##VIDEO ID:H10Q3b112_s## [Music] good evening e can you please open up the meeting don't not the stare Township of Howell's Zing Board of adjustment Monday September 23rd 2024 I hereby declare this meeting of the how Township zoning board to be open adequate notice been having been given pursuant to the New Jersey open public meeting act in the following manner first on December 11th 2023 a copy of said notice was mailed to the asbery park press and the Star Ledger second on December 11th 2023 a copy of said notice was hand delivered to the clerk of the township of Howell third on December 11th 2023 said notice was posted in the office of the zoning board and on the bulletin board in the Howell Township municipal building 45 5 67 Route 9 how Township New Jersey in accordance with the fire prevention code and for your safety please be advised that this facility is designed with two emergency exits at the front and rear of the meeting room furthermore smoking is not permitted in the municipal building please take note that this meeting is being videotaped for possible future broadcast on how Township TV 77 this meeting is a Judicial proceeding any questions or comments must be limited to the issues of what the board May legally consider and reaching a decision and a decorum appropriate to judicial hearing must be maintained at all times thank you thank you Eileen for the record Mr Stanton and Mr Orosco are both excused tonight okay may we have a roll call please Mr burillo here Mr caner here Mr Hughes here Mr Martin here Mr Rosco is excused Mr Stant is excused Mr Ryan president miss scotson here chairman seya here you have a quorum thank you Eileen everybody please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance pled alance to the flag of the United States of America to the for it stands Nation God indivisible and jusice for all thank you Andy can we have a swearing in of the professionals oh miss it's not miss miss Carrie please I do state your name for the record do we do that Charles Kliff Jennifer beam your professionals are sworn thank you ma'am ien approval of minutes any minutes no minutes to approve tonight how about vouchers no vouchers tonight do we have any correspondence I have four things for correspondence one at a time please okay case number ba 2401 how will medical investors will be rescheduled to November 4th 2024 with an extension through that date they will be Ren noticing okay so anyone that's here for case number ba 24-1 H medical investors LLC this application will be carried to November 4th 2024 with a re notice next one case number ba 2316 the center for Education New Jersey has requested to be carried to November 25th 2024 with no further notice and an expiration date of January 1st 2025 okay case number ba 23-16 the sener for education New Jersey this application is being carried to November 25th without further notice expiration date 1 January [Applause] 2025 next one Salo Fury the attorney for Freehold welding uh is appearing another night for case ba 2128 Freehold welding for an extension of time he's going to show up again and the time yes okay so anyone that's here for the extension of time of ba 21-28 this will be heard and a later date just extension that's just the extension yes next one um just to remind the board members to complete the storm water training and to email I ien Rano when you have completed the training I just have two people that haven't completed it so thank youcome are we all good yes all of you there are good okay thank you're welcome let the record reflect okay resolutions case number ba1 18-17 Alpha John Blow This is a resolution granting use variant C variances and subdivision approval eligible vot is burillo caner use m Burtons Ryan scotson and seya may I have a motion please I'll make a motion use I'll second it Ryan roll call please Mr burillo yes Mr caner yes Mr Hughes yes Mr Mertens yes Mr Ryan yes Miss scotson yes and chairman seya yes resolution is approved okay great thank you okay just double checking all right case before us tonight case number ba 24- 03 Third Avenue Associates Inc this is a use variants in preliminary and final major site plan the description application of Third Avenue Associates Inc as applicant and United Fellowship Baptist Church as owner seeking use variants and preliminary and final major site plan relief to develop the current vacant property into a cemetery on blocks known as block 219 lot 13 Adelphia Farmingdale Road this application was partially heard on July 8th 2024 when it was carried to August 26 2024 with no further notice on August 26 2024 this application was carried to September 23rd 2024 expiration date on this is August 3124 so Eileen we're going to have to fix that eventually yes Mr Jackson good evening Mr chairman members of the board John Jackson again on behalf of the applicant um we've uh we have we have another expert Dr Dennis stankin who I don't see here yet um I spoke to him six o' 56 well earlier 5 o' he was on his way here so hopefully uh he'll he'll uh show up soon um I have Mr Rob S he is going to give some additional testimony uh you may recall that he provided testimony he is a civil engineer and he has testimony about um nearby Wells and the flow of the water in the area of the uh proposed uh use so Mr chairman I think there's an opposing attorney here that probably wants to give his appearance okay yes good evening Edward banano Pringle Quinn anzano on behalf of of objectors for projectors uh Richard Buck Joyce mariac Christa Reagan