##VIDEO ID:Q9qkJZXSyCw## okay following the meeting of the environmental commission to order for December 2nd at 7:30 p.m. adequate notice of this meeting was provided informing the public of the time and place according to the provisions of the open public meetings law it's taking place in the dog room Dog Wood room on the second floor of the township all and the meeting shall not last P 9:30 right uh and we are recording and who is taking the notes what do you mean might be David okay thank you approved meetings minute meet approved minutes for August 19th have any one was read august 19 19 I can move to approve anybody else not sure I've seen those not reviewed them anyway they were outstanding last I yeah still outstanding August October 7th I can move to approve the October 7 minutes have a second I'll second okay objections October 7 7 is are approved October 21 going once going twice yeah November 4 I didn't finish okay that's easy November 18 so I sent those after the last meeting two weeks ago don't have any I saw but wasn't present so I can't I can't approve all right hearing on agenda items we have a guest Mr carellas you have anything you want to say um no I'm just who who is the person to your right that I do not recognize yeah we're about to uh go to that item on the agenda I will then I will I will find out then that's all I got thank you right right we're introducing the water shed Ambassador Anthony lelli indeed is would you like to introduce yourself in more detail sure I'd be happy to do so uh first and foremost thank you to actually having me here I know it wasn't necessarily last minute but I understand with the details of planning this it's kind of hard to maybe fit new people in so I appreciate you having me here and talking a little bit about my program so my name is Anthony tamarelli and I am a water Ambassador for the americore New Jersey Watershed ambassadors program this has been around the state for roughly 25 years I believe during their anniversary and we've worked across the state in a wide variety of different topics in fact I am one of 20 was ambassadors throughout the state and also three regional Source water protection ambassadors and what we essentially do is what I call the big three and it is education Community projects and stream assessments and all these three really do Encompass the theme of watershed Health water quality protecting people from unsafe water educating people about water as long as it relates to those type of topics we can really delve into it so for the program in terms of Education we've gone to schools we've gone to community events we've gone to libraries we really do have a wide bre of areas that we have tried to talk people about topics ranging from you know what is a wed and how does water quality affect a water shed but also more complicated topics like groundwater and flooding and also invasive species there is again a wide breath of what we can talk about as long as it really relates back to that water quality and we kind of spin it also to provide a sustainable practice education and what we call stewardship trainings so we can kind of manipulate these topics to give people a chance to say make a rainb Barrel or make a lantern fly track you know a lot of flexibility similarly with the different types of community projects that we have done over the years we have done things as simple as cleanups we've done things more complicated like rainard installations we do have a lot a variety of things that ambassadors have done over the years really relating to both the passion and the interests of both the water Ambassador and partners they' collaborated with and in fact I've re L collaborated with the Morse Township environments commission and also the mor toown environments commission I've already branched out to them talking about possible cleanups and the adop the drain campaign that they're doing for their town so coincidentally what you're talking about on your agenda and even in the spring I'll be doing some other projects like participating in the corn now lab project feeder watch or helping citizens make solitary bee hotels you know there's really no roof to this it really does depend on what we want to do and how we want to really collaborate which brings us also to oh excuse me I forgot to talk about stream assessments so long story short we collect data for the njd on the health of our streams we can also teach people about that stream process by bringing them out to the stream and showing them what we do so that's one of the other three spheres in terms of how this relates to Berkeley Heights of course it's like with any other town uh environmental commission or partner it really is based on what everyone here is interested on and what type of projects or Outreach you would be interested in either expanding upon or creating from the ground now it really does vary like for example I know you all are interested in the adoptive drain process I've already started collaborating with that campaign with mors Township just one example that we could delve into really does depend again on what you may be interested in but as a wateran Ambassador you know it's not just the environmental sector I've gone to college for marine biology I understand kind of how these different systems work from a more biological standpoint so I'm happy to be just a free resource about what a water shed is or how the water cycle involves different types of communities no I'm happy to just be an educational resource in that regard so for Berkeley Heights if any of yall are interested in needing assistance with Outreach possibly getting help with a sort of project or doing some sort of sustainable practice I'm happy to kind of help with that and even tailor it into