good evening everybody uh let's call our May 6 environmental Commission meeting to order our chairman Paul is El so I'm stepping in for him I hope he feels better soon um this meeting is called pursuant to the provisions of the open public meetings law this meeting of May 6th was included in the list of meetings notice sent and advertised in local newspapers posted on the bulletin board in the municipal building posted on the municipal website and as we remain continuously posted as the required notice is under the statute in addition a copy of this notice has is and has been available to the public and is unile in the office of the Municipal Court um I apologize there was no agenda online so hopefully you guys will got a copy of the agenda thank you um roll call okay Paul wety absent is absent okay Robin Sudan here um Ted case here Walter Andrews Maria um oh my gosh sanago I'm sorry I'm like I almost forgot Walter's last name too for a minute I'm sorry I gota get L SP okay EZ Perez yeah uh AR Schmidt yep uh Stan yox time and I'm here Jessica's not coming tonight um I'm trying to think of how for missing I think that's it and everyone this is Susan Bristol from the water add and if folks are comfortable I thought maybe we'd delay the rest of our agenda since Susan's here let her do her presentation I think that'll be the nicest thing for her time so Susan would you like to introduce yourself and sure yeah excuse any awkwardness with the technology we it didn't connect as we hop and to advance slides there we go okay so yes hi I'm Susan Bristol I'm the municipal policy specialist at the Watershed Institute and what that means is that I I go into at least 30 towns and sometimes outside of our watershed area and try to um support the environmental commissions while you all support your towns M Municipal councils Etc um I my background I'm actually from Rocky Hill so I live right across the river from you all and I'm a former counsel person and former chair of the playing board there so it's a small town and we wear a lot of as you know we wear a lot of different hats at different times but I'm also professionally I'm a licensed architect and a planner so what I'm trying to do is bring more of the Watershed work into the realm of planning and master planning which we do by helping towns as they're updating their Master plans for example um but let me um just sort of just get into this because you want me the slides for you um is that easier you can sure go ahead yeah um so um this is um oh if you can go back oh okay um as as you may have seen on the logo I just want to point out that this is the watershed's 75th anniversary and uh it was founded in 1949 when the first environmental nonprofits in the central New Jersey area so this is a big year for us before before EPA Foundation I guess yeah actually before Earth day before all of that so yeah it goes way back and it was started by locals around the Stony Brook and it was originally the Stony Brook Watershed of course you probably know the Stony Brook becomes like Carnegie and then the millstone River just good question for clar this is you only service the central New Jersey area north north and south well we do work Statewide my job is is to focus on the municipalities within this this watershed management area 10 which I'll explain in the slides my colleague Mike pizo who's an environmental lawyer works a lot at the state level and we work with the D we advocate for better regulations and we support actually community members um from all over the state will call me for help or advice and sometimes we coach them you know as they're trying to do better environmental work so so this is our mission it's it's very simple keeping water safe clean and healthy and we have these four teams conservation advocacy science and education so I'm on the advocacy team but we interact with each other and support each other on the right is our Thousand Acre preserve um North Pennington Township Pennington burrow in Hall um Township so if you haven't been there please come and experience the trails we have um this amazing lead Platinum building this Center and that's a real that's your real office that yeah yeah it's what is the green roof I know and the solar both it's it's actually a great uh demonstration project for a lot of the sustainable principles that we have advocate for but what you can't fully see in that photo is we have a lot of green infrastructure examples as well we have a gray water system we also have U the the the waste water is processed on site so there's a lot you can't see but if you ever want to come for a tour or with a group or just pop in please let me know oh next one um so um so one of the reasons why um we we work at different well we work at different scales because what we do at the state level is informed by what we hear at the local level so we take what we learned from you all and we send it forward we also bring what we have learned at this state into the community and we work at multiple scales because watersheds um are at different scales and so they are nested like the example of the dolls on the left and um the simplest definition of a watershed is the the actual area of land that is the drainage land around a body of water where that drainage eventually um outfalls or lands uh this this is the map of New Jersey's watershed management areas the millstone is area 10 you can see on the left I I pulled it out with the red Arrow um you can see Manville at the very top there which is the the end of the millstone um Watershed because it merge it convert it has a Confluence with the Raritan River and then it becomes part of another watershed area you all are in that other oval and um so you know your border is actually the millstone River and it's what is it at least 20 miles maybe of of river River Front so you're 21 miles of canal so it's probably 21 miles of river I was guessing that yeah that's that's what what I found when I searched for that so um so one of the one of the reasons why I use this image is because you know when I go to a town like Millstone Township you know they are 35 or more miles away from Manville but they're connected by The Watershed so what what communities do upam affects eventually what happens Downstream no and um so just I'm going to go through just very quickly some of the regulatory history like you asked about the origins um the Clean Water Act is from 1972 and some of us will remember the the fire the the river burning you know yeah that's right and so um that was a sort of Parton the pun like a watershed moment in you know the awareness of the American public and the ms4 program stands for municipal separate storm water sewer system so it's one of those annoying acronyms but on the right you can see that we we've had this ms4 permit um for quite a while and it tends to be um implemented in high high population areas are highly polluted areas so you can see the concentration up in the the East Coast so the the Clean Water Act actually required everything that the ms4 permit is is requiring I mean we're trying to get to the original goal which I think included that all the waters would be swimmable and fishable and clean you know I'm a swimmer there aren't a whole lot of water bodies in New Jersey that IC women um you know but that's the goal and that was the Mandate so so a little more about the the ms4 is implemented by state DS so the federal government has each state D um implementing that program for clean cleaner water so here we go again this is the definition it's a conveyance it's designed to collect storm water includes the drains pipes and ditches it is not the combined sewer it is not a sewage treatment plant and it regulates the discharge so it's a permit for municipalities it's not for like land owners or Property Owners it's the town that is responsible for managing the storm water quality so I have a question for you why when we used to have ditches growing up I live in the same place on my life the township doesn't clean the ditches anymore CU they don't want to be responsible under this actually the ditches I mean some of the more rural towns like West dwell you know they still have that those are part of the storm water management system so they are required to be um to be maintained if they've ignored them and now they it's hard to even see that there were ditches they make argument pardon you should report it on the P the thing the portal you know the engineering department they have a special machine to clear them usually so they are doing that M happily because it's it's clear and then the water's in the road and then in the winter the road freezes and ice is a problem right right and a lot of um so the there there is a generational shift in storm water regulations you know in the 80s it was very primitive then in the '90s you know you saw those retention basins and subdivisions and some of them had those concrete channels in the middle of a veget Basin and right a lot of those need to be retrofitted so Franklin Township probably I'm guessing has a need to retrofit old storm water you know systems or we have done Le four poen and Montgomery Township is is doing one and you know it's kind of a generational thing thank you so the so the point I want to make here is is in the progression of regul regulations um the ms4 comes from the Clean Water Act um we got our new ms4 permit January of 23 so you know that upgraded the requirements we also got the Inland flood protection Rule Last July and that triggered a new storm water ordinance for the municipalities but um one of the things that's unique about the Inland flood rule is that I think it's the first in the country that actually uses current data and climate change projection data in the numbers that that are in the rule so that's unique um but what we have here is you know a little map on the top that's showing that we have more downpours especially in the Northeast we have larger precipitation events and on the right it's way out of date but from 1972 animation to 2010 you can see right across this area where we are you know the heavy heavy development and land cover and impervious cover that comes along with that and so we're at the point now where a lot of towns feel like they're built out maybe not your town but a lot of towns feel they're built out either they literally are you know like Rocky Hill is an old fully you know built town with exception of one plot that's affordable housing you know project in the pipeline but um but here you you just get a visual picture of what's been going on and why we've needed to ramp up these things now the next slide you know is is also related to to the Inland flood so so what we're doing now is we're talking about water quality and then we're talking about water quantity and this is your neighbor Manville and what happened with the Inland flood protection rule is they also changed the um flood Hazard Maps so what you see in yellow was the earlier flood plane FEMA flood plane what you see in red is the new flood plane Zone according to the new maps which almost just creates an island you know the town becomes a kind of an island the other thing you can see here um are these pink and green things those are the blue Acres buyouts that's the uh neighborhood the Lost Valley and um and it's been a really difficult time since um Ida you know a couple of years ago I live in Manville so I'm taking a picture of this my I can send you stuff too I live first for my house then my friend's house okay and yeah it's a wonderful Community um but I I just like I include that image um for all the Upstream towns so they understand that they have an impact 100% agree yeah right so then um this slide is is about what we hope are the next round of rules was supposed to be published by now it's referred to as NJ pact New Jersey protection against climate threats you know that's that's a program at DP but this particular real rule is resilient environments and Landscapes and and these bullet points are why this is needed and what it will accomplish which is above and beyond the current regulations so it'll require Redevelopment projects to meet the same water quality standards as if it were a new development and right now there's a Redevelopment loophole which is a big problem um it will promote retention of of storm water runoff actually on each site before it goes off into someone else's property um it will require all major developments to meet the rules and it will um it will also require more nature-based solutions like you've heard of green infrastructure and um ways of holding and filtering water and also letting it recharge so sign the petition there I'm I'm going to distribute links to that after we meet but we have a petition on our website and uh the whole environmental community in the state of New Jersey is pressuring the governor's office now because they seem to be sitting on it this rule it's it's been written it's been shared it's needs to go to the office