##VIDEO ID:SMWUVj_t7rs## okay following the Berkeley Heights environmental Commission meeting to order on November 18th at 7:38 I notice that this meeting was provided for the public of the time and place according Vision to the open public La it's taking place in the dog room Dog Wood room on the second floor of the coun okay who is taking minutes for the begin it can disint sorry I you okay okay and approving minutes for August 19th were those provided those out I I don't know if they are circulated or not I don't believe I see possible that they were minutes that angers still yeah that's my all right October 7th I've reviewed okay anyone else reviewed October 7th hearing anybody say they red and then if not then October 21 those are minutes Alo circulated and one with minutes of October 21 I think I did I'm seeing it I think you did but do we have anybody else that's all right November 4 I didn't send those out yet okay good that makes it easier to move forward here you got agenda items only three minutes per resident I'm gonna come on here where am I there I am where are you here we go um I I also had to move the move part of the screen hey I I have an interesting dilemma related to U storm drains um in now now's a good time to think about it with actually substantial rain and a scheme of things coming on Thursday I've got a A Street in my neighborhood that is so full of leaves in the street and covering a couple of storm dreams that it's not even the job I can do alone um is is there anything about the the the town dealing with leaves that are actually in the street so uh obviously the ordinance says you should not be putting your leaves in the street so you can contact the town and notify them where the leaves are and presumably the DPW will come and do something about that or the township will notify the homeowner in front of whose house releves are to remove them yeah well well s like it sounds like it would not be unexpected to give them a call in this case I don't believe it was any of the uh residents putting leaves in the street the nature of the the geometrics and the U where the trees are I think that's all result of um naturally Landing there so I I don't see the residents doing something about it since it's it's it's not necessarily they didn't put it there so good I will consider giving them a call and seeing if uh they'll do something especially when I tell them it's you know kind of blocking a couple of drains yes all right thank you you're welcome and and I've done that before where um for whatever reason there's excessive leaves and the DPW did come and clean them out so they they would be they were receptive at least the couple of times I um voice the complaint normally be BPW that especially clean leaves out of catch Basin I would expect theyd also I'm I'm hey it can only be good trying right on to plans 7:35 Springfield Avenue this is a new uh housing complex oh Chris is here and on yeah was trying to get on at home and it would let me on well that's because we started late yeah yeah so so I wasn't sure if I had something wrong so I Just sh okay terrific okay thought too far all right 7:35 spring having our housing complex there that is at the uh Western end of brookley heights uh and uh the um complex is going to involve removing trees uh and also uh installing a u storm water system which will technically not be exactly green infrastructure uh I usually think of green infrastructure as something that involves uh plants uh so swells or rain Gardens or um uh bior retention larger bio retention areas uh in this case uh the uh Builder is using uh an underground storic system detention system as opposed to a retention system uh so I recommended that they include some uh green infrastructure bi retention where the trees are being planted or where the other greeny might be planted they could easily um make uh swopes and the advantage to that is uh you're creating an ecological area you're also uh if you're putting in trees you're reducing the amount of heat uh that's going to be uh in the area because you're creating shade um and uh it since they're proposing that an area the area that I'm talking about be a kind of patio where people might be sitting it would make the area more pleasant any questions or discussion I need to give you a minute to look that look at that because I had to revise it today because uh the storm water calculations were not included in the [Music] original they eventually provide yes David I didn't see that yeah um so I got one comment on the draft yeah um the draft says the community sorry commission um recommends retaining storm water on the property with small scale bar attention they've already proposed a stormw system I'm not sure we should be rud recommending a different system what's recommending a different system so what I'm doing is I'm recommending that it complements the um the storm water management system which is an underground system with uh drains uh and they certainly can do part of that with a a bio retention which could also drain into that underground system so I'm I'm okay with the notion of making them complimentary we should just say that explicitly I I I don't remember whether I said explicitly but I would agree with you that I can say that they would be complimenting each other reducing the cost for the underground yeah and you do catch that in the last sentence the first sentence could just have the