there were also what they call ISC C certified arists Isa I mean International Society of barers bar culture whatever it's called that is not technically a New Jersey licens thing but it's recognized so in your in your discussion uh with the planning uh ask ask maybe how that could be rewarded so that it it it's not just license but they you know sufficient experience or whatever erienc Li expert Define experience credential so I I think some of it has to do with like their training or something because I I remember having this issue because I have like some dead trees in the back my house and even though the landscaper said these are dead I said well can you just put that in the letter he's like no you need to have like a certified person even though it looked dead to everyone and so I had to get a letter right so and it was challenging to find someone who did it but there was some special letters that they had like in like um specifications like either they were certified or something they had something you know after their signature so there's got to be something either license certified something some training well New Jersey only just has the one standard now licens tree expert that's it but but um I mean today if you went you could apply in town and then do Brooks would come out and look at it and certified so MH at least we save residents that trouble yeah yeah yeah and the summer it's easier to tell if itri's did or not sure sure not so much right now no that and that's yeah but moving right along to other ordinances um there's two and I'm going to put them together again was the storm water ordinance that is sustainable Jersey points so I see an email from you about this recently Jack no okay no I saw an email about it recently there's just to bring everyone up because I don't think we've talked about it in depth a while under sustainable Jersey there is the enhanced stormwater ordinance which includes a bunch of different Provisions municipalities to deep up their storm water Protections in town if you do you get points for sustainable Jersey there's a whole long Saga behind its creation I will not bore you with it now we had been talking about doing it we got it we presented to the council twice on it and then it kind of didn't go anywhere but there wasn't a reason it didn't go anywhere and everyone was kind of interested in doing it but they wanted to just think about it a little bit more thinking about it for two years so let's figure out where we are with it and get it um last week on THS last Thursday there was a storm water um Zoom is that what you're talking about you might have saw Margie might have sent you something on that maybe yeah there's a lot and they had like the rain Gardens and all like the options of doing this is not that this this is a different one yeah this is um it it really gets into uh some of the more engineering specific things about runoff rates and and things like that um and the major and minor developments and the split there um which would be it captures the uh cumulative impact of a bunch of small development instead of just saying okay well you get you know 250 feet and you get 250 feet and you get 250 feet and it's great all of a sudden you have you know 10,000 feet of impervious cover that no one really knows where it came from anyways which leads me into the next question that I have is last year there at the towards the end of the year the ordinance introduced to reduce the impervious cover limits in town and then I know there were going to be modifications but hasn't been introduced but Julia you're looking at me like you have something to say there well we left last meeting you saying the next day that it would be 40% across the board it wasn't has it been reintroduced it got removed off the agenda yeah so do we have any idea where that is or when it's coming back or um so we had asked the engineers to come up and they did like schematics for us to show the impacts of what has been proposed by by area by Zone I guess what it's called um it's not 40 across the board okay that's for sure sure um and the R1 Zone was not touched right um yes was the biggest Defenders uh R1 was touched um 20 to 25% 75 to 45% and that's lot coverage versus impervious coverage none of this is this has to be all typed back up um so what we had asked is that he show us the impacts of like what it was to what it would be with each of these changes um I could see I mean great flash is the one that shared it with the council so I don't see why he wouldn't be able to is there is there a way for us to determine what the actual real world impact of storm water is on the reduction in cious cover so like we can actually set policy based on something yes something set in stone um I think like why change it like what's no no like say okay it's great that we were going to reduce the amount of allowed cover but let's say we need to achieve like put a number out there a 10% reduction and runoff across the board or maybe in certain zones they're because they're closer to to uh the like water sheds and stuff they need to be you know they need to have higher for higher restrictions like maybe there's a more fine thread we can leave too I think that Maryland looked at that when they did some of their um storm water ordinances because they were trying to gauge the tradeoff um they did a stormwater utility type program and they were trying to to gauge the trade-off of okay well if you remove x amount of impervious cover how much should we be reducing your fee and I think they got into the math of that so I think it's out there but I'm not 100% certain that is some that's math that's over my head I will not even pretend to grasp all of that it gets really because then you're also talking about volume versus Flow versus everything else oh yeah but yeah but I'm saying is like maybe we should be looking at like a different number rather than 40% or 50% well yeah we're coming down from 90% to 40% I mean listen I'm all for no one's basement flooding but I just thought that was so dramatic in 24 hours we