of administrative law to be public okay so this is um really disappointing the delay it's been a long you have a sense why I'm not qualified probably to say usually it would be a develop developers that slowing don't like yeah or they're resisting and we can talk I can talk a little more with another slide about that okay um but I made this I made this uh diagram because I really appreciate there's Ted you are at our conference so I include that picture only because you see a lot of folks on both sides of the table and what you all do is you come from the community but you interact you know with your planning board when you review projects with your electeds and your professionals so I just wanted to you know give a shout out to how important your work is and that you can um influence you know enhanced ordinances you can influence better policies now this might be super basic for you all but um now going into a couple of slides about why we have all these regulations why we need to keep updating the regulations and this is the water cycle and the fact that you know with development humans are changing it which you all probably know we have um damage to stream stream Banks like uh the be Brook which comes down you know across the river from you all from Hell burrow all the way through through Montgomery Township and the flood waters have really done a lot of damage to their stream Banks and then Manville of course on the right is just Downstream of you know that scenario the most interesting one up there is just this very simple comparison of a green field to a a developed you know field and you could see the infiltration goes way down but the runoff goes way up from maybe 10% to 55% so um that's just a little you know oh there thanks uh so when we talk about quality and quantity we also have to look at the relationship between impervious cover and pollution and so um that's one of the reasons we have this new permit but you can see the storm water just races across the paving it goes most of the time goes straight into a drain which then goes directly into a Waterway and all these pollutants are um you know found that's the millstone up there and those are very common pollutants the bottom right has anyone ever witnessed a harmful Alo Bloom the millstone looked like that in Rocky hill during that drought like 2 and 1 half summers ago when we had the drought yeah and it's frightening I mean it's just absolutely frightening that that stagnant you know that and it's toxic to pets and people and very bad for the everyone um so these are two charts that take that conversation about quality to um to another form at on the left you can see this relationship the more improv is cover the the less the Waterway can support life Aquatic Life you know or human use so 10% starts to impact a Waterway 25% impervious cover definitely shows up as having negative impacts but when you get up into the you know above 25% you know it is doing a lot of damage that amount of imperious cover you can think about that relationship whether you're looking at a big site or whether you're looking at a whole town or looking at a whole water shed you know it's it's a percentage relationship we worked just just to say and I think they all when we first started working together a long time back well not a long time a little while back um we were working with workers having an impervious C assessment done so we had that updated so we do know it by subwatershed I mean it's 2 years old now but we know what our impervious coverage is by subwater shed at least so and it's above the 40% in some places and we have the like 22 sites in town at the highest am so we went through the whole process you had an update to that we did we updated because I I have some images in here from your from one of your yeah because the Watershed did a lot of impervious cover assessments um for all the towns that Ruckers didn't work with and you as Ruckers we went through Ruckers we updated it in 2022 we went all the way through so we did a Green infrastructure study and we have the 22 sites which are you know it's hard to get working on them but you know I think uh that the definition of uh the percentage is a little bit ambiguous because if you have uh 10% like one square foot imp perw and then surrounded by nine perv and then again that probably be nothing but if you have large area and then it is 10% because you have another large area that is 90% that is that is previous then maybe locally those 10% can make a difference but how how does it pan out this this chart on the left is really kind of too simplistic so you're right about that but it comes from the center for Watershed protection and it the image goes back to 2003 when they were beginning to get the data just to show but yeah you we would have you'd have to look at it in terms of what scale they were operating at yeah if you have like a one big Warehouse surrounded by 90% perious you know well local level when you had the huge area impervia yeah but unfortunately U like I drove past some big developments with maybe mcmansion siiz homes here in Franklin all those Lawns perform like impervious cover so on the local level they don't maybe exceed the zoning regulation for coverage but they in storm water management they perform like developed land so a lawn is not solving that problem that a warehouse you know lawn people's Line Road out sedam Road 2 and2 Acres zoning and they tend to make it all long yep I call it the land of the riding M six acres but I mean that's something I learned from my colleagues and surprised me to hear yeah presumably the more upstanding the veg ation is the more it intercepts the water well trees um we'll get to that too but before we jump out of this slide this is a very recent integrated Water Report from the New Jersey D and the yellow gold part of the bar is nonsupporting so you can look at each category and they update this every two years an assessment unit would be like a body of water or a portion of a body of water yeah I don't yeah I don't know exactly how they do this our science team would be able to answer that question um it makes sense that there's only this much for trout but that much in general you know relative one to the other okay thank you there we go so this came out of U your one of your reports the r report and it's from the 20 oh it's the 2021 that's the updated one so that's just showing you just in terms of land use you know where the bulk of your impervious cover is and then a pie chart which is another way of of looking at it but um your town is 46.9 square miles uh 44% of it is urban or developed and approximately 13.8 14% is impervious cover so that's not that high but it's being averaged between a very high amount of impervious cover up to the north to a lot of preserved open space you know right down to the West yeah and uh farmland and such so the next slide um is more about your watersheds you all might already know this image that on the left it's a very simple diagram of the subwater sheds and on the right though this is from your um natural resources inventory on the right what you see there is more clearly is that you have two watershed management areas and to you know the ritin and the millstone and so the town is kind of separated into those two larger Watershed areas and Susan I the Oki Brook is this little part that's from my churches we're one of the 22 sites oh that little tiny that little stretch and where does okis Brook that eventually ends up in the Ron I assume no it would be the millstone because it's it drains down it if it goes in oh wait it goes into that one and then and then up yeah yeah yeah that one the rarest in line is took I think of it as being the front lawn of the Six Mile Church yeah it is it is so um the subwater shed with the most impervious cover is mile run which is up top um can you that one by new Bron yeah and this is where all that litter is sitting on that little bridge where Philips concrete used to be it is just disgusting much litter sitting right there the impervious cover there in that little subor shed is 45% it's pretty high the next highest is in the raron river um the yellow at the very top at 34.7 and the millstone which is the orange and the purple you know South and West is um actually just shy of that 10% threshold so the next slide get my I went too far so this is just again this is just a diagram I tried to pull this together because a lot of folks in towns don't don't know which direction the water flows and sometimes it's uh hard to in your head to understand if you're upstream or Downstream of of U of this or that so what I did here is I I actually Circle confluences because that's another like that's a flash point typically of course Manville is up there the big Confluence down here you've got the milstone the Stony Brook you know Lake Carnegie coming together there and then here you've got the saille the South River merging and there's a lot of flooding and blue acre buyouts up there so you all are kind of really the triangle in between those those three and then I I threw some arrows on you've got you've got um your down stream of what's coming from the rest of the millstone from Princeton you're sending a lot of you know um water you're shedding water to the millstone directly to the ritin directly and then you're sending you know water Downstream outside beyond your town and then you have this little area here that uh where you grab some from six mile run from the adjacent municipality and um oh I I'm sorry on the last one I forgot to if you could go back um I circled in red this is a project we're currently working on it's the Blackwell Mill for a million years right I mean I'm actually sitting next to this wonderful young man at Princeton graduate who's like working on some some part of that project but um and I'm only at the Watershed for like a year and a half now so I don't go back but the Black Walls dam is there and I just wanted to make sure it's I guess it's politically complicated to do such a thing the US Geological Survey measures the height of the river there they and they don't want to change anything there there's just one there's one guy at the USGS that seems now that's in the way we have them to retire the guy who retired was okay with it the new guy not so much oh no so you know I bring this up because it's on your border you have Ted has you know been involved and and if there's any way that you all can you know support that project there's been some great results um when the dam was taken out of up uh Downstream in the Manville area you know they started to actually find the Shad we're making it back into the river and the next slide and one more cuz this is one of those fancy ones okay where um you know you can actually see um the the how large the shed were coming back and making it you know past the the Weir at Manville and up and into the system and then I guess the the goal is to take out that Blackwells Mill Dam we have a little Dam I don't know if you're aware the old one in Rocky Hill there it's it's right below the 518 Bridge you can see the surface of the River from when there was a mill there yeah there were a lot of well there were a lot of Mills there including a little power plant of some sort at one time and a little beach like they would charge money for people to come down to the River you know to like hang out that's where the the guide Dr so that that day our I was on Council and our mayor was out of town and I was like filling in for the mayor so I was on the bridge during that whole whole thing and your town sent so much support 10 Towns were there that day but they found his body in the on behind the dam in one of those scoured out like sort of pits that cuz the dam you know the currents the Edie whatever the Edie yeah and it was just took all it took a long time and it so tragic and so there these D yeah it's just not it's not safe and it's not not good but it not only helps the shot it removing the dams improves water quality too because a lot of pollutants and other sediment get caught you know behind the dam yeah some folks have asked why we don't do like a fish ladder for the dams that are existing well these are actually pretty easy to take out physically and restore the you know the river any disruptions but the fish ladder idea would have to be used at Lake Carnegie because that's a really tall Dam yeah so I've heard that that might be possible to do there but there are two others to take care of before before the fish get there I know the the lawence brook Watership partnership works on trying to get fish ladders where the Lawrence Brook goes into the rwn because there's actually two dams there two stages of dam so it's challenging have they built the fish ladder or they designed it they talk about designed maybe designed but I I haven't been much in touch with them so um so this this slide is really my opportunity to point out you know well not only to promote Regional cooperation but to