##VIDEO ID:s8Ao0Gjn6qw## in accordance with the open public meeting Act of the state of New Jersey adequate notice of this meeting of the Franklin Township environmental commission was made by posting on the Bolton board in the municipal building posted on the township website and electronically transmitted to the official JS indicating that this meeting would take place in person at 7 p.m on October 7th that okay next we do a roll call Walter here here e is not here uh Stan Arnold Robin is not here Maria here Ellen I'm here tar is here Ed pnik is not here okay that complet and for a report from the environmental chair I'm going to delay I had a a we're going to give give you an update later on the bioengineering and food waste things that I'm working on I just want to mention that there's a few uh interesting things coming up on the web this week one of them is a whole series of Tuesday nights uh on storm water management storm water U utilities uh it's on the 8th the 15th the 22nd and the 29th at 7 p.m. um and it's um if I remember right it's from an that's that's coming up and also on um on Tuesday um the 8th tomorrow the county is running a a online seminar or whatever you might call it um on Rails to Trails the trails committee get that I don't know if they did actually I did get it today so I'm going to set I'll discuss it with them on Wednesday but well it's tomorrow I think it's tomorrow oh it's tomorrow all right yeah I will send it to them then I'll send but they did not get it like it didn't come to the trails email yeah it was sent out by the um I've had it back and forth yeah yeah 1 1 to 2 p.m. it's Theory rails to Trail network ridewise is behind that also yeah so I just wanted to bring anybody up that's fre T sent it to me that's how I got it yeah I guess I'm on their email list yeah for ridewise I will forward it to them okay good we leave the rest of that I think that's all I really have to go over I just want to get already alerted to to what's going on um so we'll do that approval of the minutes we need a motion to approve the minutes of September 30th so move second any changes Corrections or modifications we'll uh ask for vote all in favor that passes we'll um open the meeting for public comment with a motion to open the meeting for public comment all favor second fa hi would you like to make a comment uh I'm Terry Thor 18 Le Drive in Somerset and some of you have helped us in the Meadows with planting and acquiring the plants and I want to remind everybody that this weekend coming up is sset County's Journey to the pest and our white C Garrison house is one of the houses that's on the tour and so I'll just give you a little flyer because it gets the dates and it gives the times and down at the bottom it has the website for Subs County if you want to find you have the 29th you really want to come to ours but if you want to see the other 29 you can find out what they are and by the way I will be the dose to this house my costume in my wooden shoes thank you hope I see you there you did in started in Rich oh okay the one that goes Yep this one you have to go and they have a they have a map online that shows if you want to do the southern or or the northern part of the C I get to go inside I drive by it you know a lot of course you go all three stories that's three three stories this is walking event like uh you come during the specified window you can come anytime I'm doing a continuous loop so if I'm halfway through the tour you can just join me and we'll I'll just keep until you get to see the whole house there are three floors weend good okay I think that completes our public comment period so we can have a motion to close the meeting to so move hi what correspondence any correspondence I didn't I haven't checked the mailbox but I don't think there is any I doubt it yeah like I said everything comes oh good welcome thank you I got change that change the list got see you ready talk about the composting that's good time okay um are there any site applications so okay so yes there are some site plan applications Accord let me back up so every week I received the TRC agenda from our planning board secretary um it says that we are to review Devon developers NPH real estate and andas caterers Devon and andas are resubmissions um n pH is a new one that's before the planning board so I've been going on the website the last few days and the materials have not been there Devon developers is now up there but the the only thing that won't load is the actual subdivision plan so I don't think we can actually review them so they're not due until what does this say 15th 22nd and 15 so the one for the 15th we're okay I just got to check my calendar we meet again on the 21st so that's a hard one um I wish I could say something better like about it but so for Devin I looked up the engineers responses loaded up so I could tell you what they said they put in the plans in relation to our memo I don't know that but we can't actually look at the plans themselves right well let's let's let's thr our last memo said that 97 trees on site were proposed for removal with only 53 of the required trees be planted on site um we recommended that more be required on site um we also said that although charging stations were not required we recommended that the applicant consider making the garages