words to supplement the prop osed by a retention system in that first paragraph first okay otherwise I'm good with your recommendations I appreciate the fact you picked up on calorie pairs I've seen those in presentations of there's there seems to be a claim that there is a new variety but I have not seen anything that uh can verify that that these that there's a variety that would not have seeds right yeah they seem to run they're either called Bradford pairs or calerie pair they they're an acknowledged uh uh invasive plant uh and they are they have been planted in brookley Heights p uh they are not only invasive but they are also Al in the long term a weak plant because of the way the branches go more vertically and so as the tree gets older those branches will start breaking off because the fees the Fe crotch on the tree the their only uh Advantage is visual in the spring very pretty they're very pretty but so is amalan so the three very nice I mean I think I think exactly and these are recommended substitutions by the uh new jerseyan invasive species D teyam they have a list of invasive plants and recommendations for sub yeah motion to approve the draft recommendation subject to minor amendments here a second second then okay press second all right and all business scout scout projects any Scout projects um yeah I want to update this topic so we talked about this one I think two weeks ago um this was the notion of a Scout project uh potential eal projects of community garden okay poat gard and we reached the um the consensus that Scout products tend or E Scout products tend to be a little heavy um in terms of requirements from the host organization or the recipient organization um to support proposal changes to the proposal um day-to-day details during execution and so on um and that's where we left that one two weeks ago um there is an eagle scout potential Eagle Scout from my troop my son's troop who might be interested in that in a product he's he's very organized um very independent we might be able to I think uh with a bit of discussion ahead of time um establish if he could run this sufficient independently but it will not be a burden on the garden so while in general we kind of mixed this one two weeks ago I think I don't want to keep it open as potential for this particular um Scout I think he could do a good job of it we perhaps um with a bit of a advanced planning ensure that it has minimal impacts on the um the running of the Garden or the the re resources of the Gard organizers does that make sense to you or night it it it does except that um you know the garden um we've lost a lot of gardeners this year and we we really have above any other year a skeleton crew we have lots of plots that are open things have just changed I think you know it it just became too much work too many committees and you know every 's busy right um so we can talk offline but um really it we wouldn't have anyone to do a lot of oversight at all so um but of course we love volunteers we don't get enough of them so I I I don't think you know this this would be a missed opportunity if we don't explore it further in my opinion um we we just might need to put our heads together okay so so the way we could do that is have a quick call and definely involve someone from the scouts who knows how these projects run exactly what would' be requiring um or asking the community garden to do and then you can weigh in on rule on whether that is something you could or could not see and once we've established what that would be we'll stick to that and make sure he doesn't require any more help from that um but if if you decide at the outset that's more than your organization can support he can look outside okay conversation okay so feel free to reach out and um I can put my phone number in the chat and you can just text me and we can figure out what works best for us if that's easiest okay will be a project he do next time so this is not something we need to jump on immediately okay got understood so we can until the new year can do it sometime well I I'll see what what his schedule is and if he's interested in this as a project um we could connect on it perhaps in the new year yeah great wonderful time critical thank you so that's it from that's all I have and um maybe uh in January or so I might be able to say what the um what the people have signed up for the community garden right you're might advertise for that in December January is that right Rene so yeah we'll be advertising it at the upcoming Winter Walk um the new app has been posted and is posted then on the community garden page um and exactly I think what we've seen in Prior years is is people kind of focus on the holidays and then once the holidays are over they can they notice other things so I think um January would be let's do a pulse check in January see where we are with with plots and people and yes um so I don't know Richard do you want to just leave this on the agenda and just so we don't forget about it yes okay perfect okay St more to ordinance and well I'm sorry so anything else about from the community garden okay no I mean just to say that you know we've we've done our final cleanup um like I said that you know we we we do have a small group a very small group now that has remained um but there are committees and pretty much we we be relying on the Committees to kind of manage things on their own um you've heard Richard