point out what we already have available to us in terms of regional approaches number one your ms4 permit now requires a watershed Improvement plan and you're allowed to to work on that regionally with with other towns so that's the final stage of of this five-year permit and it's that plan is due in about three 3 and A2 years so one thing I'm trying to do I'm not sure if your elected officials have you know the interest or the appetite for but I'm working with Somerset County trying to get them to reconvene the lower Millstone towns which would include Montgomery Rocky Hill Hillsboro which they did in 2020 to they convene those towns to do Watershed planning but but it's time again now that the towns have seen this new permit it's really time for them to consider working with each other so the Watershed already has two other Regional groups we have gathered the Stony Brook towns and those Towns now are considering a proposal from a consultant who will do the bulk of the work that they could use in their Watershed Improvement plans and each town would proportionally donate to that that consultant you would that include us no so then there's the Asen Creek towns that we've been Gathering which is the outfalls in Trenton on the Delaware but we think that the millstone towns could actually do a similar thing and we're inviting the county like we're actually asking the county to reconvene you all like they did but with our support the water so how do we do that artfully knowing that we're also in the L well then yeah so you you would have to have both of your Watershed areas in your Watershed Improvement plan are there other Somerset County towns in the lower Bon I think there are right Green Brook yeah um so the county could support more than one they had three different different Regional Gatherings as far as I've been told and within the watershed's perview you know our it would be all the millstone town like um Hillsboro Manville Montgomery Rocky Hill mstone Franklin you know that group right between Princeton and the raron I mean that would be a terrific group yeah um but I'm thinking we have to you're right you have another area as well so maybe the lower R warship is aware of something similar Regional level and we could present both and we just ignore op's Brook the only one that's the would go into okay I'm jotting that down because I want to follow up with you on that as well um so the the next thing is storm water utilities and I don't know if your town has looked at those but it's basic basically a um like any other utility like water sewer because the town is required now to provide you know the storm water um system and meet meet the regulations and clean it up the land owners with the most impervious cover would basically have to contribute proportionally to that uh Princeton is very seriously looking into it and they are into phase two or three of that Lambertville is in the middle of it and um if any of you are interested I'm actually logging on tomorrow night to Lambertville stormwater utility group it's a zoom only meeting just to hear how it's going but the mayor's keen on it because they're down you know downhill from big land area and they've had a lot of flooding too but they want to this is the way way uh the storm M utility is right now possible by law but it's also a way to fund the projects that the ms4 permit is going to require So eventually the towns are going to have to figure out how to fund them we may have to wait till our Tawn manager retires okay okay enough said um necessarily the uh County you have to make a better case than I have uh the new state plan is coming out out but I mean that doesn't directly that's not a regulatory thing it's the state plan will influence plan want to hear that Master yeah works for 20 years Point well they finally got a group to update it and the two new things in it are um environmental justice and environmental you know climate CL attended those sessions but I feel like that was so long ago too you know well the new one is you know supposed to last month so any minute can I ask one question about the Watershed Improvement plan so you said that's due in 3 years is that what you said well we're it's a 5-year permit and we're now like a year and a half into it oh jez okay so I got to find out who who's because our DPW works on our ms4 permit but you have you have a designated person that like your storm water manager we do who is on the D yeah okay okay they're supposed to to be guiding I think the town through but but another town started working on that part yeah think so they mostly and that's another reason why the regional meetings are good so all the towns can you know say how they're doing and update each other and and actually I mean the mapping you know is the first phase and a lot of towns were still doing it Rocky Hill did their mapping we didn't have any digital maps of our storm water system we did it with volunteers and uh cell phones we got the D app and we did it that way I think Ying did a lot of volunteer mapping Princeton had students doing it during Co donating like some of the mapping yeah um is there I you don't I can look it up is there a template Avail is there a template available for like these watered like not a template is there like um an example I can look at of a watered Improv plan or not you know what the DP I asked them for one they said well if you find one share it with [Music] us okay but but it's I mean they're you know a place evolving was it John Johnsonville joh toown Tennessee that is always pulled up as the um um storm water utility success story and they're in all sorts of webinars they might have a water there are utilities all over the country newy authored one of those towns that's got storm water uity probably has a okay Robin and I met with people from our public works department we brought up storm water utilities and they said well what people don't know is most of the money that's collected by the utility goes back to the de that's not true not a DME not true not a that no not a DME yeah and apparently we already have something that acts like that for commercial properties in town is what they told us and so we don't we're not to touch this because what we have works well clearly it doesn't how many roads are closed on well I think what they're referring to is that the property owners with storm water you know facilities are required to report and and maintain yeah and update and file with the D DPW so that's like talking points out of jpia so that was a very forward looking thing when Tom Z and that came up with about 2012 yeah we need to extend it to residential as well yeah yeah I don't know the residential side is handled by uh like in a certain Zone you have a certain amount of imper coverage allowed and it's just a a general like estimate for all yeah it's like a fixed fee for all the homes in a certain it does if we do it I think we do it right it does create an incentive to do storm water management right on your your home property yeah I think you can get discounts credits for things by LA right yeah and it has to be Equitable which means that whatever amount you produce you can't be that's what amount you pay so if you produce a you can't pay the most if you produce the most you get charged the most right key non- tax entities like churches or schools have to pay but they don't pay taxes which is how we fund all that stuff now so my question is ms4 permit it's going to cost a lot of money to redo all the infrastructure that we have under our umbrella that's going to come in in Franklin anyway under the purview of the taxpayers you don't have to redo everything well many of you have to improve improve them the and and you have to find the projects that do the most benefit and for cost reasons you're going to find you're going to find the most bang for your buck when you look well here if you just look at this yeah of the phases okay the inventory report is the mapping okay the assessment report that's where you can look back at your impervious cover from Ruckers or any other source and you actually identify preliminarily Identify some project s in places where you know there can be an improvement and then the final report is you know like what we're going to do about it like like how you're going to roll those out or the PRI prioritizing them Etc the incentives we're going to offer to get them done well and the other thing is you know how much public land Municipal land is relevant to where the projects need to be and so um we did a grant project Pro with Hillsboro and Manville for the Royce Brook and one with Chris ABA who's from the Rooker you know program and one thing that I took away from that is that if you want to go into a subdivision and do a whole bunch of green infrastructure on these paved roads that go nowhere you know big infrastructure you know there might be a way you can get easements you know from the front yards of some of those properties adjacent to the road you know when you can install some improvement it's an easement there might need to be incentives for that easement but that's how you would have to do it in some cases you know if you don't have a big right of way like highways have right you know depends on the RightWay but Chris showed how you could do a whole system of um you know like like um going in after the fact you know ERS later and and and like just retrofitting it's basically retrofitting yeah and that could be targeted and strategized you know approach so um those are the three phases and then the objectives here are not only quality but also you know flooding but there's this first bullet point there tmdls do you all know what tmdls are which is the pollution load so I just have a quick slide about that because um you know a lot of folks it's another acronym and it's a little more technical but your waterways already have um pollutants identified in each of the subwater sheds and those are the things you actually have to improve so you might look at the worst ones and focus on those but um this is the slides really just to help Define what a total maximum da is do we have that in the report Rec we do yeah and we have um they give you like an estimate of how you can reduce specific uh levels where we exceed and so we have the data which is um is um also for towns that don't have a storm water page yet and you have one there on the left and then you have your environmental resource inventory but um you all can participate in the Outreach requirement you know the Outreach to the community so you can have you already probably have events and activities and workshops or educational things for the community that you could put on your storm water page and you can track those are required by the permit so you could actually track them there um the the permit the new permit also has a salt storage and a tree um a minimal you know minimal tree replacement ordinance which you probably and the salt storage makes sense because we obviously don't want the rain to wash all of that stuff into so it's covered on the top is an award-winning uh salt storage building in New York City and um I think it's really cool looking so I include it because it's a great solution and I'll just mentioned the item six the containerized yard waste and yard waste collection program there was something like that with the street sweepers that the DP requ ired like there to be like a roof over the street sweeping debris and the street sweepers themselves and then I mentioned to Bob oh that $600,000 could have been paid for by storo utility not by taxpayers which is 4% of your taxes for that one shed so I'm trying they tell me to shut up all the time sounds like we on the right track that's for sure and some of these are just lifestyle Common Sense things for you but you know your community might not be very good at you know picking up pet waste I mean people constantly need to be reminded that it's not just you know etiquette it has a definite impact on the quality of the water um so if you could just click it a few times but this the public education there there we go um Outreach these are the five categories that are identified in the permit so it's general public it's targeted audiences it's like schools and youth uh Watershed collaborations and community activities you probably do a lot of this already so you might as well get it on that web page and document it and you does it have to be on the web page for to count or oh I don't think so but be documented it would be good for you know for your projects that are storm water related and help your town get the good to have them on the page storm water got it and then um the next one so phase one um just showing a little more detail but we don't have to go through each bullet but this is the inventory report the mapping and this is actually that photo on the bottom is in Rocky Hill it's an outfall in the millstone and I was out with this group during the stream cleanup during Earth Day