sustainable Jersey if some people are interested in trying to reward points for that you know again no limits with that so if anyone's interested in possibly collaborating I have my contact information that I can help distribute and my business cards have both my email and the QR code to my programmed website if people are curious but of course even just through my email if they want to ask questions about simple things like what a watershed is I'm happy to kind of be that resource and I'm not sure if this town is recently with watered ambassadors in the past I will be transparent in saying that this is still relatively new to me but as a watered Ambassador I'm happy to kind of learn along the way to still try to help you with these different types of things you're interested in hope you have time for questions I'd be happy to kind of take some excuse me questions I'll I'll let you there's a lot I'll tell you a little bit about uh the birthday Han environment working with the worsh ambassadors for maybe six or seven years um and uh doing things like U uh rain barrels uh we did one year we have a rainb a rain Garden program uh and uh we're very much interested in uh uh stream quality um because we know that know uh our uh storm water runoff goes into the the river we want to know uh and what's the quality of that that water um we uh also work closely with the high school and high school has uh had B Masters come for educational purposes um one year we also removed uh with the help of the waterhow master we removed andas species property property in fact the one where you're working now D so um those are all possibilities um just to get an idea of when how long is your term go for go to next August docl it earlier close next July so it's a 10mon term for all 23 of us semesters okay so that's good to know be mhm get our things done before your time is over but at the very least like for example with the Morse Township I'm going to be helping with a frag min's removal the scope of that project is in essence a pilot for larger scale things so even just the pilot itself might not be completed within my term but it doesn't mean I'm still not happy to try to do as much as I can in my time to get to give you that Foundation at least that's a challenge exactly study process um any questions or coms I'm in treat by the stream assessments um I'm I I I sort of um ve towards the getting my hands dirty side of this business um that might be an interesting thing to to do with a group either community members or scouts or scho kids just that but to get hands on um exposure to what you do yeah we'd love to do that uh we actually categorize that under the EST environmental stewardship training sort section so to make the long story short when we go into the streams we look at both the physical characteristics like the velocity or speed but we also look at the biological aspects like what type of aquatic bugs are in the Stream because certain types are pollutant tolerant in different ways so the Collective that we find gives us a hint of the health of the stream so yes we do actually bring people to the stream to show how we go through both that habitat and biological aspect that kind of teach them at least not just what we do how we kind of think about the help of Shams kind of give that awareness so that is definitely something could explore yeah um given that it's now December would that be a good like springtime activity Yeah we actually have a limit where if the air and water temperatures do not exceed 100 Dees when combined we can't go out to the field to do that stuff so spray would probably be better to gather more people April maybe as early as May if it starts warming up a little bit I think it would be feasable then okay um I wanted to add that I think he should maybe also go to our Middle School I recently went for work so some things separate but their science club I think is really the kids there are very engaged and I think they would do really well it's a good group that's study I've been trying to slowly spread out my network slowly throughout the the WMA not the county so if that sort of school would be interested in exploring even education or even doing those ests I think that'd be something fun to explor sure yeah in the same vein as the high school and the environmental club would that be AAL contact I mean I'm sure I just I just went to the Middle School like few weeks ago and they were just very passionate about the environment and it was great yeah and I can give you um the person's email for the science club so you can set something up with her sure that'd be great and I also oh my gosh I never introduced myself normally um what's your name n n awesome um Anthony yes um but also I wanted I think someone from the environmental commission like I don't know if Renee Kingo they were also pretty interested in gardening they have a courtyard I don't even remember that at Columbia Middle School and they are very interested in doing some sort of project yeah that was a couple years ago kind of nothing happened it all depends on the school all right [Music] else what was it you called that um the field trip environmental stewardship trainings okay is like the general term and again I have my contact information in business card form so if anyone wants a copy or at least one person to distribute it around I have some happy to distribute are you going to hang or are you going to OV I appreciate it I appreciate it all right uh so now we're moving on to uh plants 585 mfield Avenue um this is where the uh owner of the property is going to build the second story but this uh extension I don't know if I can call it extension but part of the the plan shows that the deck and patio are within 40 feet or so of a stream reparan