of the units proposed um have EV capabilities and we also said that the Landscaping we recommend should be native plants that also provide storm water run off uh so I went through the engineers report for the um for the trees portion they said I guess another comment was submitted not from us but saying that all of the trees planted should be at least 2.5 in in caliper or more and they said that they have done that um we said that the maximum amount of trees should be preserved on site and they said noted was the response um uh what else yeah uh nothing in here about the EV charging they're not required to do it so nothing in here about that and I also looked for any information about native plants in the uh in landscaping and I didn't see any response to that so all the other responses here are all responses to engineering so it's kind of hard to but I don't the actual site plans themselves won't load up let's say no how the Environmental yeah so this was revised the environmental um assessment was revised March 1st of 2024 uh it doesn't really make too much of a difference in regards to what we would be looking at um so yeah the other two the plans aren't up for us to review so we'll have to re review them at the next meeting because I can't we can't review what we don't see you know there's some that meets to review them there is yes so we usually Paul Ted E and I we usually review the plans and then we fill out our Greenland development checklist and we present that to the committee which is you to the commission which is great but the plans haven't been available so we haven't had a chance to so because of that I said okay we'll go through them real quick at tonight's meeting but not up so we have an idea what's there yeah oh this is a subdivision yeah how how big is it um the original subdivision was hold on I can tell you uh so originally you reviewed this in April 12th of 2022 it was a minor subdivision demolishing two existing houses and a garage uh and they are proposing to build eight residential units that front on Route 27 and would have called the sa right yeah there was a big going on on Cedar Grove up here near Amwell right is that that was a Housing Development also I think I believe yes that's the rest are trct right yeah officially it's syamore developers right yeah I know that Ryan yeah it's a big big lot of land they're going way back I can see so uh for the We'll add them on for the next meeting to review I'll make sure that the plans I'll ask that they be updated um so the next one we can do it but two of them relatively simple because they're resubmission so we can actually compare what's been done versus our memo which was easy or yeah yeah easy yes he's on he's since he's on here he's on the next one okay so that's the only one that's really there was three but yeah okay we can do it at the next one I think fairly simply so U so then we'll go on to new business yeah moving right along perfect climate change related Hazard vulnerability assessment that's now required by the state I remember we talk about that so we talked about this at the last meeting because there is a technical assistance grant available from sustainable Jersey to complete a climate change related Hazard vulnerabilities assessment which is required for the update of the uh Municipal land use plan which is done by the planning board in 2026 um um I did reach out to Marky because we have something else to speak about as well so we had plans to talk about the this grant because I remember at the last meeting I said I need to talk to Mark to see how he wants to proceed if he wants us to do this part and apply for the grant if planning should apply for the grant how we should move forward um I haven't had a chance to we haven't had a chance to catch up we were supposed to catch up today so I will talk to him probably tomorrow or Wednesday and then I'll have an answer but it's not the it's not due until December 20th and the webinar for it which I registered for already is not till December 3rd so we have some time to figure out but December 20 20th is when it's due 20th the grant yeah that that's the one thing in the minutes that I I didn't have that date oh okay yes that's when the Grant application would be due so got that have the application in there and sometime in the spring they'll give the award yeah well probably even early winter they're pretty quick so yeah so so as soon as I find out how he wants to proceed on that then we'll we'll move forward so uh so that was the only thing we had in new stuff yeah I put it on new last time but yeah um and then we have reports from the subcommittees does the Ed education committee want to update us anything a lot and I have what I the email that I sent so oh go ahead okay um I reach out to like I mentioned two weeks ago to Franklin Chamber of Commerce and I spoke with Deo yeah and um I mentioned to to him that other towns have a green business Coalition or partnership and if they will be interested in in forming a group like that that will support the initiative environmental commission and he said he will uh he was going to bring that to the chamber this week they have a meeting on Thursday and they then he will get back to us with what their fig will be and also um I mentioned to them that they can um register their businesses under the New Jersey