and uh I had never seen that Outlet before but going down along the flood plane to pick up trash um which we have a lot of because we're you know one of our big borders is the millstone and when it floods our Municipal land down there collects all this trash and they found like hundreds of pounds of stuff our First Responders went in after the volunteers because they couldn't carry all the stuff See's an interesting comment that was brought up we had a green team meeting at six M on church yesterday and one of our my members who lives on ragal I think um said our recycling bins don't have lids and that creates so much litter and the water bottles end up in front of the storm drains yeah that there's something simple now I know some parts of the town already got those new recycling containers I thought that all of them are replaced that was like years ago yes and I reached out to the county and they said well it was during covid and supply chain issues as soon as we get the rest we'll deliver the rest but that was 3 years ago so I know I'm not the only street that doesn't have a high in development like Rua gal doesn't have they were not collecting the old bins without legs and I was like why this is you can recycle the bins for recycle bins you know well there are a lot of places in town that don't have them so the wind blows and that stuff goes all y yeah they they they have some uh problem with the trucks they weren't able to order their trucks they ordered their trunks and they said when they were to deliver so I made a calendar entry so I emailed them I said well did the trucks come and they said no the vendor canel it so they issued another one and it'll be another two years till we get our trucks so until we get the trucks we don't get they can't do more cans new cans so this stuff blows all over y so um phase two which you know if you if you already had all your mapping with your DPW or engineering department this is starting to look at um the potential projects estimate how much you know impact reduction we probably we have this that's from our plan yeah that we have that and this yeah this image is just one of the potential projects in your report I'm not suggesting it's more important than any other but it's an example of public property meaning a school right and all the different strategies on the site that could actually make an improvement now with the storm utility the school would have to pay unless they fix the problems so there'd be their incentive to get it done yep school board um so then the final Watershed Improvement plan report um has these things in it it has to include the public comments in your public meetings this engagement thing the DP is very serious about making sure the communities you know are invited uh to all these presentations um and I highlighted that one problems outside of your jurisdiction so that would be either a big land owner that isn't you know in your that's in your town but that you don't regulate like if you had an airport or you know what about like people that don't want to sell or don't want to participate in the blue ACR program is that an example or no that is a totally different thing blue acres is voluntary it's voluntary you blueacres we do but that's a big problem because well I don't know I'm just thinking like in general because people that don't participate in the blue if they choose not to then you know this whole like flood planlean can't be that's really tricky and and I'm a native of Wayne New Jersey which had the first blue acre buyout and my grandmother I mean my grandmother grew up right there the influence sake River Basin she learned to swim there and that Community was called Hoffman's Grove and uh you know it's now largely blue Acres the homes are leaving but guess what's right next door to that neighborhood Willowbrook Mall 50 acres of impervious cover built in 1969 in her flood PL at the conference so my dad's house is when you leave willbrook mall and go west there's three houses in the row the middle ones your your dad lives there he died did you grow up there I grew up in mville monville okay okay my mom is still in weighing but she's uphill of the Pompton River um so outside the jurisdiction is is also what's coming in from outside your Borders or you know neighboring towns so yeah I like to say that it's it's what's going on with all the development in Monroe then affects everybody Downstream particularly Manville and I went to Monroe and I presented at their public library and a councilman was there and he he said he admitted that when it floods they have at least three maybe he said four Islands the town itself becomes a series of islands but yeah Concordia and all of those um Susan would you do this presentation to the public absolutely I would modify it like yeah absolutely we're always interested in things for the public offer yeah yeah yep and you know I could brings the colleague and you know make it relevant to the community so let's see I think we're getting toward the end so this is the place where um I promote our enhanced storm water ordinance the one that the Watershed developed that's on our website but these bullet points are why the current regulations fall short okay the current programs may be slowing but not really stopping the rate at which it's the problems are getting worse only large developments which are defi defined a certain way are are dealt with it's not dealing with existing problems it's just you know for new development and the current rules do not address volume and they don't address Redevelopment as I suggested so our website has our enhanced ordinance some towns choose to add certain enhancements maybe not all of them we never even got a chance to comment they passed the new one so fast here no we have the enhanced ordinance I don't no we don't we have we have one but not the enhanced one so the new last September but we have the enhanced one from before no yeah we do I no we don't we don't they left out about 2third of what was recommended in the enhanc well I think it's because what we already had the enhanced ordinance before no I'd be happy to show you chapter okay we look okay so um these are the things that the enhanced one that that Mike pizo worked on with with others my colleague um and you can find it on our web page but some towns just went and past the dp1 to expedite that but are considering either an enhanced you know an update or maybe passing their own ordinance about Redevelopment because that's a huge loophole um Montgomery Township has Redevelopment to some extent addressed in their ordinance so they have a partially enhanced ordinance um oh but look look what I just jumped to yeah so uh I understand if you can't comment on this project but I found it on your planning board agenda and it's the um Rucker small what Rucker plaza plaza sorry closet yeah um just kidding but so this is just an example um it's a 27 Acre Site uh the current site at 21 of the 7 acres is impervious cover I guess the project claims to reduce it by about an acre um but you know with a big investment in redeveloping a part of the site they really ought to be uh reversing some of the damage surrounding that that new development and not leave you know over 20 acres of his cover um those a lot of public outcry against doing anything with this so would be a lot of pressure on the zoning board to Simply turn this down outright we wouldn't get any Improvement well so if this is a change in use requires a variance which is a very strict so the boards maybe the zoning boards need to be um you know if they're going to approve something it can be with conditions they could actually exactly create a lot of conditions the point is it's right now the is to turn it down yeah so I'm not trying to get involved in any of the politics but I just saw this example it's right on the river and it's it's so much impervious cover like every other old mall maybe somebody needs to talk to livan and say come back with a beautiful green infrastructure and maybe we could help we have no choice but to reverse the damages of the past or else and over on the right hand edge of this and just East rutkin pla itself is C's Brook and our stream annual stream cleanups every third year about we have to do that stretch of series Brook well it's our choice how often we do it but we did it this year you said that was only 14% per no no no no no um 76 76% and it they're reducing to like 73% the percentage is on the chart I think I I just gave you the acreage verbally yeah the required I think is 70% what's that I think the allowed or required whatever you call it is 70% for the zone for the Zone 60 60 for the maximum impervious coverage yeah so it's it's 133% higher and they're saying well we're reducing it by 2 or 3% but you know why they're saying that because that's the loophole in the state if you red if you redevelop and you don't increase it you don't have to do anything new really with st Water Management you can dump into what's probably undersized pipes that are already on the site right so that would be a way for us to get other improvements in the strong Water Management ordinance is to go in with the Redevelopment as our lead item and maybe get a few other and as an architect and as a planner I I I taught at NJIT and I I taught Studios that taught basically Redevelopment design like we did the Panic mall on the pumpt river cuz it flooded three times up there you know in 5 years shutting down the Commerce there uh we did um we did a site in Manville The Rustic Mall site in 2010 where we actually partnered with the town and the EPA and the developer and tried to we showed examples of ways of redeveloping that had environmental pluses you know benefits so I mean it's we have a lot of Commerce on the the Riverside in East Avenue that flood I mean it takes a really major flood to flood it because you've got the canal in between the the river [Music] and stores there but our major hurricanes that had FL and it's what it's dumping elsewhere you know it's it's what it's doing offsite as well so I'm going to run through the Watershed opportunities for like participating really quickly as volunteers we have citizen science um lot of programs you can flip the streamwatch program I actually we have an interactive map on our site and it it looks looks like you all could definitely have more um streamwatch you know monitoring and then then the Watershed puts the data on the map and the data is actually relevant you know to D and there was a case recently that citizen science was upheld in court you know with trained folks right and and that was a real breakthrough we also have a river friendly program so your not only homes but your schools could do it I think Montgomery High School just got River friendly status so it's a great program if you have golf courses it helps improve the way the golf courses manage the land um and the land cape and then we have a salt Watch program that's Statewide but our science team maintains the data and you can see here there there's there a couple of sites there's in Franklin Park location and you can just you know click on the sites but if you know anyone who's interested in field work this is a wintertime program which is great it's it's really been a wonderful um success and these are our typical resources we have an annual conference which we held in February where Ted attended it was at TCNJ we do that every year in February we have technical Friday webinars during lunchtime that you can listen in um to various experts that we we bring in and my colleague Mike pizaro just wrote an article in in the league of municipalities magazine up at the top and we have links to that also on our website and and then um we have a YouTube channel we have um actually have the alal bloom sampling site so you know we're looking at um where you know when it's when it's happening where is it and what are the conditions and how to try to you know think about preventing it and finally my last slide is just a view from our our constructed Wetland to say thank you so much for your time and attention I hope I didn't spend too much time on this great your presentation yeah I absolutely will send you the PDF slides that would be awesome and I just want to make sure um of of what information I'll get back to you I'll send you the link to the petition I'll get back to you on the Somerset County the potential collaborative you know Gatherings and was there anything else anybody wanted me to um share came out of any of the questions I don't think right now but if we think of anything I can respond to you anything you see movement at the county level it's so much easier to convince the town go along at the county is doing it yeah would be a huge Boom for us absolutely will do a couple of my cards if anybody wants to get in touch with you all for for a little bit awes um and can you reject that properly depending on how your machine works thank you I just have one quick question I sort of in my