buffer so we are saying that that the uh owner needs to take that into account and David you brought up uh that the property already exceeds uh impermeable coverage um and uh that is true and the in the impermeable coverage isn't increasing any it's already exceeded the max we don't know what storm water measures were taken uh this property ex maximum and uh you're saying we shouldn't recommend against approval uh so uh but I do think that we should be recommending that the person if that hasn't been done take measures uh to uh retain strong water on the property and that's coming from uh what I'm experiencing in these meetings with the zoning R uh and so basically your storm order ordinance says um you can have um impervious coverage of 25% or 30% so that already me means that these properties are uh having St water run off them run off into the uh The Gutter and into the streams uh and uh that uh is a concern because we already are experiencing flooding uh so if we can retain storm water that is by retaining it I uh have the stor water infiltrate on site instead of running off we can reduce the amount of flooding uh uh but when houses were built in Berkeley house Heights and other places the practice was half the storm water come down the the drain pipe and flow out to the street just run out to the street and that includes pipes that are going under the lawn into a stream so many houses have that situation they don't even exceed the maximum uh uh impervious cover but they're still allowed to do that uh that's the issue that we're facing and we can't in many cases change that because when that comes up when a when a property comes before the zoning board uh the zoning board says that's an existing situation we're not going to change it we need to try to change that if we're going to be reducing the amount of flooding that occurs in the down that's where I'm goinging so my argument would be okay we we want this this property owner to uh install a rain Garden to uh capture that storm water run uh and also to do something about the encroachment on the uh reparan Zone that's in their backyard okay question hi everyone sorry I'm late so the interesting thing was and the stor series thing that we did okay I know you did it as well I mean the one thing that that made a lot of sense to me was when they were talking about having storm water um utility in in a town okay and and and and and so so now what we're going to be doing is there's going to be a charge Associated um you know with um with every home okay and then what they were talking about is having credits so now you would have a credit if you built some some means in order to to to to capture the okay so so I thought that that that that sounded like a really good way of like approaching this kind of situation okay and I think but when they said I think there's like 500 townships throughout the states right now that that have um um you know strong water utilities so not in the state of New Jersey no no in in the States across yeah across the country yeah yeah right there are other states that are more active than storm so just to in a nutshell the storm water utility means that uh you're saying to home moners you're discharging water to uh to the curb uh and we don't want you to do that we're encouraging you not to do that but if you do that we need to do things elsewhere to control storm water you're going to pay into that utility so that the township can uh control storm water elsewhere whether that means Building A detention base or bio retention elsewhere to capture that water that's coming into the streets and uh the town is uh starting in that direction without a storm already because it applied for a grant to build bio retention uh uh areas bio sells along the street in on Old Farm Road and Mercier place and that that means that it it's built in such a way as to capture the storm water that's coming down the street coming down the curb allowing it to flow into a bios sare and then to penetrate into the ground and it's asking the homeowners to take care of these uh fire retention areas that's start next week is it Old Farm Road Old Farm Road and Mercier pleas okay uh there's apparently B resistance in uh New Jersey to go the r have strong and uh but there have been seminars on it which indicate that generally the uh businesses would be paying into storm water utilities more than homeowners so if a homeowner has retained all or most of the storm water runoff from his or her property then um that person would be paying less or nothing because they are because they're not letting the storm water run off go into the street um I have a question what about homeowners who have currently have a home that you know does certain things to trap storm water for instance having like a permeable driveway or permeable pavers or something like that but also um has some kind of a drainage thing already set up where I don't know to prevent flooding going into their basement they have some kind of a catch like flood catching system that pipes the water onto the street how are you going to I guess make this how are we going to make this palatable to those homeowners who say well look I'm ready doing something but I don't think it's fair that I'm doing something and now I have to pay for the other water that I'm putting into the street especially if my neighborhood already has catch basins so do you see what my question my question is like how are you going to it's going to be a difficult pill for certain homeowners to swallow if they're already doing things that they can do they're preventing damage to their home and you're going and we're going to charge them a certain fee if they're doing something that kind of goes against what this ordinance says you have to do to the max