were going to wake up the next day and you know whoever didn't get a plan in has to revise the pl it was 90% of the buildable lot and I think now it's 40% of the total lot area well that was your original introduced and they've been making modifications since the 40% was revised then is being revised more so bu lot was it's not so it wasn't really 90% of your lot it was 90% yeah but everybody the buffers are all all different right because you know you have your setbacks right from the zoning but then if you have Wetlands or a stream Corridor or whatever it is it wasn't that was factored in yeah exactly so you could have a lot you know you got to have a two acre lot and only a quarter of it buildable just a note to Jack the math is nonlinear so it's really hard to do yeah it's I'm sure it's got some nice curves to so but so they're still working on that it's still coming okay can I make a suggestion can they give us like 30-day notice like that is huge but you're getting 30-day notice like right now I I mean it's like what someone comes and says I want to build this house on this property it's like Well in 30 days you might be able to only have half the size of the house on this property you have to read the Public Notices I know you got to stay C yes you do that's why that's what keeps the newspapers in business isn't there like an enactment date like usually isn't there like 30 to I don't know sometimes 45 days for it all depends on the ordinance yeah so if something becomes even if it says this ordinance takes effect immediately it's not immediately it's as soon as it gets to the clerk and the clerk sends it out and gets published again so it's usually like seven days but you can always set an enactment date of June 30th or whenever that may be that may be more palatable so people have notice you know because otherwise people will contest I left last meeting in tears you were like tomorrow you're going to wake up and we're voting on this or they the the next it was on the agenda the next day we should bring Kleenex to yeah so okay so that's good so that's still moving forward um so I skipped you Mary but let's go back unless anyone else has anything on this on these two ordinances all right Mary anything going on on Brook side it's the same um there's a delay in them being able to dredge the pond because um some of the people whose property is on the pond uh the pond is their property haven't responded yet so there's nothing can happen on Brookside until the pond is dredged and apparently the pond cannot be dredged until they have permission from each property owner if these people don't like the project then it's dead right I think Mary did you hear Norm's question Norm asked I can only hear your voice I was just sending you a note about this I still have the same bug I had last month and I don't think I can really be part of the meetings until I'm well enough to come come in person because I can hear noise but I can only hear one or two voices I'm not really hearing everything okay so the the question Mary if you can hear me and if not we'll we'll move along but the question was if they do not want the project to continue if a neighbor does not wish to see the pond dredged and does not sign off does that mean the project is dead I can't tell you that for sure yet because I was uh talking to the uh Town engineer through Margie and Margie is gone now and I I don't know if we have a new liaison yet to work with me on this but the let I I need to get from him the copies of the letter because it can't be something I email to the neighbors it has to be done in part in the original copy apparently and then I agreed that I would go around but I also would need to talk to him about sending to the addresses of the people who own a lot of these properties are just rentals that they rent out for the summer and try to rent again for the winter so that there's going to be more difficulty and I haven't really been able to find out from the engineer if that would kill the project if they can't get every single signature okay does that answer your question I'll ask that question it answers my question that we have no clue all right uh moving along on our agenda the 2024 work plan discussion part two thank you for everyone who participated last month and who sent in suggestions via email so my proposal to you all for our work plan items this year are the trying to find and put in a rain Garden at POA park near the entrance as a demonstration uh we've been talking about this for a while and and I think I'm gonna have to recruit Patty from your committee Norm but in a drop adopt a drain program in town um especially after last flooding I saw some of my neighbors out there taking leaves off of their own volition but if we could do an adopt a drain so people knew to keep it clear and we'll start small I think that might be a good way to get folks involved um do uh and I I actually think this is um and open to ideas but one of uh Andrew Brandon's suggestions was to do a refresher on recycling in town what we can recycle how we can recycle it what is and what isn't and I think that would be fantastic if we could do an actual visual demonstration so we've come in with a bunch of trash and we sort it in front of people so the that just went out has um recycling information that says you can recycle every plastic one through seven which it's said every every like on the resident identification code on the bottom the calendar says you can recycle one through seven which I know is a lot well let me say this I before when they first came out with the stuff what you can do and not do okay I Happ to call I got a hold of someone at Maza who is where they take it okay and they will take so many things would your eyes would roll in your head they'll take head thick aluminum foil okay all the yogurt tins and all that sort of stuff all that sort of stuff no problem it's all kind of stuff that they they would take but when I suggested we put those things in because we even said you can't do those things was like well we don't know if we're