moving around here some chatter about um homeowners basement pump some pumps not being allowed to in the future pump out to the streets and I'm not sure where I heard that and what it means I want to Circle back and find out more about it maybe you know something about it well they're not allowed to pump directly to the street they ought to go into a rain Garden or something like that into a landscaped area what about the thousands of houses that were developed when they were built and that's the way they were built because and that's the was permitted to build at that time Grand some some some older towns still people rig their some pumps into the sewer system which is really bad will you sell your house come and down the shore the water table is rising so much that some people some pumps for their cross spaces are continuously rning and you can smell the groundwater has like a sulfuric sort of smell you can Su you can smell it when it's being pped up into the street and you know it's groundwater yeah yeah why would ground water smell like that it's coming out of the the at the shore there's a lot of um you know it's not really it's like Mar what's underneath the marsh land has that chemistry right all right okay sometime I'd like to tell you about what George Washington and Hill mil I would love it I'm a history bu and art can I one he DED out on that actually even had a of a publication in ASM [Music] news so one quick announc was when Washington and Tom Hayne were at Rockingham okay um would like to make an announcement I can email you we'll return to the agenda Stan had asked last meeting which was a great question about energy aggregation um and so I have been checking around our next administrative um Administration meeting which I sit on for Council is going to be I think it's this Thursday and we're inviting the um consultant from Gable Associates to come and meet us and talk through the Outreach we want to do public Outreach and education and I'd love the environmental commission I mentioned this in the last meeting to be involved with that so I'll have more information to report back just remember the top line is we'll only aggregate our energy in town if we can get 10% cleaner energy than we current get from bgs which is the provider under PSG if you don't op for a third party provider and at 5% less of a price hopefully we can get more clean energy at an even cheaper price and more affordable for families and of course we'll also look for a 100% option which will will be for a number of houses that'll hopefully drive it down some people are getting that already on their own hopefully purchasing power will help so I'll have more information about the education sessions and the roll out and when we think it'll happen is that open to the public or is that a work session that's just a council work like yeah Council kind of committee meeting yeah but when I know more we can minute have her come here first I think makes sense and then kind of think through that calendar put that out there somewhere y great but I know that was of interest thank you um I think what next item on our agenda is the minutes has everybody had a chance to read them Ted did a good job of I think capturing everything that was missing does anybody want to make a motion should have pass okay we have a motion second any discussion yeah I have a couple of comments okay um on page two in the right in the middle of the page where it starts with the word tree ordinance um says a looked at available trees of b b Nursery the large three and 3/4 in it was actually 3 and a/4 in I'm sorry so that is on page two you said right yes um page two cuz I have it up so I can make it right here tree ordinance R City recommend that Parra three Orin the fourth line fourth line down one two oh my God am I on the right thing here don't me now oh wait Ram attended and session second page halfway down PR orance I see it my bad okay okay go ahead Arie we're saying oh it's actually three in one for yes okay um also the um right after that it says uh cost of a Tre would be about $1,000 and it should really be between $1,000 and $1,400 [Music] okay um and then in the next paragraph where it starts with stand noted that among the what is CA stand for among the ca. 100 people registered Circa yeah Circa about stands for the word Circa which means about no I know what I know it's circum means but I didn't have I don't C and abbreviations for Circ oh you're saying like approximately 100 people got it okay so it should be noted that uh that the C not the among just take out the among is that what you mean no no I just didn't know what CA man I thought I've seen Circa abbreviated differently but that's maybe I should spell out Circle but this is a commonly used yeah that's fine I think that's okay I think it's fine all right any other discussion items we all comfortable with that change all those in favor say I I I post okay then it's carried thank you thank you Arie um I'll entertain a motion to open to the public thank you e just all those in favor public comments repeat your name um yeah Jenny CL and Barkley Court um awesome presentation and I love the water Institute I've I went to TC and day and I volunteer at the water Institute you guys are awesome um I was wondering if you know of any like successful utilization of rain Gardens with municipalities um absolutely I I could get our um my colleague Olivia who's on the science team they're constantly installing them and working with different towns aren't we building one here in Senor Center we are trying to yes we are working on it though yes is Ruckers working with you on that one rers designed it yeah for us so want yeah um and this is a rabbit hole I was calling down earlier today so this presentation was great timing um do you know like like is there a way to measure the success of those places and like how how much water a certain area of land is holding or is it just kind of like estimat you mean after the fact after I guess like before and after like five you know blown at my house to measure like how much water is that holding and then if I put in a rain Garden like what's the difference well so when you design a rain Garden you calculate all the rain water based on the roof area or the paved area and that affects the depth and size of the rain Garden so yeah that's a designs like a beforehand goal well you you design it for the conditions that are sending water into it okay um I'm working on one in my house right now so it's only going to be half the front half of all of our storm water okay you know rather than the whole property yeah yeah I make a suggestion if you go on the ruers uh Cooperative Extension website um and it's under climate Champions but the green infrastructure it's great series that Chris abrupta runs all the recordings are there you can take the course you get certified you get certified even if you're not interested in the certification but you want the knowledge they're they're all there and they go he goes into great detail he shows you how they do the calculations lots of sketches what works where how they pick sites um it's amazing how much information is out there and it sounds like you're nerdy enough that you could really yeah as a fellow nerd I understand anybody else debie debie Stewart to farington Plaza um it was interesting where you said The Lawns this is for Susan The Lawns don't count as perious they're they count as impervious is is not quite that far they're they're not impervious cover which is defined as you know Paving concrete Etc root buildings but they in in terms of the Watershed they perform like like developed land and impervious cover the storm water runs right off of them they don't absorb that much and they don't clean the water and they don't extract the pollutants really so the more variegation you have in your lawn yeah and the more you let it go to Meadow the more you're helping that filtration okay the perfect Lawns that everybody works so hard to maintain that uniform look acts as impervious cover the more you let Variety in there and you have some lawn Penny and you have some you didn't know that because we could have included that verbage into the normal way right I save them all for no but but when we when you guys pass or look at the percent of impervious you're only counting them the legal definition right but more than M if it's a hard packed short grass lawn so when I show when you when I showed the map from your your impervious cover assessment it showed developed land which includes Suburban developments that's at the level of land use not at the level of a parcel or a site yeah MH okay thank you that was a look yeah all right anybody else in the public we have another shot we move quickly enough um correspondence did you get anything from Jessica I didn't she said she would look but she didn't I didn't get anything I just checked is it working now yes it's working I'm sorry we need a motion to close close you say thank you second any discussion all in favor thank you okay um Susan thank you very much that was great we put you to work you know in the course of the year around town that' be wonderful site plan applications okay so we have two uh you want to go first yep I want to leave okay hang on let me get yours up here go ahead yours is Hamilton Street management this is Hamilton Street management um can you open the site I happen to drive in today because my son's school is right across St at hillquest I am really surprised how they're going to build all of that stuff what they're proposing right they're proposing a three storyed building with um the the the first level being commercial you know commercial the top two stories having 18 uh apartment complexes I think six are one bedroom and 12 or two bedrooms and there you know going to have 38 parking spots in that little little area there I have no clue what so they asking for a C1 C2 variants uh if you go go back to my notes if you don't mind quickly I think the map is in there the map is acting up okay yeah it took me such a long time to open the map yeah can you go down please so yeah look at the thing in red uh my points above in red above yeah yeah so what 38 parking spots the in terms of the EV requirements they hidden they have the more I think they required by by by calculations 4 and a half they're making they're doing six um they're proposing some Landscaping lot of lighting lot of sidewalks lot you know a lot of stor Water Management which is great 8 5% of the proposed plan is going to be impervious now and they met with the uh Township technical review board to discuss this plan so I don't know what what that what details went in there is 85% permissible or is that no no what is the limit there what is the Zone e it is a business Zone The Hamilton BD Hamilton Business Zone I think that's I think that's 60% but I can look it up while we talk yeah yeah so so when I drove that drove in today right everything is you know my assumption is that everything is impervious there except for the little spots over there what bothered me most is there are a lot of single unit housing just behind MH and they claim that it's going to be least disruption in traffic in noise which is not going to be true which is just not going to be true it's 85% I'm starting to Dr to you it's it is in the Hamilton Business District it's 85% so that actually inspect they're on target with it so go ahead easy I'm sorry I just wanted to let you know you go down back again to my notes um so that this is the site plan you look at it you know it's been bit it's it's at the it's between two streets on on Hamilton and um in they're going to take off 30 trees I believe let me just put my notes out over here 30 trees you want back here uh they they scheduled to take off 31 trees and they required to replace 34 of them look looking at the calculations looking what they replacing they only they've only proposed 19 nine have been unfiltered and not accounted for anywhere they they're planting a lot of you know the Juniper shrubs which I'm assuming they taking that into account because that's could be planted all around but that's not that's not what we want definitely so they are also asking um uh are are those shrubs included in what they're considering trees no okay no they're separate uh the they uh they need the additional parking space they're going to park in the setback area there are some areas that they cannot landscape they cannot you know will not fit the buffer requirements so there's a lot of variances which they're asking for um do you know where the garbage is going to be picked up is it in the back of the building uh in the back of the building they they proclaimed that it's going to be parking spots and some landscape area Okay will there be there'll be dumpsters back there probably right up against where the other residential resal so truck the garbage trucks will come there at 5 6 in the morning to pick up and disturb the people behind them yes yeah