I suspect that's why municipality is not rushing into this and looking for other examples of this being successfully done before they Le into that I can see being a mind I haven't looked at a specific ordinance for St War uh you know what I read generally is that uh there there would be a survey done of uh homes to see who's releasing storm water into the street they would be notified that if they can uh retain storm water on their property they would get credit to do that if they're releasing storm water into the street there would be a calculation to say okay you have to pay because we have to do something about that storm going into the street mean meaning the town has to something that sounds extraordinarily difficult to do in a way that most people think it's that's part of I I have a I like to interject because Kim brought up you know the the public and the hard pill to swallow what happens for um homes that are on the high side of a street by definition it lands in your front yard and um depending on how heavy the rainfall is is going to make it to the street we we haven't gotten to that point Steve when we looked at what other towns are doing about storm water utilities so I'm uh you know at this point uh saying saying we're not talking about that we just got off the track of valuating 585 Plan F there ah yeah I missed where you are but yeah because because that nobody did anything other than you bought the property and when you when you but I guess when you talk about piping that's another story that when you bring up this item again I have input and feedback from things I've noticed over 30 years of change so okay thank you so back to plan field then yes what is the proposed recommendation that we recommend to approve or to not approve we recommend I would say that we're not recommending to uh not approv but we would say that uh we recommend that the storm water runoff be retained on the property and uh uh with a a bios sale or a AR R have a question yeah just second sorry so then the other aspect of this was that uh this is a reparan Zone uh and that means he needs to respect the reparan and then I made a particular statement but you recommended simply referring to the uh ngac c87 uh uh when we' PR yeah I and I agree that I don't have a problem with saying uh you know all development should be in accordance with regulations relating to the repair in it is a 50t set right not a Ot Ot repairing Zone 50t on the bank of the stream 50 50 fet right and we could see from the architectural drawing that 50 fet extended to the house yes okay thank you so so if we were to add some sort of bioretention basin or reng Garden or bio Swale is there some sort of I guess for lack of better words way sure that there is actually maintenance by the property over incentive perhaps that they can actually maintain it the um so what happens is the uh commission makes a recommendation to uh the zoning zoning Bo then either accepts that recommendation and uh passes a resolution that would say whether the home War uh needs to bring it a rainb if that is done um there actually is a requirement if a rain Garden is the storm water management system there is a requirement that that go into the deed of of the property that there that is part of what has to be maintained as one but that provision is not written in any ordinance it's not written in the ordinance it's written on the statement yes but but not applicable it's it's applicable in the sense that uh the state is saying if you have uh put a storm water management system in the form of rain we should be maintaining I mean we can certainly add that and our statements is this that's the state model ordinance it's state strong water um best practices right so as of now if if a homeowner puts the rain Garden in place I I know whereare that winds up as being a deed restriction in in Berkeley Heights I don't believe that happens I don't know that it happens either but it it should be happening but but I think I think that qu that question is one of the most difficult questions about implementing minor storm water management is you wind up with these having to be tracked by the township enforcement monitored they need to be on the deed that's that's that's something the township has not been wasn't last time we had the conversation with Tom saf Faro that wasn't something they were interested in taking on yeah I mean the thing the thing is that if you put a a a uh uh an underground uh sister or uh uh that is also supposed to be maintained is that uh in in the deed no no no no that's no I know I think that we need to make that Express so that's that's a question to so I'm okay so back to play field I'm okay with the notion of recommending storm to be retained on the property I don't think we should go back and try to retrospectively have them add storm water mitigation for a past imperious surface that's been approved as a condition for I don't know I don't know how that was I don't have don't know what that previous situation is that they have previously approved and what happened no but I think it's I think it's relevant in the sense that if all that the zoning board did was approve the excess storm water or in perious surface rather uh without having the home water retain strong order I think that's a that's that's something that needs to be corrected I don't know that they I don't no I I don't think we've got the jurisdiction to go back and question ask approvals by The Zing I think you're right we don't well we don't we have we have the rights it's it probably won't happen is bottom line because that's what is generally happening there was a meeting for another property the neighbor objected to certain things that the PO order didn't do and zoning board said you should have come