sustainable right and it cost nothing just send him send him the link so start out so I don't know what's going to happen with this it's a good start I can't see them saying no I know I supports the work that is done here so I hope it works out you're going yeah so um so we have um uh the the film screening uh green Amendment lined up um I'm not sure sure what was the message last time uh but um uh the room was not available on uh October 28th because of uh uh the elections uh and on November 11th is uh day so we picked November 14 uh May is available anded is not available um and um our uh Senator uh Bob Smith uh he's he's busy uh but he he uh said that the actual sponsor is Senator Greenstein so we have contacted Linda greenstein's office I was hoping that they'll get back to me by today I still didn't get the response um I know that ad you would like to be present right I mean I don't hold it up for me because my schedule's a little cooky so yeah uh the only reason I was kind of because we already rescheduled you know uh and and and it's it's I would have to go and and it's it's the room that we have to have it's uh the presenter main presenter Maya and then we would like to have more more invited because I mean for panel it's it's we're talking about panel um and um given resources that we or I have to to call everyone so um um November 14 I mean if if if Linda greenan is not available I'm I'm not sure because um and Maya may say if if she doesn't feel like there is enough audience or um enough Halo that she may just send someone else and we would have umow low impact in so um although you know the way how I met her was uh in in Monroe Library where you know I don't know how many people registered but there were like four in the Audi four 4 oh god um and uh we are not going to do registration we just it won't be walking because last time we want to take it as a film screening which is free and any registration could be uh considered as a barrier so we just want to say Hey you know come and last time we had like 15 50 people came to our previous film so I think that would be good and this time around we already plann that we will engage other environmental Commissions in the neighborhood uh we have now a contact to montgomary environmental commission Hillsboro uh I know the person from the new brunwick environmental commission Highland Park so these are all towns where you know we can expect some sort of uh interest in this type of subject um so so that's where we are um I also want to report on um it's no longer on the on the rooster because it's over the EV certification but I uh drafted article of that we would like we better submitted uh uh to highlight that we have achieved ebal certification I uh generated draft um I received some comments not major revisions I'm still working on it I wish that I have it available today for vote but didn't happen uh but um hopefully next um and one more thing my memory oh yes so um uh leave the leaves um um Jenny cfas um she was um coming here she's uh she she's the resident kind of but but now she's in massachusett and stuff um uh she volunteered uh to help us dve leave leave the leaves article I received it uh today morning uh and I thanked her uh it's rather long but it's written as a some sort of poem it is written from the perspective of of a person who loves uh environment and who has some sort of sentiment why uh she wants to take care of environment and leave the leaves so I gave her feedback that you know for environmental commission we want to have like a more factual um um I didn't I didn't share it with you because I thought it if if this is not a candidate to be released like you know I don't share it um this this is on the noal so this is this is some sort of loose followup because we want to engage residents in spring for uh save the M till Earths day and in the fall we want to engage leave the leaves of course it's not like a it doesn't mean that you do nothing there is some procedure and we need to kind of outline it MCH and leaves portion of the leav you know um so I'm not sure whether we will be able to release it because we have already fall um but um and we want to vet every article here so maybe next time um and maybe we can have something uh lined up for the next year if not this year stand for the article that you were talking about a minute ago um you said some people have seen it before we vote on it the next meeting if that's what we're going to do can you send it to us not for us to comment you know amongst our you know you know across emails or anything but just so we've been able to read it prior to us coming here so we know what we're voting on before we get here I'm I'm not presenting that article for vote what your draft on the EV correct correct yes I just wanted to say that it's it's coming um and because I didn't send it to to you guys I'm not bringing it up to vote I'm just saying that it be com it's in the work this something that's going to eventually come from the environmental commission correct but we're not going to vote on not yet not yet I thought that we are always voting on every article I thought so also but you said you might have had it ready today to vote on but it wasn't ready it's not ready so my point is that when it's ready I would send it to everyone that's what I was asking yeah okay