going to be keeping using them and so on and so forth now the only reason I even got the mass in the first place was that this whole started because the county landfill was doing this huge project where county is going to spend millions of dollars doing a whole thing where they could take all sorts of stuff and sort it out and everything else and when everything started going to Maza they canceled that entire I called the guy who I spoken to previously how's the project going he says what project kind of thought he said to me what are you talking about well ma is getting all taking all this stuff in they built a multi- bazillion dollar that does all this stuff right so so we need to have someone more official than I am but go and find out what can we do and if it's going to be at MAA and so in 10 years we'll change the rules in 10 years if we stop taking it to MAA or something like that right because you could throw all sorts of no problem is there a contract with MAO is there a longm no but like do we know when it expires or termin I don't El check on that you're not going to take it to North Jersey no no I understand that but my point is is we could say like if we know that the contract's like five years self-renewing you know what I mean like then we know that we're probably going to be with them for the long call yeah that's I'm just saying saying there's got to be a way to figure it out that we can the point is the information that we communicate needs to reflect what the current situation is so you need to you know if MAA says you can recycle plastic you know because the calendar says one through seven and has to be a bottle with a pourable net which is also false um it could be any plastic because it doesn't matter if it has a small neck or you know it's still plastic it's the same material right you just have to rinse it out and put it in the bin um but I'm pretty sure sevens are not recyclable because seven means other it's like every other kind of plastic mixed together and they don't usually have a market unless they have one of the Grinders what do you mean there there's certain recycling plant have this it's a Danish technology that essentially grinds everything to a almost like finer than sand and they get sifted out in different way so they really do not care like they are yeah send send pizza boxes we don't care it's just going to get ground up anyways and then we sort through the sand and different I don't know it sounds like dark magic to me but it is whatever it is um yeah there's one out in Trenton what I'm saying is we need to find out what was there was actually a video on M's website one time I don't know I couldn't quite find it again much so what you can recycle well Ma has actually a list of things that are recyclable and I follow that rather than the township guidelines right to throw things in right well my point is if we are the environmental commission and we are sitting here having this discussion that we're having about what is and what isn't and where it is and what isn't what res what is everyone else doing out there so let's let's do something Back to Basics I I love the idea of doing something Visual and then we can repord it and either put it on the township website or on Township YouTube we single stream we have single stream no I mean not single stream recycling just single stream everything because at a recycling plant they usually have like people on the line that pull all the trash off anyway true no and it would and everything else that the idea no but they they have the te techology most plants can support single stream trash and recycling collection and then the town only has to send out one set of trucks at weight instead of two sets I don't know that's all that's that's beyond the scope of educating about recycl things you can put in your garbage can says you can put five pounds of dirt every I mean angel I was gonna ask um and maybe it's beyond the perview of this committee but like it's come to my attention that there's not a lot of recycling in school like they they just start recycle paper or maybe if there's like a club buil recycle plastic bottles which is like mindblowing that a school that doesn't really recycle paper hardw or anything so I don't know if there's any piece of this that we can like also you know educate I mean everybody knows to recycle there's just no I don't know if there's any garbage cab involvement well no there's there's recycling garage cans but people are using both for everything you know so I'm just wondering if it's any part of our role to go in to be like hey this is what we're doing or is it more involved in like their Staffing and their janitorial services and their you know what I mean like that like I don't know how layered it is and I don't know if that's like a different domain like it's kind of a different domain and they have a sustainable Jersey schools program which is really the the folks who would be in the best position to do something like that because they're I mean they are for all intents and purposes a separate government entity Al together I see and so they have their own business administrators and all that so I see okay no thank you for explaining that in the past we've done program to the schools yeah we can absolutely partner with them and do it um but in terms of their collection of their recycling or mandating their recycling is not yeah we can go in and we can talk to them but again they're they already have a system in the school that we can gladly support and nudge and do all that but such an educational opportunity yeah yeah but they're reward winning they just what award did they get they just got they got they're not recycling paper I mean let's just it's mindboggling they have a rain Garden but they're not recycling paper it's air plastic so it's just funny it is so we can we can work with them so recycling is all right that that'll be our our top one for the year um the other ones on the list get the kids to make the YouTube yeah even better right we are maybe that's something where they