to the zoning board when the previous owner did that because the the changes were done by the previous owner and and now the homeowner is saying I I you know I'm I'm getting uh excess light I'm getting noise and and The Zing board is saying you know these are things that should have been done previously the same it's the same situation with with these storm water management it's true they they're exceeding the maximum perious surface we don't know why we can ask that they uh retain storm water on the property so that's what I think yeah so I'm okay with um there a recommendation that notes um that doesn't recommend against approval so commits um notes the um the the imperious service is above the maximum the maximum for a previous approval but recommend that they consider green infrastructure to retain St property okay and then whatever wording you choose on the um okay any other discussion nobody okay so then we need a motion motion [Music] to the letter recommendation along the lines I just outlined excellent okay second second very okay oh oh I'll throw a couple sentences in a minut capture that thank you D4 Riverbend um this is another case but in this case they um are increasing the um inreasing over the previous inre yes increasing over the previous increase this seems to be typical of uh issues that come before the zoning board uh that creeping impervious service situation it might be 2% mightbe 3% but they're going over the maximum all right I think this one's pretty clear um you your draft recommend against recommended against approval should okay um I just had a minor comments on the wording about how we discuss the impervious relative to so how we discussed the run off from the imperious surface whether we're talking about the the total imperious that will exceed the ordinance limit or what's being added in this rout it just it could just be clearer in terms of what we're talking about in that calculation I think I put some some into that effectiv I'm not remembering D but you did oh there we are I think the last bullet and find the fact should be clarified seeking an increase of 65 s feet over the current existing coverage okay I'll pick that up okay that's from nov 29 so motion to approve the draft letter recommendation with that one correct second all right moving on uh [Music] Scout I saw that they put the bees to sleep for the winter see beity Garden is under the environment star ordinance and ms4 education sense we had some discussion this may take up a little bit of time uh had some discussion with Margaret uh we were trying to get together I couldn't make it before Thanksgiving other people couldn't make it on Friday so we're looking at another possible date uh to meet with Margaret I have haven't had anything from her today so I don't know what the status is uh but let's talk a little bit about this uh there's two parts to um that we're looking at one is Major um development and uh New Jersey future uh has options that you can pick for major developments uh versus the mjac code uh and Market is asking uh was noting that neia said why don't we just go with the ngac code for major developments and then write our own minor but if you do that then you're looking at a uh a more General um ordinance um and townships have the right to be stricter with their ordinances so I was recommending that we follow New Jersey future and discuss the points that New Jersey future makes about uh major developments then with the minor developments we will also uh because the the code doesn't address minor developments we're looking at uh other model ordinances and one was Arian uh ordinance uh model ordinance stor Water Management ordinance from IP alties in the raway river Watershed I thought I had shared that with everyone but U I'm wondering did I not said that around to everybody Rec Oh I thought I had done that so Jersey Futures model ordinance did include M it does uh uh and there's options there the uh but this R this raway River model ordinance was uh closer to my concept of uh what we uh should be looking at because we had discussed this in the past and I had discussed with Tom faroh one of the things is uh if the imperious surface increas is 250 ft we had talked about this in the past I talked with Tom Saro about that uh quantity 250 ft he said that's what he's comfortable with any increase of 250 ft of imperious surface counts as a minor development and therefore would be uh requiring uh strong water uh management um the type of storm water management then uh can be a rain Garden a uh dryw or other stormwater best practice that is approved by the municipal engineer that retains onsite the two Ines of runoff on the new anderia Surface and that's another aspect to the storm water management that um I think that Tom and I agreed on uh is that the any storm waterer management should be at least 1 and A2 Ines of a water quality store as opposed to one and A4 in because we're seeing that there are storms now that are occurring that are actually more than 1 and a half Ines of a water quality storm which means one and a half inches over a 2hour period so uh this is 2 in R full this one actually says 2 in uh I would I would suggest that the touch base but a faroh again just to confirm that's uh the amount one and a half Ines or or more uh how for a St water event you also raised the question of what size the rain gon be well you can uh we can easily develop a Tru for minor developments that would have have um the drainage area and the size of the rainard needs to be for a drainage area yeah that's not my question as all me that's easy no the questions I've got around um p soil per yes so so what if somebody Ono wants to do this you know that for four months of the year there is no infiltration I'm because