you know that that you don't like to be broad print right this and so that's correct um and and I also want to give credit to Jenny to helping us draft uh the um the CL um work and business card I think we we last time we didn't have the business cards last time did we no we did but right the thing is uh when we received the quotations it was a huge file and at that moment we were not able to pull the line that says the pricing and uh uh somehow the commission did it feel to approve it based on that I have to get the quote right now no it is there it's on the sheet it's just you need to find the line find where it is we still need a quote though even on the sheet we have to submit like an actual quote from the vendor um and I know you sent me an email that you sent me the documents and I didn't get them to check spam which I did didn't get them so can you send them to my Kenyon planning one because the size of it might be precluded from what you're or if you send it to me as a link I think the reason that there was debate on it was because there were so many different colors yes there is so once I get the quote from the vendor which I as soon as I have have the final like mockup I can send that to the vendor and they'll send us an actual quote and then I can give you what the real price will be down to the Cent so I just have to get that them the price list on the whole sheet doesn't really count if you go exactly by the specifications that are there but since I think two colors were included there and we have four it'll it'll be slightly different yeah so that'll be good and I can even send that out ahead of time as soon as I get it okay St anything more um no that's um that concludes my uh report um the energy committee will probably make a report in their old business because that's bioengineering I'm talking about oh okay yeah yeah so are there any hot topics that somebody wanted to bring up besides this where we at at this point no okay well what I'm going to talk about is based on what we had last meeting we had this group from tourists come in and talk about uh food com composting and they we talked about their article that was out yeah about expanding their composting right and they um they mentioned their bioengineering is their ultimate place where they bring the stuff I called bioengineering and talked to a guy there very very friendly offered anytime we wanted to send down a group of people to look at it and see what they're doing we can do that and I want to schedule that because um in Canal Walk uh the guy that's the head of the environmental committee for Canal Walk David Dar is thinking he could get more than five people to do this in Canal Walk and that would meet the minimums and it could be a pilot for us to see how it works so what I want to do is have uh Stan or Ellen or somebody go go with me and David's going to come with me also just three of us will get down to Trenton and look at bioengineering and um he did tell me that Taurus has gone from five pales they first started with now they're bringing in 40 Pals so they're growing 40 Pals a week a day he didn't say he just said 40 Pals at a shot is the way I look at it I don't know how the the the feast structure works cuz there were to take it for free for 6 months for for five pickups within a 2m radius well if they're are they getting charged or are they getting money back I don't know that I can find out from from the visit you know down there but bioengineering is really part of Trenton Renewables that's the parent company I think yeah and uh and they do all sorts but they have tipping fees and all that kind of stuff so um I think it's going to be interesting we may be able to get a pilot going I talked to the um the uh Canal Walk property manager this afternoon about it and he's interested in it so um he suggested we could store the pales um outside on everybody has a patio on the back except except the people in the in the apartment buildings but um storing them in the house doesn't work my daughter did that up in Rochester and you end up with bugs and all qus of stuff outside convenient to the kitchen yes yeah yeah so um um Tom who's the property manager he suggested we could put it on the back patios and U that's a possibility so um if if he'll have to get the approval of the board but if Tomy suggest to the board approve this they'll approve it so um first dat the first move is to find a date that works and and who Santa you the one did we talk about that I think by email or uh are you interested or Ellen go that with I'm I'm I'm employed it's hard for me okay so maybe Ellen I think so road trip okay Trenton's not all that far it may seem like it but some some a free sometimes it's far away um so so we'll pick out a date and we'll get down and audit and and get more details and then we'll get back to tourus and see if we could work something out this could be an interesting program um they do like I say up in the Rochester area but the town runs it and also in Westfield the town I think the DPW is doing this kind of thing uh it does divert a lot of stuff from the landfills so the Tipping fees go down from that side but you pick them up on this side I don't know if there's a cost Sav but it certainly doesn't take up much stuff and and it generates green green gas which I presume is powering a turbine to