could have a contest who does the best video who does the best oh show 2024 real yes because there there was a girl umana mat who did like a she she did a video and she submitted it for something and she won and she she she did a great job and it wasn't environmental topic so I mean I know that these kids really want to be involved so yeah I love this I love this idea let surpr it will be a set of t-shirts made of recycled bottles with Norm space on them um that would be if for good for a bad the the last two and we already touched on it very earlier is I want to start um looking at what our process is going to be to redo our ERI this one is now five years old um we want to get the new one in it's part of the master plan that's going to take some coordination but this committee drove it last time this committee should drive it again this is really important um and I want to make sure that any of the hurdles that we encountered last time about incorporating to the master plan are removed so that we we don't go through that again and the last one and this um this keeps coming up and there was actually legislation passed to to provide financing for it we really want to do a deer exclosure demonstration project in joa park as well um we can do it around one of those little tree stands that are in the middle of the park that everyone kind of walks by or parks by by the um during the festival but the deer exclosure it's a project that is near and dear to my heart it's a great Eagle Scout project and the cost is not insurmountable for them to raise so um so A J disclosure is the exact opposite of an enclosure a put up fencing to keep deer out of a certain area and you go and you remove all the invasive species that have taken over because the it's a whole long story but you will see what the environment looks like if there were not deer eating all the undergrowth and hurting the health of the forest that it is um and then you can start to understand I I think that people have become so normalized driving by all of the forest in town but Jo Playa in particular and everything from here down just either non-existent or brown and dead G it's just plain gone the whole story right so looks like yeah so so that's our our work plan for 2024 I think that is an achievable set of goals a question on the ER could that be or should that be a joint project between us and the planning board yes maybe like a subcommittee of people figuring that out so they don't go two separate ways yes exactly and we'll work on coordinating that okay looking at the time we're getting close um just briefly the only other thing Norm we'll get to plans in one second we'll close out on that um planning board did not meet in January I have no update um St Jersey you had a meeting this week yeah we had a meeting Monday even uh we are full ahead with green Fest planning and uh just trying to work through some sustainable Jersey actions that we might want to pursue in 2024 um if anyone has time to help with greenest would be great appr yes we are on I talked to somebody one of the kids who does the B battery recycling he wants to come down like there's like a someone who runs a battery recycling we'll talk after the meeting and I gave him a date and so we I said you know I'll give them more details by time yay all right nor what do we got for plans okay the first thing right I sent everybody my reports on those billboard things right ccil too okay I mean it was just unbelievable thing I ever saw Norm I cannot hear you 50 speak in the air right they're going be 50 feet in the air or something like that but basically it says the ordinance that they want to get a variance to there will be no more no additional Billboards in town that's what the ordinance says it says and under these conditions you can move a billboard or replace it and they came in with to the board of adjustment saying they want a variance against the thing right you must have got it I sent that to you two two site tours I pretty sure I sent to everybody your town thing maybe a week or so ago right right did you get him I got it yeah it's unable one of these Billboards was going to be on the Philip 6 what's now A Philip 66 station and the other one was going to be where the ocean near near in front of Orchard Plaza right Orchard Plaza and one of them was going to be above it was going to be above the Philip 66 sign which is already at 20 you know what I'm saying it was like unbelievable yeah you know in both directions you know talk about an I were you the first red flag for that and if it's both directions it's two Billboards okay but I wrote it was unbelievable I was so offended by those plans okay because I remember just a 10 seconds there were Billboards near where the McDonald's is and this gigantic billboard came down and they put in that ordinance but they were still allowed to rebuild it and it was like two years had to rebuild and when they didn't rebuild it we sort of celebrated at the environmental commission meeting that they didn't that billboard is gone forever okay that was and that ordinance was 20 years ago maybe more somewhere in my report it says when to overturn it if I remember correctly there was a number that was part it may it was part of the negotiation I don't know if it got into the ordinance it was something in the order of 18 to 20 bill boards period whatever existed in town at that time was it for the number yeah I don't think the numberers in there but it just said that we know additional Billboards for sure right that's for sure okay so anyway there so the other things we have um there's a synagogue off uh near where Larchwood and um don't ask me not Park uh where lwood and Lincoln Lincoln it's just link on a street called Ed power okay and they want to rebuild the thing in some sort and they're put in some trees but I do have that there's a book I have on trees that there's one of the copy and they're buried in this town somewhere too that Penn State put a thing about all trees you know and one these they want to put in this kind of a cherry tree but I