the the water table right right water temp situation in any of the storm water orament that you have to uh take that into account you're not going to build a uh a fire retention area that's less than 2 fet above a water t so if that's the case that that triggers a different Action System is that this truster is kind of nearer off they're low line close to but but if there's a if if the water table is 2 feet uh AB already in uh the stor water best practices that you you can't build uh a a bio retention area that's just two less than two feet above what we want to do so that's address it's it may addressed in the so it's addressed to to the point to the extent it says you can't build an infiltration system you have to have an under drain if you're going to do Bu from water T in other words you'd have to have allow some of that water to come down into the bi retention area but it's not going to drain because it's because the water table is right below it so you'd have to have that draining off from from the bio retention are and those those are different that's a different design so that's doing nothing for stor it's doing nothing for St it is allowing the Ed to go into the into the rain garden and then uh drain out of the rain Garden to another place so you're slowing down the outut but it's not just going down into an ACF as and that's what You' expect it to do yeah I've read some I'm not clear on what that actually means in practice I mean you really can't put a rain Garden if you're if you're two feet within two feet of the water PL right so I'm happy to send you information on it no I've found lots of information online but the questions in my mind are if an application comes into the township for a an increased in imperious surface in an area where there is the water table is that high what is the Township's engineer this recommendation going to be you can't recommend the ray Garden because it won't INF well it won't and and a and a sister underground sister won't won't work either so so what do we do in that case do we just give them a pass give a pass you you construct the system just as they're doing uh on the church at the corner of Mountain and and and the mfield there's a there's a system which has a basin in it and has an under Trin that will B go out to the street that's that's what happened in that case the I'm thinking of those those very flat properties where there is no slope to the streets it's not clear to me how they can make that happen I don't know so so in my mind that one of one of the one of the the challenges of doing this at the township level is properties where we don't have good um soil permeability and over close to the water table um and then the other challenge I think is the um maintenance plans and um the need to ensure that these things remain for the life of the property Bas the life of the Imp which means deed deed restrictions and means maintenance plans and it means yes Township having some sort of um tool for tracking those and ensuring compliance but that's like saying well no matter what you put in there what are we doing about maintenance it's going if the state requires that any kind of stor water management system be maintained yes I fully understand that so whether it's a rain or an underground tank yeah it's got to be uh inspected regularly yeah and there needs to be a provision the town also needs to have a register of these or a database of these things yes they need to confirm compliance yes um that's the state that's what the state is requiring the state is requiring this the state is not requiring this for Min right state is according to Tom the state is going to require inspections be done for storm water management the minor or for for minor or nature I I didn't I I know there's a is there is there a state requirement for storm management systems for mins that's a good question that's true now I I know the main thing is there for for major development right um if we want to go that way I'm fine with going that way but the last time we had a conversation the township wasn't ready to step up and take that on as a um as a responsibility responsibility for tracking compliance and maintenance and maintenance yeah I mean the point uh to me is that if you have a uh rainar as opposed to something underground I you can just walk by when it rains and take a look at it and see whether it's working or that's an inspection I don't see that as an issue I do because it's easy for it's easy for you to do that easy for you to say that by the time the house has changed hands a couple of times the owner of the house may have no clue why that thing is there they may have no interest in having this this thing in their backyard when they'd rather put plant or lawn or something else or place it for the kids so those are the situations where there's not going to be motivation from the homeowner to maintain it to keep it functioning to keep it there at all so then the town put that into a storm water orance that rain Gardens uh uh need to be maintained yeah and I think that's the point that Margaret needs to have the discussion with Tom none of this works without having a mechanism for tracking these and for maintenance plans and for the town following up on maintenance otherwise it's just all um it's Tau but it doesn't actually get anything done doesn't get the job fund I think that's the most difficult I hope that it is I I don't see it as a big problem but let's see what happens we talk so Margaret's working with Tom on this and as share it with us she apparently all already sent her draft to Tom Tom's company neia sent back a a recommendation that you sent me f the NJ for majs I will make a note to send raway water shed River Wat a draft an ordinance or recommend it's a modelin