generate electric power that's you know that's the whole that's why you would do it yeah so there's green power and uh that's a good thing that is really good and you guys had asked me to follow up with tourist after the last meeting to just get some more info so um specifically how many houses do they service in Princeton and West Windsor so it's 200 between the two that they service between Princeton and West Windsor there's no formal agreement that they have with either of those townships it's just with the residents themselves um and that they don't have any because I asked you have specific information about like looking at a Township wide program versus residents they said no because they really work on this individual basis but generally they compost between 5 to 10 pounds of food waste per house by weekly in their total of four months of operations they've reduced roughly 13,000 lbs of food least which is equivalent to 53 lbs of CO2 so that's good this could be a nice activity for us to get behind it should be remembered that this is anerobic composting generating methane yes half the carbon goes to methane but the other half goes to CO2 so it's not entirely CO2 greenhouse gas well you are replacing some of the methane from Earth because um instead of aerobic uh digestion releasing straight carbon dioxide you do carbon you methane use it for heating and then yeah you're at least using the methane rather than having it Go free in the atmosphere well that's even worse where it's 80 times as bad as right CO2 but these are the things we have to look at from Balan standpoint so Paul's talking about doing a visit he contacted biog gas which is under Trent Renewables that's who tourist this food composting organization drops their what they collect off to so Ellen I think and everyone had mentioned it would be great to see that place so Paul has basically brokered this meeting with them for whoever wants to go so the next step would be do that report back on what you see and then we can make a proposal if we want to say yes we want to we want to promote this in the township for residents who are interested or do we want to just do the pilot program first and see how that works because we can still get metrics out of that that would really be the the next steps that's what I'm thinking proba um what the guy's name was here it's it's here somewhere but he was very interested and you know they get more feed they get more that's what they're looking for and um I think we might want to contact Westfield also and see how they're doing they mention how much they charge or free it's free apparently for the first six months but then after that they potentially could be charging a fee but they can't give us any information on what that fee is because it depends on how many residents sign up how many trips do they have to make here are they making like one trip for a lot of people or is it only for two or three people so it really depends on how many residents want to sign up I don't think they structure that's what's holding us up basically that's why I want to get more information of bioengineering startup by students and yeah I think that they are receiving credit from place where they dump the food the food waste and what they don't know how much money will be missing in their business model I think that's pretty much that's what I feel I think the same thing yeah no it's a pilot and I mean this could be a significant pilot right and then Paul was basically saying a Canal Walk they have an environmental committee and that maybe because there's so many residents in that area and they are willing to do it maybe we could use it as a pilot to like for a few months get some metrics you know see if it's worth yeah puring so it'll be another thing that we look at really officially yeah and maybe it works out to something if it saves a DP that be money in the long run that's worth money also so you'll you'll contact the committee or the group of people that you want to go with and I will talk okay and Dave David told he told me whenever we want to go he's ready so that's where I my calendar David it's d s r o c h s I think d Ray he's the one that he was interested in joining the environmental commission but and we came to he came to a couple meetings and we told him throughout the application but he never did he found a home doing the same thing with Canal Walk he had been on the Cranford environmental Commission in the past so he's got a really nice group going they had um well the the New Jersey climatologist lives in Canal Walk so so he's there and and his wife is is is we have another presentation coming up he was on a webinar for us a half hour ago yeah so there okay so that I was I was upset that I cannot see it because yeah I I talked to him he he gave a talk at the anj Congress and he and I got to talk I know I mean he said what street you live on and you know we we traded geography and we talked a little bit and uh so so we got to know each other you know better and U he's really top touch so so that that's my report on the tourist I just have one topic or question I saw a headlines that some official body is talking about reactivating nuclear plants maybe somebody can bring me up to date on it or maybe I can go back and research where I saw that I think there was a headline that someone