Karen left the garden as well as some others but um we're we're hopeful that that things you know we'll still get interest I mean we've done a lot of work and in Prior years we've always had we've never we've always had to turn people away so um I'm it's not a lost cause it's just I think a symptom of I don't know the the people that were involved life happened for them like either a job change or whatever um so we'll we'll see what happens no no other relevant updates we're we're managing the application like I said nothing really changed except for the dates and things so it it didn't need to go through the community garden for endorsement and it's it's now posted okay thanks Renee storm ordinance uh Margaret illis emailed me today that uh she has sent the ordinance to th faroh to review and once he has reviewed it she'll come back to the environment uh adop the drain thought we had Kim there right Kim she she was there before she the phone number or is can you hear me yes oh okay good sorry I keep getting dropped from the meeting so I'm D I'm the number that's dialed in um adopt a drain um I'm just gonna encourage everyone who has a drain and um even if you don't you can adopt a new drain um we are still having the contest with Madison um so please collect the leaves that you can and please report them so that we can beat Madison before Thanksgiving the contest ends on Thanksgiving so please clean your drains and please report and tell your neighbors who have leaves blowing all over their drains um especially so I have some neighbors who have lots of nice big bags with leaves in them just sitting um either on their lawns or in the street and they have very clogged up drains um you see them raking or if want to adopt a drain that's similar to that that is outside of a house like that please do so um as Steve Caris mentioned we are having rains that are going to be coming and all those leaves are going to find their way into our storm water infrastructure so um to the extent that the EP does or does not come along it's still important that we keep our drains clean so adop drains get friends and neighbors to adopt drains and please report and that's all I have thanks Kim Kim I have a question for you has anyone reached out and complained that um you know a drain is like if if a resident has a drain in front of their house that someone that you know is a stranger might be cleaning it or things have been pretty lack of a better word amicable um I have not heard anything but I don't know that I would hear anything along those lines um it would be D that probably would get the any kind of complaint yeah hey Renee could you could you repeat that I it rang a bell if I heard you but I don't know if I heard you correctly so let's say um Steve you had a drain in front of your house and someone that you don't recognize was cleaning it right it's it's right in front of their lawn that might upset you and say what are you doing on my touching you know whatever um I'm wondering if someone raised that to me and I'm wondering if that was just a oneoff or whether we receive one more complaints I can answer that question I'm glad I am okay um I've been the I've been the one and I've used that as a recruiting tool to get people to adopt drains oh wonderful that's a good strategy um yeah I I think many on the commission will remember remember me talking about this where I joked about embarrassing them into adopting the drain um my selection of words but it really needed to be done it was a critical point downhill with the street and it comes to a y and um I just explained it it I'm I'm doing it as a neighborhood person and if you want to adopt a drain you can do this and he did and for the most part it's been staying clean so well I want to give a shout out to Steve for promoting the program by his effort so thank you Steve and I would encourage others to do the same thing so if if you see a drain on your street or on an adjacent street that is stuffed up with leaves um again the street can be clean but there are drains in my neighborhood that I've seen that just have leaves stuck on the drains themselves with no other leaves around um can adopt those drains you can clean those drains and if your neighbor see you I would I would hope that you would do the same thing as Steve has done and um ask them to adopt the drain if you haven't adopted the drain in front of their house and and on a technical note it is in the street so you can be doing something with that drain without the permission of the neighbor or anything else you're not on their property yeah so you're kind of covered in that regard correct you just can't throw the leaves on their property yes it's not in daylight all right I would also encourage you to to not leave the so the leaves that are in the street and that are on the drains likely have contaminant on them um so I I don't know where the bags of leaves that people have raked up and have collected from their lawns Go versus the ones that have just been sitting in the street and collecting all sorts of runoffs on them so keep that in mind those leaves should probably be cycled in a different place than in in a recycle me please bag okay sustainable Jersey application nothing at this point but we need to work on some actions for 2025 not addressing anything tonight unless somebody else wants to talk about that I just want to say that the I think the um the first round is due