water ordinance municipalities okay anything else nobody else okay adop the drain okay well I am pleased to report that uh we won the contest between us and chadam um from the period from October 31st Halloween through Thanksgiving 1128 Berkeley Heights collected 91.4 pounds of debris leaves litter all that good stuff um and had two drain adoptions and chadam collected 8.4 lbs and had four adoptions um all that said um while we collected substantially more than chadam did Chad's program is new so the fact that they had four new adoptions and they had people report at all is kind of a win for them and a win for us just because we had people out and collecting so even though technically Berkeley Heights won I think both of our towns won with the contest DS won the DS Won Won yes the drains won so um I'll be writing something up I'm G to send it to uh Jessica for her to look at Jessica just sent me her results um this evening so um I I'm going to ask Jessica Romeo to take a look at what I write up and um once that's done um and reviewed by both of us we'll submit it to our respective tap into for publication and we did not get any pictures aside from the one that Jessica circulated initially so I I don't know if if the EC uh email got anything but I didn't see anything I didn't either I didn't see anything um yeah but um yeah the fact that we had this contest at least you know I I think resulted in six more adoptions than we would have had and the again fact that we were able to get stuff picked up that ordinarily would have wound up in the drain despite the leaf raking and the the leaf blowing and all that good stuff again win for all including as David pointed out the drains and that's it um you weren't here at the beginning uh Kim uh when Anthony uh came in our work shed Ambassador uh and he said he had worked on a do drain as well was that right yes I'm in the early stages of working with Morse Township with the do and their campaign one side of Outreach sorry say that again what about their Outreach sure um so with moris Township I'm in the early stages of planning the Outreach aspect of their adopted drain campaign so I'm going to kind of help with the education side of what adopt the drain is for that town okay um I I would suggest if it's helpful to you we have a pretty robust adopter drain sub page on our environmental commission website it has a lot of good information that you can possibly use or direct them to if they want a guide for success uccessful programs we've had a lot of success with our program um to date we've collected about almost 3,000 pounds of leaves Etc since we started this program so um there whatever we're doing seems to be working um so yeah I take a look at that other things that we have done that have been successful um just for your your own up and down files we have an LED sign that is located at I'm going to say like one of the town's biggest intersections is at the intersection of Springfield and planfield so people who are stopped at the light get to see the adop a drain ad on that board um we also send stuff out in the weekly blast that goes to the palal um which is our basically our our recreation department so all the little kids and their parents get a copy they're copied on the adopted drain stuff um and we put we try to get stuff out into our local newspaper which is tap into Berkeley Heights so we try to get the word out through multiple channels and that seems to be working well in addition to what we have on our EC website it sounds like have a good firm on that sort of campaign they seem like really good ideas yeah well hopefully hopefully they can be replicated and uh it'll work for morrist toown sure I appreciate the uh the reference I'm going to try to run it through um Morris Township PC and see if they want to possibly investigate some things to take from that yep thank you much yeah you're welcome we were the first town in New Jersey well we were actually the second Town Westfield was the first we were I'm sorry right so um that said we were able to take lessons learned from Westfield and improve upon what Westfield did and take suggestions from Westfield and um build off of their successes and try to learn from some of the initial setbacks that they had and I think that has helped our program a lot okay state New Jersey uh action for 2025 we're going to get a plaque uh from sustainable Jersey uh which we hope would be uh put up in the township Council see when it gets here and I have some pins people are going to be in Winter Walk on uh Saturday you could wear a pin on your pel anything else on actions from 2025 can we talk about the Winter Walk later at okay Recycling and cleanups nothing topics for the township newsletter I an article on ice and salt the sa river parks and trails I have not heard from uh Dan berer um any topics related to the St River Park I need to try him again grants uh rgi Grant uh we're waiting to the spring uh Community energy plan Grant we have Alvaro anything there Alo no just a reminder we have a webinar that I'll be attending on Transportation Solutions on uh uh the 4th which I believe is Wednesday and there is a we grand for H that was also tan for we haven't heard BC USA now that we're BCD USA we need to uh uh ask the town to uh pay our membership we already have people are interested ining planting and uh interesting thing is that these bios swells that are on o Farm Road and Mercer will include native grasses and perennials hosting the Hub uh the call seems to indicate that January 14th will be the preferred date for hosting the Hub today was the last day to reply did everyone here vote I don't know I just saw the count total count 14 people can you vote for Monday and I vote for Monday you can vote for Monday I voted for