so I have no clue how they're going to do all of this in that little little lot over there but um what's the variances they're requesting do you know C1 C2 C1 C2 so just both variances that's just you know the general classification jeez so one of the one of the big things what they you know what the developers has said that this it's going to improve the Aesthetics of the area it's going to of deeny which may be true right because it's it's it's a very shabby looking property at this point it's going to block everybody's view that's why which is true also um uh the the developer claims that you know with the location of the premise will you know not they will invite um you know the commercial uh the clients to be non-car owners coming into the property or even the residents would not own their car which is not true I don't believe that no this transportation to support that yeah okay these are the Varian as I looked up they're requesting so one thing of note is that um they're requesting a variance they're saying that there's no buffering provided in some areas of the property and in some it doesn't meet the requirements they're also asking for an additional eight parking spaces and they're looking to park park in the setback area that's that's they want eight additional parking space's allow and yet they say that they don't need they attract people they're not going to attract people for parking yeah that's those are my comments and my notes in the over there okay so um my recommendation to them was if you go down um I think in my final note is they have to they need to you know put those N9 Tre somewhere right they have to put that the N somewhere into uh and account for that you know it's going be highly impervious area so they really need to work on that um then um potentially they there there's no mention of anti-idling signs which is required in that area I believe definitely and if they cannot you know you know replace the streets they better work on a green roof or a solar there's no mention of solar at all I think if we could go back to the site plan that that area that's at the top of the plan as we look at it with all the dots on it could that not be a a bios swell all of this I assume is this meant to be lawn that's meant to be lawn that's what you can if that were a bio Swale that would make a lot more sense it' be a place to absorb all the run off r a rain yep yeah you can add that right can you just go back to that yep let me just add this real quick no you know before I sufficient to handle the run off MH uh Norther part of property okay all right hold on now scroll okay so where is the park here those parking spots right on top the the major chunk of the property is parking and they the major chunk of okay and it's above and it's above that is where the residential is no the residential is all here this is all residential no no no no I mean the existing residential single family homes back there the the C there's just one little house in that I have a aerial stay there property this is the property here you can see the general area area in is it in blue of the houses is zoom closer so we can get a yeah there just one little House North D there is this house with the gray roof it's right there lot everything building parking and and the other one with the black is also very NE this is yeah so I mean yeah this is yeah that's that one green space houses right behind 10 right behind but this is the most amount of green Greenery on they taking all that and because everything I kept trying to that considered to be acquired this open space and Pat jado's family really wished that there could be some sort of mini Park in Hamilton Street that would bear his name is that Franklin uh is that right over by Franklin Electric um it's not exactly opposite Frank that not yeah that yeah good one it's by I always remember it as being the corner of North DOA there there's no rain and vlocker would always say well that belongs to the guy with the drugstore next door I guess they bought out which one Right Aid right Aid's gone well Right Aid is across the old right it's empty now I think it was a drugstore anyway well there was if we're talking about the same place there was a Right Aid across the street that's closed now and that's right across from Franklin Electric that's why I asked that when you said Patrick ginata that's Franklin Electric and I was I was those trees that's a shame so is there a house in here or there is one little house near the trees is that the little house right no the no yeah right where your finger is right now that's no not up down it's down on on Hamilton yeah but that house is going away going the existing house behind it yeah this is there are two uh single unit houses right behind the property and that's that's my point is that that's probably where the the parking is where the dumpsters are going to be they're going to come in early morning and I think that's a comment that we need to make is to um whether that's where the dumpsters are going to be for garbage and if the trucks are going to be coming in at 6:00 in the morning um they're going to be disturbing those people back there and they've got to do something about saying garbage can't be picked up before 8 in the morning or 9 in the morning or something like that so hot in this but you also have delivery well no it's something else never mind okay do we have enough on that looking at the time I have one more yeah okay thank you if there's anything more coming up just send it across to me thank you thank you very much okay um the one that I have is a re submitt so this one again did not include the resubmittal list that we've asked for so I started putting that in my comments that like this has not been included please include it you know um this is for Hsu properties it's at 400 coton tail Lane they haven't changed much I'm going to just tell you what they changed in relation to our previous memo which was sent in 2023 May 2023 so they're looking to do a 645156 parking lots and 10 loading spaces they're still proposing access via two driveways off of Cotton Tail Lane um and they will be connecting to the public sewer uh water and gas Services uh let me see what else I can tell you they resubmitted in resubmittal they included a traffic impact report no change in traffic right no change in traffic amazing how that works yes the one so from our last memo we had told them that they didn't address any of the EV charging stations that were required in this resubmittal they have the 6 EV Chargers that are required so that's in there we had requested that they um consider being solar ready even though they don't have to by law they're under the size but they didn't address that so we can put that in there they did include a Landscaping plan this time so they are looking to remove 23 trees that are 16 dbh or less um seven that are more so it's a total of 63 I'm sorry a total of 40 trees wait hold on going backwards 56 trees are going to be removed seven that are bigger so that's um 63 trees right that are going to be removed um they are required to put in hold on replacement trees I'm sorry is 63 31 or shade trees which are all Native this is one comment of ours they did address we had said that when they give us the Landscaping plan we would like them to really focus on using native trees everything they're planting is native except for um three three trees that are not native um 51 are being uh proposed to be planted on site that leaves 12 that are not going to be planted on site uh they didn't mention the anti-idling signs even though we said that last time no bike or bike storage even though we said that last time uh buffering there was no buffering whatsoever and they said it wasn't necessary because they're in the bi Zone and we said you should have buffering so now they proposed a rain kind of like a bios Swale more I guess um along the Eastern portion of the property only so some buffering but not all um in this bio retention base and I went through and calculated this again cuz I said this can't be right but it's over it's almost 7500 small plants very small like 1 to 2 in which you're not going to make it in the in the bio retention Basin so we need to address that we have requested that they consider perious pavement and that was not addressed and the green roof or cool roof was not addressed either so the recommendations from me that I think for this one for this resubmittal again we they need to start submitting these letters that show what changes they're making yes that's number one two uh we don't have to do the AV Chargers cuz they've addressed it I think we should re- reccommend the solar ready Warehouse the perious pavement and the anti-idling signs um and we can put in our blurb about how you know we think you should plant all of the trees on the site um I think that covers it basically so that is that thank you T and uh yeah those are the only two we have Okay um I if you don't mind I wanted to just mention two quick things as a as an environmental commission Vice chair tonight um anybody had a chance on the way here to listen to Marketplace tonight on NPR no they I was listening carefully because it was um the recently retired California insurance commissioner talking about the insurance crisis happening around the country because of climate change and the rein as I turned on they were talking about reinsurers which is what the insurance that insurance companies bu and how the companies are now asking to be able to increase their rates to customers because their reinsurance is going up and the interviewer said all right ultimately with all these things happening and it being so difficult for people to secure insurance they can afford what really can be done and he said number one we got to stop the fossil fuel emissions and I was so happy to hear that in a business environment that's what I testified on two months ago when I went to Trenton and I am writing a letter at the request of the citizens climate Lobby that they're going to take to Washington to our representatives in June I can't be there because I'll be on the road but that was just one more bullet that I'm going to include in my letter to go to Washington to say we've got to stop the fossil fuel emissions or insurance is going to get completely out of control and the state and the FEDS will be picking up the tail substan areas in California where they won't write insurance anymore that's right you can't get insurance this year alone in the last 12 months in California uh Florida 12 insurers have gone out of business so the market is shrinking in Texas Louisiana in Florida California and when they collect the premiums from customers they invest them into oil companies yeah unless unless you're on the board and you push them elsewhere which is what I'm trying to do um so that that's that's it oh the yeah those are the only two things on my report um new business Shad Masterpiece of tarot the community energy plan wasn't that something 200 Pages 200 Pages yes this is the second one of those I wrote this year because the pathways and trails plans it's been like yeah but IT addresses all the requirements of the community energy plan and our grant um I know they said they like when there's a lot of pictures and maps and charts and stuff in there so I did a lot of um so yes so what I would say is this so what do I want to say about this I sent it around I was having a little bit of trouble I know you did not have trouble Maria and I definitely I found your comments by the way I found them thank God cuz Maria was like I went through today and put all the comments in electronically and I couldn't find them but now I found them cuz iied I went home I and I couldn't see the comments and I said oh forget I have to do it again I'm going to do it again later on in I appreciate it so what you can do is what I think is if it's okay with everyone what I would like is for our next meeting before at you know before our next meeting if you could get me comments that you have on it the one thing I will say I know it's lengthy you are welcome to read every single thing if you want um it follows the requirements of the plan so basically you know it follows the outline that we put together of what initiatives we want to do everything that's in there the background that's all like I basically followed their you know um their eligib their requirements by by heart so um if before the next meeting we can get comments on it then that means I can make the comments and I can get it to Mark hey so we can get it uh on the planning board to be adopted because it has to be adopted and then our grant is complete and we're good to go then we start holding the township accountable to do some of it yes hold on one second I put some questions when um is um eny for renters and about the pluging yes yes because some some of the grants are for companies but we don't know those management companies of count as also as um as like Le yes I saw yeah