in February yeah I think so yeah Recycling and cleanups fing anything there I did draft uh an article but I didn't hear back from John or David on the I didn't see it I'll look I'll go [Music] look yeah I did see I didn't I don't think I had comments I'll review it again and get back okay thanks topics for the Township news talking these December now maybe have we done anything about salt it's coming up on the time to do it exactly or is it with this new weather don't forget it could switch on us quickly yes I'm waiting to see how that turns out but uh do you want me to whip up a salt one or do we have one that we want to recycle we had one yeah I think I wrote One um I could dig it up but I don't know Richard do we have those handy anywhere Central or no usually Angus will hand it off editor uh I'd say if we can uh now the 18th if we can get something Us by Wednesday or Thursday that would be good [Music] all right if nothing else then Pake river parks and trails don't have any update there uh and that's connected with the Green Acres Grant so let's go into the grants the rgi Grant I think I said the last time uh Liza has stopped uh us from you're any planting this fall the next planting will be in the spring and presumably the final planting for the grant would be in the would be next fall that is in 2025 fall so plan things in Spring and for next year yes there's also a a plan from uh the township to uh install some uh swes along the right away of certain streets particularly up by Old Farm Road and then there were a plan to install trees on a particular Street and I don't have that uh Street in my head did I share that with anybody if not I will try to do that what going up going up in around um erson not erson no it was off a mountain uh I'm not remembering sorry is really yeah this wasn't Road this was another Street um Old Farm Road is where they were putting in swars not Old Farm and Mercier so that intersection Old Farm Road and Mercier they are they are proposing selles there we talking about something different and then separate from that a plant plant trees along another Street which is off of North on the north side of Mountain Avenue and I'm not remembering the name of the street those swes with trees no no swells just trees trees let's see if I can find it here it is dear Path Lane De Lane De Path Lane they want to uh plant several trees alone dear Path Lane De path is off of mountain right right before by by the um ameran mcmillon not far right yeah I think so so with that um with some of the maybe the spring or fall next year planting occur in that location well that's the question that I I did not bring up with nickia uh namely would is there grant money paying for those plantings or would could we include those plantings in the next part of the grant we could do that in theory but I don't know whether there's separate grant money for those plantings but I will check on if if there's a grant paying for that that's not the rggi grant hey and Community energy PL Grant uh U there'll be a webinar I believe in December and uh Al and I were planning to atttend that we to get more information green is Grand for Hils uh we contacted um Dan reer but I have not heard anything back from him anybody else no nope okay I'll I'll try to follow up with the Dan right and then B USA resolution we actually uh were contacted by the PG students who want to get involved with this and I uh contacted uh ingred and is Judith I uh they are both interested in helping out with that so we should have a meeting and uh see how we want to organize that uh possibly for the even even for the fall because we could be planting seeds in specific areas which would then go through hopefully Frost then I then sprout in the spring so what students are those PG the PG students yes yeah what is that acronym public interest research they uh came to the meeting about the B City resolution okay and one of them said they were interested in getting involved did ingred and Julie get back to you yeah they said interest I was on that email but okay okay so that's good news um and finally hosting the Hub this is the sustainable Jersey Hub uh um I contacted the town asked them what availability there might be for the second week of January which would be January 12th and at this point that week is pretty open uh and then uh Lauren uh said Monday or Tuesday would be best so I asked her to contact the rest of the The Hub and see what people want to do whether it's Monday or Tuesday we would not have a meeting on Monday uh and I would think Tuesday uh would be another option you people can also chime in as to what whether Monday or Tuesday might be better well s you said that we will have meeting on Monday or on Monday or Tuesday the 13th or 14th but would we have for for the sustainable Jersey hub for environmental commission we start on the 6th yeah the environmental commission meets on the 6th but this is the Hub meeting not okay not the environmental the T meetings in nor Tuesday right yes tonight was an exception because of an posting okay so Tuesday of that week be a problem because central conflict with the council I don't think so they said no besides which it would not be a zoom meeting as far as I'm aware we would meet in the large room downstairs the island room so the independent independent and I'd expect at least 20 people but uh CU that's about we had at least 20 people at the meeting in [Music] Westfield um what exactly happened well we develop an agenda and we also kind of share what we're doing uh among the group and I leave the agenda to Lauren okay we can probably have input if you want so we should go yes okay where the host where the host anything else before citizens hearing on any environmental issues yeah I I want to just uh follow up on the message that you had sent around Richard for um the the turf fields um I don't know if everyone realized it but the question that was on the ballot on November 5th about um the improvements to Lower Columbia Park um while the uh Recreation Commission or Recreation Department is it was voted to um have them take over the lease or join the lease or whatever it is to to lease out that lower field if you read down everything that at least in the tap into article that it mentioned um they want to improve the lower field by basically ripping up the graph and inserting AstroTurf I don't know if everyone was aware of that because that level of detail was not presented on the ballot itself but it was detailed in the tap into two article that's why I was sharing the information from various websites on uh on artificial tur U I don't feel like I'm expert on this but I that's a discussion that needs to be done openly fourth of December I think you said right that's what the sorry I can't hear what's being said could you repeat that please I think I sent around a an email about uh artificial turf and it included a message from the Sierra Club which I think was saying they were offering a webinar on December 4th so check your email right and and I saw that but I guess my question is do we as the environmental commission want to say or do anything now that it has been voted upon and ped to have a turf field an astro turf field in place of the Grassfield that's there so I'm getting a lot of feedback from someone I just I wanted to back you up and say that do I think I I want to ask you do we want to make an official stance on how we feel about that is Kim is that kind of what you're asking um enviral commission yeah I I guess that that is what I'm asking I mean Richard you put out the information on it you know obviously we we you know you wouldn't have floated the information out there if you didn't think it was important and this this is an important issue and it just I don't know how many people were aware when they voted on it that improve the lower field meant replacing the grass with AstroTurf was voted on was transferring the management from the um bard of Ed to the the township Rec commission so the rec commission has plans for what they would like to do for it but that's not funded and it's not approved at this stage so I I think it's appropriate for us to discuss it and develop a position but just to be clear the nothing has been said definitively that it will be a turf field right yes but I'm sorry John that's not exactly correct the Apparently uh Debbie Vin uh posted uh information about uh in uh installing a a turf field an artificial turf fields uh and and posted that with costs for maintaining the field versus uh maintaining a natural CH field okay John your turn so to that point there is a lot of talk that there seems to be intent that they want to go to a turf field and I think that our position should at least be that they should petition the environmental commission for a a balanced discussion on the pros and cons of doing that that should be the first stance yeah I mean I mean because there were the two articles that came through and and the one was from the tap into and and and the tap into made it look very Rosy okay so so um so and that's what probably most of the people in Berkeley height saw because that's what people in BS read so I mean I think we need to make them aware of what the environmental issues are and and and and and and um and you know to go to this um seminar on the on the 4th of December I think will provide us with a lot of information that we can provide you know to to the township and you know to to to give them you know probably the negative aspects of the T field so I just I I agree to John's point I think we should float out some kind of information on it because right now I think our just remaining silent is not what we want to do sorry Rene okay sorry Rene wanted to say something do we know the outcome of the vote of transferring the manag now from from discussion with people in town is they're very aware that um its intent is to be a turf field so just by talking to people is they're aware it's turning into Turf they don't they feel that's better because you lose mowing so you lose the carbon footprint with the mowing I don't think they are aware of the other potential problems the negative consequences of a turf field they think it's all like like Chris said Rosy so I recently went to something where there was someone who was an expert on it and there was a little of a discussion of the pros and cons and I think one part I didn't see this article about the turf one that went around tap into but something that might not be accounted for is getting rid of the turf field after like the cost of that putting that into a landfill is quite large um but then there's I don't know this whole thing about safety and and things like that where I'm just really not familiar about you know how the ground needs to be with the impact and that stuff I'm just really not aware of but NE specifically