Monday but it's 13 Monday 14 Tuesday yeah and I want it to be Monday vote for Monday once so but you didn't but you didn't vote yet I voted oh you did Oh I thought you said you didn't oh no I voted what did you vote I voted for both daysail take your pH off oh I can go either day so it doesn't matter what you need Monday or you can't make I really prefer Monday I will ask but but Tuesday is when Now by one vote 13 for Monday 14 for Tuesday to me it doesn't matter in January is anybody else anybody else want to comment on the me the help meeting do we need to prepare any oh there's an agenda that we need to vote okay will there be snacks I haven't voted yet but I'll vote for 13 because January 14 is my wife's birthday so she's not gonna want to me to go away on that day you did you not vote Angus I did not okay so you need to vote by midnight today so that we know this all right we'll have a tie and then we can say okay want Monday because uh Lois kuss asked today which day is it and I said it looks like it's the 14th now I have to go back to her and say okay 13 all right all right couple of other things Winter Walk who's doing winter walk I'll be there us and you part time first hour yeah okay anybody else I'll be there Al okay and David said posibly I will not be there uh also uh need to have your hours for the year uh for our report uh so please send me your hours for the year also tree uh for Arbor Day that notification should be coming out in the next couple of weeks uh so we need to sign up for that and finally membership two memberships are expiring at the end of the year near and mine you want to be renewed yes yes yes will I still be an alternate member I was thinking can I be moved up uh the thing is that somebody who's a regular member has to resign or not renew okay I'll be okay I'll stay as an alternate member all right I'm thinking of not renewing of not renewing yeah you me what can we vote on that submitted to a vote I don't don't forget he said he was cycle ago to speak this is environmental commission discussion all right do you want to vote on it I would what I would say no I would say no you have to renew want to vote my vote is that you need to renew your membership ah okay anybody else you said several years ago that you're going to end your tenur uh as member of the commission and um you in fact did stay on but I do completely respect the fact you've given a lot of years to this and at some point you don't want to be doing this because I know it's a lot of work so we would absolutely miss you but I would absolutely respect your decision to step down soon okay we can give Richard permanent ameritus status any meetings if he unless he wants to yeah in all seriousness Richard I I would be disappointed if you didn't uh if you didn't renew but certainly respect your decision and um I would encourage you to continue to participate as a as an amarist member as as uh Angus recommends and because I think the benefit of your wisdom is a huge asset to the environmental commission so that's going to be the toughest part to big shoes to fill and remember then that you're going to have to take over these responsibilities including the uh reviewing the plans uh and other activities okay citizens hearing on any environmental issues now you can speak Steve Well I'm glad I stayed to the end um no I guess David said what I had interjected I remembered you were trying to do this but now you've got the tree ordinance in so you did get something done you wanted to get done before you were going to potentially leave and I will say technically ner if if um you if he goes you a place to become a regular member that's correct and and I I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna just add you know I I probably share the sentiment having attended for many years these meetings and uh you know but I understand where rich is coming from and I'm involved in too many things that I should retire from some things so I really do understand so I think Rich you should do what in the best interest of you after all these years thank you hey thank you Steve okay do I hear anybody else want to talk on any topics I I just want to add for our Watershed Ambassador um two other things regarding adopt a drain um we actually did a top 50 drain names contest which helped to amp up participation um and we had applied for a grant that we received to get uh prizes of rakes and a fashionable photo with the mayor for the winners and that got a lot of little kids and their parents to participate so that's something that we did also um a couple of months ago I want to say it was at the end of the summer maybe um we did and Jack did an adopted drain presentation um I presented during that and so did um someone from the the adopted drain organization um I don't know if they have the tape of that available but you might want to um ask anj if they have that because the Powerpoints and just listening to the presentation might be helpful to you as well sure I can definitely explore that and possibly propose that fun way to advertise the program in terms of mors Township and yeah I'm not sure where they would keep that presentation tape so I can try to email an about that as well but thank you for the additional tips on that yep you're welcome he back to the last topic Richard do we need to discuss or agree on succession to you as chair of the commission yes we do this meeting and then joking not joking we need to decide on a retirement party for Richard should he exit our commission agree wow this feels like it feels like the end of a of a presidential term do I hear a motion then so move David moves to aour second second nobody wants to leave all right thanks for coming everybody have a nice evening everyone have a good evening good night