was buying the thre Mile Island you talking about someone was buying Three Mile Island maybe I think that's what it was let me see who it was ated to provide Power for data centers yes that's what it was for yes for data yes um let's see uh I want to get like a I'm reading articles on link it in Microsoft Microsoft was going to buy Three Mile Island for data centers energy is pushing for some small uh modular nuclear which is like what's on a submarine it's different techn why use the term reactivate I mean you mean the the existing facilities or re Island was shut down yeah I realiz and then the other article so you saw this online today an article did come out about it says I'm just going to read so this is not I'm reading this this is not my words the Biden administra Administration is working on plan to bring additional decommission nuclear power reactors back online to help meet soaring demand for emissions free electricity White House climate advisor Ali zidi said on Monday two such projects are underway including the planned recommissioning of holx palaces nuclear plan in Michigan and the potential restart of a unit at Constellation Energy Energy's Three Mile Island plan in Pennsylvania so I think it's like talk they're talking about it it sounds like near the side of the worst nuclear accident in US history which is nothing compared to chernobil no it's interesting because I think the nuclear plants get shut down because they're not economically competitive that's correct it's correct well they they age too I mean the concrete they have ongoing cost because uh any uh spend fuel that we have today is not in fin I don't deposit yet yeah and they only used a tiny bit 10% or something in the road yeah it says last week the Biden Administration said it closed a $1.52 billion loan to resurrect the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan which will take two years to reopen once they flip the switch it takes like 40 years to actually shut off so they're still actually running right they're just you know kind of yeah winding down so I don't know enough about uranium goes away was a radiation safety officer for Phils urani due to low demand from companies to the offshore wind energy yeah that went out the the Jersey one got got awarded but it still has to be approval right some other areas so it looks like it's again it would be two years until it could be open that one plant Walter in h Palisades Michigan would it be the same technology they don't make much of a reference things like it I would think it would yeah I don't think there's been too much some RS look small modu reactors yeah oh this is the other two other two the first is the yeah to the nuclear it's like the ones that go in the [Music] submarines aircraft carriers yeah okay okay topic that was topot oh that was bad that's right there that's right in the in the [Music] dark for tabling events oh yeah yeah yeah yeah okay what uh B says there yet sorry sorry okay what item B promotional educational items for tabling events that's the stuff I have in my garage now no that's the Energy Efficiency Grant oh okay um the promotional is what so Stan I just got it you just sent it to me your uh the backdrop you see it I have it now I'm G to so just for a f so everyone saw this already well actually I don't know Maria you weren't here um so this is basically well you saw the original draft of what we thought of for the banner so this has been redone uh QR code on there the language has been it won't the yes the tall the pull-up one yep um Stan made some minor changes to some of the language which is great so that's all ready to go um and then we also have the uh business cards which again uh La we looked at it last time made some minor modifications uh Stan really made the so this will be what the front of the business card looks like and the back is just has the QR code on it that goes to the maybe when you press the on the left is it going to highlight the the the the arrow no but it's it is number four yeah yeah it'll be just that on the back so um so now I have these I'm going to forward them right to the printer and get a quote because our so you know that spreadsheet I sent you Maria that has all the list of how much things cost so because we have more than two colors on one of them I have to get a quote from the vendor because it might be slightly more but once I have that quote I'll bring it back to you guys at the next meeting you'll have the exact amount that would be charged and then if we all agree we can request that they be printed thank you um Tara you may submit for print the SVG version of the file okay perfect right because it's more suitable for higher resolution I think the jpack 266 that's not big farm okay perfect I'll forward it to the printer and then I'll get the quotes we'll do item C is an energy efficiency grant from public service that I'm just keeping on the agenda for right now um just as a placeholder but there's no update since last week so same thing with the green infrastructure project the Boy Scout is still looking to do that project on the 19th and 20th um he's getting approval hopefully from the Boy Scout council tomorrow well let's move it yeah there's not any other old business I'll ask for motion to open the meeting to public comment again all in favor motion to close second favor