the way that it's being marketed right now at least how it was rolled out and and to the point of it being rolled out in a Rosy manner um it was pitched as we only have Snyder Park as the the one astr turf field in town and we need another one for lacrosse and soccer games that are going on and the field currently is not in condition to be played upon as well you know in the same manner that we use Snyder so it's being marketed as the equivalent to look we're going to have another field that's going to be kind of the equivalent of SNY field there's not talk about replacing it just like there isn't talk about what happens to SN field when it needs to be upgraded or upkept it's being rolled out as this is a better way for your kids to be able to play their games and I do think there's another side to this though because by having a turf field as opposed to a grass field it does extend the Playing Field playing season and so you can play games kids on that field when you wouldn't be able to play on a grass field so in terms of be providing an opportunity to get more kids outside playing sports through more of the year I think there's a potential benefit so I do think we need to recognize that there is a potential benefit to this while also recognizing there environment there are environmental costs but it's not just there are two sides to it yeah that's right that's I think I'm not I'm not disagreeing that it's it's a bad thing to have kids playing on the field but I do think that we should be the ones highlighting the environmental cost and what happens when the sun reflects off of this like all the all the things that people likely don't know about the downsides of turf fields other than what um the recreation department has put out there in terms of exhaust for mowing you know is that the only downside of it probably not hold on I'm sorry I jump in on this first because I don't want us to get into the discussion tonight okay without having done some research that's why I sent that email take a look at the websites that um uh I mentioned because they're you know they're University websites that are discussing the the positive and negative aspects I think we should then come back and and and say how we're taking a stand but tonight I would say first take a look at uh these things that uh you can see and there's one other point there's one other point and that is maret illis claimed that there is such a thing as a combination artificial turf and natural Turf Feld I am not aware of that but I'd be curious to find out whether that is really the case so Richard I I would ask you if you could reach out to Margaret so that she could provide the Environmental commission with that information and I I would like to make a motion that the environmental commission look into this further so that we can take a position on this during our next meeting I second of that yeah I heard that excent just to make a note about the combination in the presentation that I went to there is sort of like a combination where they do like the baseball field Al Turf but then the rest of it grass and maybe have like lines for lacrosse or something that's what okay I think since Margaret mentioned it we should get the information that Margaret has on it and we can add that to our repertoire of information and and I will try to find the presentation that debie Ronan did because she was showing a rectangle where the field would be located can anybody else make the meeting on the fourth because I initially wasn't able to make it so can we you can okay I'm going to try I that for today yeah okay okay I'm glad that we're talking that Sierra um we yeah I think it's like 1 to 2:30 on the 4th of December think you're right did we talk about the Winter Walk we haven't talked about the winter that too um I I was thank you Nar I had the same thing on my mind I realize that there's something that I want to do kind of around the same time I don't know who else is going but could I just come for the first hour and then leave after that does that work I'll be there but I'll be with complete streets but we're sharing a tent so we'll be there and also I'll help pack up I'll make sure I'm on the back endend then okay thank you do you is there anyone else I think I think alaro and Angus sounds good so the township also asked about what we would be doing supplying and I said that we would Supply seeds and refrigerator magnets what we say no bags this year Richard W what do you suggest I think people love bags but we have so many of them now um the other thing is we'll be advertising the community garden and the application so we have to um develop a new poster because the old one is it B it bit the bullet finally so uh yep okay I don't think we're we're honey is is on the agenda for this year though um but I'll follow up on that okay anything else about winter walk all right if not let's move on to Citizens hearing maybe not were you call were you calling for uh the uh other AG other items calling for a Citizens hearing on any no I'm sorry I I thought that discussion go on longer I just left and came back um I have nothing but thank you for asking all right our next me meeting is scheduled for Monday December 2nd at 7:30 p.m. were there a motion to adjourn motion toj a motion for this meeting for two turn3 p.m. John second thanks everyone Happy Thanksgiving you too Renee Happy Thanksgiving everyone bye bye I know about that