noticed it says it only list 20 years you know so it's make too many other comments okay they may want to do something the carsh near uh L Swan they're doing something over there but I just got these plans today a with a lot of things at some but that billboard one that yeah you read your review I spent a lot of time on that can I see the um the bottom of the synagogue that they're putting the fridge over Bridge there's not a bridge that they're going over separate yeah that's I haven't seen that one I don't that way yeah I haven't seen there's a town project Town project they want to put Bridge so people can walk yeah I thought that's what that was it recently because we voted down there okay the yeah we did it was a it was a capital review it's a bridge all right does anyone have anything else that they would like to bring up tonight sorry I keep Okay so I don't know if I wrote to you about this but I ended up going to that tinon falls um commission PL like their their town meeting their B hall meeting that was very focused on the landfill and Tom arnone the he I guess the commissioner County Commissioner was there and he was very very um willing to try to solve the problem you know and he sat there and there was a presentation by um Waste Management to talk about like some sort of remediation plan but it got really hot the residents of tinf Falls were very very upset there were people from eatown Shrewsbury I think there too and a couple people from Ocean but um I don't know how involved Our Town wants to be I mean we're very close to that facility and I think people are having questions about you know what is the health effects of you know these odors and and um you know it's this constant exposure it's not like oh it's happening once every six months it's happening like every night coming into the houses you know like I live in a nice section of Wayside it's coming into my home you know and um so this is all related to the land yes it is all related to the land people are calling D you know and the state has its processes and it's it's not gone away you know and it's it's only getting worse and and there I think Waste Management gave a um you know a 30-day plan 45 60 90day and they were supposed to reconvene 45 days after the January meeting um in TI Falls with like a an update report but you know there were still some outstanding questions about you know at the county level what was happening I mean all these things happening happen in layers but I don't know if there's something we can do as a committee or if the Town Council can do I know they're aware of it but you know I don't know if there needs to be more education to everyone saying hey there's this thing here that we need to complain more about so that it changes you know but I guess I need to understand so the emissions coming out of the landfill has changed in some way there is something that's different now and and part of the um Waste Management plan um presentation was that there is you know 400,000 pounds of garbage going into to the to the landfill which attributing it to volume no they're it's some of its volume but they're also say talking about the amount of rainfall it the odor um is worse when there's so much rain and less sun to absorb up the smell but they also talked about um just you know I I think just the Turning I it's unclear actually why exactly it's happening but they do attribute a lot of it to water and there's been like historic rains and apparently the last time this happened was like six years ago when there was also like 87 inches of rain that year and we had like 67 Ines or there was some they were also doing unpermitted work right right well so so so there was a lot ofsal topic it yeah yeah so there was a lot of like other to controversial topics but they did talk about the evidence you know some of the actual numbers and things like that and a lot of people didn't care about the presentation so one side is saying it was a natural occurrence and the other is there something nefarious well not necessarily well or just just negligent or just non- compant and and then also um you know the fact that there's questions about you know this landfill should have been capped and why hasn't it been capped that was like question one question two is like what you know what are they you know questions about what are they using to cover up the odor because they said oh we'll start using this other chemicals like you know is this a cogenic thing you know that was a question and they said well we're not really using it clearly because it still smells um then there were questions about you know monitoring air quality monitoring you know they say they do it once a week on like some on one specific day at one specific time whereas there are other places that do it 24 hours a day so they can make sure that the the I think they said the hydrogen sulfide or something they wanted to make sure the levels were um you know appropriate and in compliance with the with the regulation so there were a lot of questions that came up a lot of really good ones that the residents who've been dealing with this very closely brought up and it was a novel issue for me because it's the first time i' heard someone talk about it so in depth but there's a lot of material like um on this like Mammoth there's this Facebook page it's like Mammoth County environmental health and safety something there's like some kind of group where people are posting information and other comments but there's a lot of like old information like this was the lawsuit this was the you know these were some other papers that were filed in the past but there was a lot of robust discussion about this issue but I think I think there are a lot of people who are like oh yeah something's not right something smells weird or something um you know I'm not sure whether this is healthy for us but I think a lot of you know as it's coming into people's homes it's one thing like you can't go walk your dog right but then it's another thing where it's like you're sitting in your house and you're like