I have to go through what I saw your comments the good thing about putting the comments in that document is that I get an email every time you put a comment in oh my God no it's fine it's fine no it's fine cuz it helps me keep track yeah that's okay that's okay so it it helps me keep track which is great but the other thing is if you're having problems with the online thing or you just don't like it or whatever I sent around the word version today you can do it in track changes you can send me an email you can type up a list however you want to send it to me is fine but I would ask please if we can have it by the next meeting because the grant is over in July so we have time but the time goes by so fast and you know they need time to notice it and and all this so I just 352 you sent it right 352 I sent it last night at like uh she sent the word version L to oh yeah I sent the word version last night I sent the sharable link it was like 11:00 or something maybe so look there yeah I can resend it if you need 27 hours taking breaks what I wanted to yes I just wanted to get it done yeah 1025 yes but but it's a lengthy it was a um what so this is a Google doc it's a it's through like our share our shared micos it's like share point or one drive one drive so yeah you it's like a living like actually multiple people can work on it at the same time you can put your comments in like a Google doc it's just Microsoft yeah okay so I don't know if anyone had a chance to know Maria did thank you but if you can give me your comments before the next meeting that would be excellent and our next meeting's on the 20th uh yes I yes yeah so so the this uh Community energy plan this is what we started few months ago yeah it's we started in January of 2023 right well no we didn't really we got the Grant in January 2023 we didn't start till like April or May yeah my consecution unfortunate I did the the first respond to stuff it's all right yeah I got it okay um why don't we um thank you very much Tara that's um reports from subcommittees thank you education and Outreach um from my side I have already emailed and uh to obtain some supplies for the green fair so I'm still waiting to hear when we are going to me for me to have access to the to their if you need de's phone number I have her phone number you can call her just don't just ask her if I can't call yes I'm sure you can call her I'm sure you can call her okay yeah because email um I don't know it goes in their spam folder probably um give her a give her a phone when you leave tonight I'll give you her phone number okay um anything else um do you have people helping you that day I don't know is anybody able to go to the green fair with Maria the high school green Fair it's the 18 May 18th what's what are the times I think it's 1 to 3 right I don't know because I'm not available I saw in the streets though the yeah it's Saturday May 18th mhm I think it must St sometimes in the morning but you want to be there in time to set up before people walk in I mean last time we had a round table so be prepared for that a rectangle is easier to work with because you have a place to stand behind when you're talking to people but we can request different size but I think you need to be do that proactively that morning it'll be too late it's 1 to 3 okay well if anybody can help Maria that would be really beneficial Tera we are going to connect at some point because you you have some I put a request in D again to stop the slip program to get more of those flyers and they said oh this is great timing because we're getting new stuff so we'll send you the old stuff and I told them if I can please have it I checked I don't have it yet so I'm hoping I also put a request into the um D's office of environmental justice to see if they have anything so maybe well you know they're looking and my last comment is I haven't heard from the youth center after my last letter okay you know so that's that's what I have to say you haven't heard from the youth center them I know um do you want to talk about last Monday yes yes so so we had the presentation last Monday in council's chamber electric vehicles the the good and the Ugly um both presenters were very well prepared we had Ash Lin Poli from uh new electric vehicle association and Mario cabayo VP from New Electric Association um uh we didn't have much audience we had seven members of the public um so I don't know may need to better marketing but also apparently it was nice day that was a thing but um and when we had um present when we had the film screening it was a much better attended well what what helped the film screening is I sent an email out to about 30 of my friends individually separate apart from this so this last one most of those friends are on our email distribution list and that email came from me instead of from the Environmental commission cuz our email wasn't working but it was one of five things not the only thing so maybe I just need to email all my friends every time with just one item well so they I I was trying to um promoted through some Republican channels because I wanted to reach out to the that those audiences that demographic yeah um uh I um send it to sorry my M what is the mayor candidate for Republicans Brian lean love yeah I sent it to him I sent it to raikan Cola who is also um on that um cus um because he drives electric I know him and he's making Post in the can I make a suggestion that maybe the education Outreach and Communications committee meet separate from this meeting to kind of post more in that and what we can do better and think it through and do it on a zoom have a committee meeting yeah okay I think that's a good idea um from the communications committee um I want to let you know that uh we we have something we were talking about a July 8th date to do a film ESP besta City and Jessica was going to follow up on that so I will not be here for the next meeting maybe education Outreach wants the Jessica if she had any success on that and Common Ground we talked about a date in September for the screening Jessica has that video and she was also going to try to get the streaming for free so um maybe at the next meeting you can check with her on that um come on ground Common Ground that's the followup to kiss the ground the film we already did do we have a DAT in September or not yet not not yet we just talked about September MH um on our website um we talked about um our our goals I emailed T Tara about this our goals are still so out of date and you do that great spreadsheet with our projects I think we should turn that into our goals into the goals because we update that we look at it every year it's much more current and maybe now that the energy plan is done we can see how difficult that is to turn it from that Excel format into something that can go on the website okay that would be great um last thing from Communications committee we had I had a note from the last meeting that we would like to do an article for the next Franklin times on the sign ordinance and help point out the fact that the landlord of uh is absolved of responsibility if he puts up the no idling signs but we need it passed first do we know where that is um the last time we met is that when I sent in the the final the final I just sent it in last time I no I haven't got any we'll try to keep track of that that once that gets approved and we'll see when the next Franklin Times article is and we'll try to get a piece in there about that um energy conservation infrastructure committee um I shared with some of you an email from um who was it Rocky Mountain Institute about the fact that the feds have just passed a new um regulation requiring all new federal government buildings to be electrified and they're encouraging that states and cities should do the same thing and um I had mentioned I think it should be part of our master plan now maybe the master plan doesn't have to address municipal buildings I find that interesting that we make rules for everybody else in the master plan but not our own buildings but I I want us to keep that on the list that as we're looking at sustainability as an element in our master plan that new buildings be electrified you have a sustainability and green buildings element not yet not yet we want to work on it sry interrup yeah thank you good question and the other thing um from that committee is uh I saw a piece that I think this came through anj can street lights unlock big city EV charging and a company called what are they called um volt post has developed a a post that's actually to be the base of a street light that can be used for EV charging that's very safe that can't be damaged that can't be stolen from Etc ET they copied it from uh the Germans from the Germans they're selling it over there this I think they're the um so and just to pitch in so when I was the sustainable sustainable Jersey Summit I met this lady uh who is representative from that company yes and I uh rounded her in in the response yes so if we can get Franklin Township and psng to recognize this as a way to do do the lampos are owned by bsng and the township because we are talking we were talking about utility po but this is lamp post [Music] right Paul is is more of our expert on that isn't he the lamp posts um we pay for all the street lighting I don't know if we own the lamp poost I think we do not but I'll have to check that would be great Tera if you could mhm we on but um most of the uh lamps are on the utility po no I think yeah I think so yeah I don't know the exact like what the breakdown is but I think yes I think you're right well I think it would be interesting to try again on this as a way to bring EV charging to the people that don't have their own driveways and we have a lot of that in town um and those are the only things I have from committees anybody else Walter what was the question you asked us at the very beginning oh it was about storm War straight to Street it it concerned me because my in my development it was part of the ordinance and it was built in and if somebody's thinking about taking it out or re a lot of retrofitting retrofitting you know that's going to be a no well what Ed said was that their grandfather accept I had to step out and then what Tara said and I think and said to me that I think she's right is that if you go to sell your house then you might have to make that change for septic and your some pump you have to come up to the code when you sell when you sell yeah and it's on the seller so I'll be watching you Walter Walter lives right up the street from me so um anybody on Hot Topics other than that one that's a good one um I have something to to share I just in my email I got something from the New Jersey um Urban and Community Forest news then it which caused me to go look about up on our tree our community Forest management plan ours expires in December of 25 so we'll have to have a new one yes we got an extension I believe for the last year yeah uh and that requires a tree inventory which is a new element yes yes how do we go about does the SH tre's been working on that right sh well yeah so they got an extension for the one year because so I have a friend that is an AR she's an arborist um well she's basically an arborist but her cuz I asked her about this just out of curiosity and she said that there's like not a lot of professionals that are actually qualified to do this so she's concerned about this law because she basically is saying they're about to be inundated with work so I don't know how much help that is but that's the latest I Hur so but yes we do have to do it like five in the state or there is there's only like five or six registered Foresters right so well maybe the out ofers are going to have a good opportunity yeah for sure yeah um well how do you do an inventory of forest trees and Forest ask Camille deito Emil DeVito that's what they do that quadrant imery they can do a lot of aerial imagery yeah but they have to the tree inventory I believe it has to be done by one of the approved Foresters or whatever their exact title is well can they use like the I tree I believe they can I think they probably use something other than I tree but they prob they use something like that y yep and and with drones now I think probably bit easier um I old business a micro Mobility study so I'm expecting um uh some work from the consultant in the next few days May 15th is when we're supposed to get the first kind of preliminary write up so and then the working group will look at that y okay great um EV session we touched on already um but I think there's some takeways we have to learn from that so let's try to put our heads together about that um memo to Township manager regarding the amendments to the tree ordinance yes I have that on I have it open I had to make a last minute changed I forgot to make so I'm going to fix that today and then I will put there was something in there that I completely left out accidentally so I caught it before