wow that's that's you know not right you know so I don't know how I don't know if it's worth doing a survey you know like in town to see like who's like a Google form like who's being affected by this well I know that the ASB Park Press is now trying to do mapping of where people filed reports from yeah yes but that's like if you have a case number right not everybody has a case number I I didn't have a case number in my first complaint but I I said I have a case number but here put my address down yeah um but you know I again I don't know how involved like worse we we would get or would comment on this issue but it it's it is something that affects the environment in our town and our abil you know our health our you know and I don't know how it's affecting like things that are going to grow and and it has to do with water like a lot of it has to do with the water not being absorbed and and whatnot so I just wanted to talk to you about it also wonder about the runoff yeah right and um so you know I I know that people are working on it just it doesn't seem like they're working fast enough on it they they don't smell it in their homes I I guess but you know what's troubling and and you know is that our Our Land values are going up which seems great but will they you know do it make sense that our land values are going up so high in so such an exponential way when we have this thing that's a nuisance right that's like right by us it's it's confusing right has um has the military had any input on this because Earl is right behind the landfill I don't know maybe the Wind Blows the other way well it usually it usually blows towards the east from the West that's not that's not the main part of that's where they that's their firing range it's not like populated part okay main part of main part is 34 that's where they have all the normal but that part of bur they used to I know there's a f ever take I have years ago but not recently but I I mean part of it is you know there's I remember when this was going on a few years and my mother lives in Fox Chase right by ttin Paul so even under the best of conditions if the wind's blowing the right way on the right day you will smell in wanasa the number of times that I've been smelling it recently and Steph I'm sure you have too like that is that is not a functioning landfill that is going well it should not be traveling in that concentration that far um but you know it's a it's a DP issue it's a County Health Department issue and it's and it's an unelected officials issue at above the municipal I mean the town should be talking our residents are being impacted but it's really you know the county folks and state folks is there only something that the and and I don't again I know it may not be the perview of our committee but is there is there something like we can go to our our our elected officials and say can you sign on with other towns and then go to you know the county commissioner and say okay these are like the 10 towns like there's colck and Bradley and there's you know like because it is so vast right there's all of Ocean Township all of eaten town shs where like if all of those elected leaders go together because to be honest at that meeting Bingo paal was there Margie was there the town the tit Falls town the B Council yeah they hosted it so they were there and then Tom Arnon was there and then um there was one air quality rep from D that was there and then Ben goal and Margie and L Peter were there so so I mean certainly you know people who um govern our County are are aware of this issue but I don't know how much our town wants to participate or can participate or I mean we could theoretically work with the council to put together an information session similar to what tinon Falls did if there's appetite to do it and it's not just turning into a screaming match I'm all about Solutions oriented well that's the thing is that you know the I think what what may be more helpful is that everybody shows up to the other count like one council meeting as opposed to individual towns because then it will become a screaming match I you know in some ways because it's just better for us to hear from you know one source of information the same story rather than different things at different times maybe or um or maybe make it incumbent on them to say you know we want they need to do better PR right to come out to us but they may not know that our Town's being as effective as it is you know that I I don't know um because it it may just be more of the same Waste Management coming out giving the presentation which seems novel to us but actually a lot of people in tent Paul said it was the exact same presentation they saw like six years ago yeah exact same but but that six years ago I was smelling it in my front yard then too yeah and right that was that's when years ago I was smelling it on this side of town yeah and Ed Ed I have I have smelled it in my front yard also and and it's concerning in the overall of what's happening in town and it's going to have to eventually reflect in our property values yeah it didn't you say you bought your house and then you smelt it the first time and you were like where I started to I mean this was back in 2009 I bought my house and I remember I remember crying like just two weeks after I bought my house i' gone out in the evening to a like class at the at the Wayside School like and um I came home and I said did I come to the nuisance I I don't know did I because you know that's all I could think of for my property Law class so um so it's been around for a while you know um it's gotten better it's gotten worse but I don't know I mean I would I think we we need to have some kind of information session to get a a poll of what's you know get a measure of what are people feeling in town about it do you want to T do you want me to talk to Dave do you wanna oh I Kelly okay all right okay well if there is nothing else it is past the hour so make a motion nor moves 10 seconds all in favor everyone thank you thank you for letting me go on about that