I sent it but then I just didn't get a chance to hit the fix it so I will do it and then hit it were formatting but I did call the manager and let him know like I'll be sending it so that he knows like oh I meant to send it but it's coming great thank you non Williams part I'm sorry just one thing because when when we had this presentation about electric vehicles I was so much kind of distracted by the low audience that I maybe it was it maybe it was not but I should have acknowledged you guys who were present and thank you for being there but I I did not sorry please don't worry about that um name in Williams Park so I actually went to NE in Williams Park today and I found that another pipe has been put in that I was not aware of and it's I don't know why or and it's not connected to anything so I took a picture of it and um anyway I went there today with Wendy white from the youth center because she made a connection with um this group they're actually called we love you is the they're like a they're like a nonprofit group but they do like massive tree plantings they want to do a big big tree planting somewhere in Franklin so I had mentioned to her one of the projects would be you know our green infrastructure includes tree plan things in non Williams Park so I walked her around say show her exactly where everything should go great timing and it allows our grant money to be used for other things like a second pipe that I found that's connected to nothing and now has to be connected to something so that's like one thing I'm working on I actually ended up reaching out to Ruckers to ask them to help me put together the supply list that I need because I got like absolutely no response so um from our from I needed help from our DPW and I didn't get a response so I reached out to Ruckers and they put together a supply list for me of everything we need so now I'm trying to get that ordered so we can do it so this this group we love you right it's called we love you yeah attached to any uh they're an international organization um and international yeah let me look and see uh because she sent it and I was like is this for real but she's been talking to them because are also going to do some tree plantings at uh the youth center y it's we love you with like the letter you when you say they're going to do tree plantings at the youth center are they coordinating this through shade tree that you know so we we haven't heard about that no so they came to the youth center looking for this these projects right we love you people we love you people went to the youth center yes the youth center they had some trees they wanted planted but they didn't have have I guess aot enough uh they were like no we want something bigger so she reached out to me to see if there's anything in open space and I had said oh we need help at n Williams Park I did recommend to her that she reach out to shade tree to coordinate the types of trees the we love you people say that they provide the trees and the labor but you know I said maybe you should coordinate it you know because I know we have this well we also have to make sure that we're planting trees from our list yes I told them about the list and Dave you know yes I told Wendy all of that Wendy and I told her she should reach out to shade tree as well and also this brings up have you heard anything new about the tree maintenance plan that the township manager is working on watering in tree so the last osac meeting that was the most recent update I got which was um what was it just that they working on it are they they I think had did they have a contract or consultant on board was CME was was looking at it and but it was supposed to after they put it together they were supposed to send it to us a cha tree for us to get a look at it and they haven't done it yet CM doing the specs or are they presenting themselves as a as a vendor C I believe is presenting themselves as a vendor I believe well they are they are a vendor they have they have what's they have an arborous an arborous Tree Specialist or whatever you want to call them I don't know I mean they're going to have to go out the bit board probably because of the amount when you go home stand up we love you with a you with with the letter you the whole point is that when they finish what they're putting together before they send it out to bid it's supposed to do a shade tree for us to get our fingers on it to take a look at it to make sure we agree with what they're doing right the meet your qual your qualification I get it I get it I'm not involved in that part but I can definitely reiterate that so the biggest updates usually I hear at our open space committee right I don't know where it is yeah cuz BN Locker's there yeah I don't know exactly where it's at but if I talk to him I can definitely ask again no cuz we had our sheet tree last Thursday or like maybe it was last Thursday and uh Steve hadn't heard anything he hadn't so yes then yeah so the we love you Foundation I did tell Wendy they should coordinate with shade tree if possible but if they're willing to put those trees in at aen Williams and that'll extend our grand dollars I think that's great just encourage them to do it in the fall please yeah I don't know when they want to do it actually they're coordinating everything through the youth center so I happen to just get lucky that they send clean up and they do cleanups they do lot if you have things you want them to work on tell we need to be connected someone from the organization should be on our mailing list so that when we have some event they should be notified because the more people marrier right if if you want to send me her email I'll email her encouraging a full planting cuz otherwise you're we love you is not going to come out water and the Township's not going to come out water well that's the thing that's the thing if they plant them in November we got a 60% chance of tree will make it got it okay um other old business um I have a couple things I want to make sure we don't lose track of Rails to Trails reaching out to the National Organization you're going to work on that one I will as yes as soon as I get the community energy stuff finalize yep um signage for Save the mo so next year we have more participation I think we want to see what budget we have left Maybe by January and see if we can get a few signs up yeah so the budget will be approved like and like willing you know ready to go at the upcoming Tuesday meeting and then we put in money for so we will as long as it gets approved we'll have money and we can actually just order them we don't need you know good we do a little that and a little bit of um adopt the drain yep absolutely who's going to design the image I'm not sure well we we'll find Jessica could do it yeah she's good at that I think and also you had mentioned that you like doing she likes working on stuff like that that would be great yeah so we'll be in touch um and the digital environmental resource inventory remember I mentioned last meeting and I showed you what Readington did I did reach out to Princeton Hydro to see what it is involved in taking our PDF and turning it into an interactive map which is who Readington Township used they would love to have a meeting on Zoom with a couple of us to talk about the project I did ask them to give me a sense of what kind of budget because if there's no money in our budget for this we may be a little preemptive here and may have to wait a year but um I may just go ahead and agree to do that and I'll send out an email and if anybody's available that same time slot and would like to C you know click on this zoom and be part of hearing what Princeton Hydro does and what they could offer us um I'll do that and maybe Tara if there's any way if you can find out if they're on our approved vendor list okay y I asked them the same thing they were going to research it but um I think there's something called a rolling vendor list they mentioned so there might be a quick way to do it but okay I'm sure this is not a $1,200 project so I'm sure this is involve budget and unless sustainable Jersey or Jack might have grants for something like this and that might help us fund this kind of project yeah they probably do I'll try to find that out cuz Princeton Hydro may know what grant money is out there to help accomplish this yeah so that's one of the things I could learn from what I just uh found something about we love you and what they were presenting there it's not the core Val uh it was founded in South Korea in 2001 as a vehicle to deliver love and happiness to Neighbors in need the chairwoman took a Grassroots approach by personally interacting with and caring for the needs of the global village through the areas of social adult and child welfare emergency relief and environmental cleanups okay included the chair woman's example of giving up has spread from the East to the west and planted itself in 50 countries to inspire a health in a hopeful future that's nice so it's more than just but it's um it's interesting pretty pretty broad I have one more thing if you mind just real quick um so we so we got the um Energy Efficiency partner grant that I told you guys all about so we are going to get the $2,500 as the startup and we are going to get the technical assistance from them the meeting the first meeting if anyone wants to go it's a virtual meeting it's on this Friday I think I sent an email out about it I just want to it's um February I'm February oh my gosh May 10th uh 11: a.m. and it's virtual so anyone who wants to come basically they're going to talk about the program how it works um they're going to kind of start walking us through like the you know how to set up the video and how to you know whatever it is that we want from and they can give us so the 10th virtual at 11:00 a.m. and I can resend out the link um but if you're if you're interested in coming that would be awesome I'm going to be driving so I'll try to listen Okay um this would be something I could listen to right I'll be to okay that's fine yeah okay perfect okay and um I sent you an email that I received from was either BPU or D that offered all these resources to us that we could use for energy education that seemed like it would dovetail perfectly yes I saw that yes yeah absolutely yeah that'll work we can that inventory mhm and that's un Zoom yeah so you'll send out the link for that I will resend it yeah okay cuz I don't think I all right too B there's nothing going on huh I haven't been able to keep up I know that's the hard thing yeah it's uh I'm I'm I'm looking at the clock and I'm sorry motion to open to the public please thank you second all those in favor I I okay I a question the lady that was here she she said something like you she wanted a letter writing campign or something she wanted you guys to sign there was a petition she to help the governor right move the what was it the next oh the NJ P NJ PA C legislation and the other the other acronym was R E A yes so you want people to sign up for that I think if you go on the Watershed um institute's website that's probably where you can find a link because we have an environmental group now at our third place so I could send it to them to have everybody in our community there but I think if you go on the Watershed institute's website they'll probably have the link yeah they said they have it on there it's a petition it's just like a petition you can sign but that would be great and she was going to give you her slides right she's going to send me her slides because in the slides we get I so you can wait a little bit we can find that and get it to you yeah but that'd be a great way to spread the word thank you um for the the tree maintenance and like the issue of watering are the trees that are planted are the leaves left near the tree or are they like raped every fall or blown you know we haven't planted trees in so many yearses that lose their leaves yeah like just generally are they all raped yeah they're they're they're they're taking care that makes a big difference it holds in a lot of moisture if there if there's like a Le glitter around the tree well they're mulch the trees are all mulched okay yeah just um not necessarily mulched properly but they're mulched yeah the and having the additional layer of leaves could help it was just they also kill the grass if they if the leaves stay there sometimes some they sometimes they introduce nutrients no you're right about that if if they mold if they use a lawn mower of some kind to to mulch the leaves and let the mulch leaves lay on on there that's good it's just leaving full leaves on it could be a problem yeah okay it was one thing I thought of M great thank you all right should we take a breath motion to close to the public second okay all in favor I we didn't have bill today is he okay oh yeah I don't know one of the first times in long time motion to close the meeting second all discussion all favor thank you everybody [Music]