and Thomas Klein sorry can can you do the names one more time of who you represent yes of Richard Buck okay Joyce mariac Christa Regan and Thomas Klein and i' sent a letter to the board identifying my client and also the lot blocks where they live thank you so um Mr chair I we'll let the the applicant um continue and then at the end we'll give the objector his opportunity Mr banano just so um you're representing the four yes yes and so if those four everything's going to come through you with regards to questions and comments that's correct okay and if there's anyone out out in the audience that's outside of those four that are being represented you will have an opportunity during public to go ahead and ask your questions and so forth thank you thank you okay Mr Jackson thank you uh with your permission Mr Civ I have a uh uh a couple questions on followup talk ladder right micone thank you um hopefully that's better that's that's not a uh something I hear very often to talk louder so there's a first for everything so um Mi Mr Civ uh and I believe it'll be your custom you're still under Ro from last time is that acceptable to council um M Mr siiv at the last hearing um there were questions about the direction of the water flow um and Etc at the site uh have you had an opportunity to uh give that some f a further look some further investigation we did review the mammoth County aerial topography there is a localized High Point at the intersection of Delia Road and West Farms Road right in front of the Evergreen Cemetery we are Downstream of that it is anticipated and expected to have the groundwater flow from that High Point towards our East so it would be from west east across our site so uh with the board secretary's permission if we could put our PowerPoint up on the screen and um I have additional copies I believe that's the same PowerPoint we handed out last time this one correct yes and I I think the the the front page will do prf I have one I got one so Mr siiv this high point of the property um can you please identify where that is and where that is in relation uh to other properties so the high point the regional or local high point in the area is to the top of the image and it flows from the West to the east there's also a local high point on our site which again flows to the bottom of the page or to the east or South where are the uh adjoining residences in relation to our sites the adjoining residen are to our North and if we we can uh flip over to uh the next page page two on the PowerPoint can you show some of the other features in the area and the direction uh that you would anticipate that the groundwater would flow all right so I'm just trying to orient myself as well so all the the subject site is loc this is the train tracks the subject site is located where the pointer is pointing the high point is generally in this location at the intersection of West Farms in Adelphia and that is the Evergreen Cemetery that's the Evergreen so um approximately how far is the Evergreen uh Cemetery from our site and from the nearby sites uh the nearby homes so it's approximately three lots to our West or about I'm going to say 5 to 700 1,000 feet away depending on where you measure it from in the cemetery so we're going near where where there is a cemetery correct and that is higher elevation wise than the subject property the in in relation to uh further uh away and and away from the residential homes which way does the topography go and what are the features um I guess to the lower P point of the image to please explain so again the surface flow the topography goes from the West to the east across our property can we can we please go back to to um and then it's all Woods down Downstream from there or downhill from there as you were as it were right there's Wetlands associated with the marsh brog Brook wetlands are on our property and everything drains to that location from our primary part of the site in in your experience as a civil engineer does the groundwater flow uh is that predictable based upon the topography and if so please explain so for this site it's reasonable to expect the groundwater to flow in the same direction diretion as the surface water the topography being that the marsh bog Brook is the low point of this general area of howl it's not unreasonable to expect groundwater flow in that same direction could that be if the board were to approve this application could that be confirmed with borings as a condition of approval correct there is abilities to monitor the direction of groundwater flow via monitoring Wells and other means but what's your uh you know degree of certainty that the groundwater would flow in that direction again it's very reasonable expected for it to flow from the West to the east across our site have okay Mr shiv as is as a civil engineer are you familiar uh with any D regulations Department of Environmental uh protection regulations um that identify cemeteries as as a hazard I am not aware of any and uh in this instance or any uh Department of Environmental Protection applications permits or certifications required uh in in terms of the environmental impact of a cemetery I'm not aware of those permits now have you had an opportunity to take a look at any of the records uh governmental records that are available um pertaining to the uh Wells the pable wells the drinking water wells that are nearby and if so please explain what you did and what your findings were so sure after the last meeting we submitted an oah request to the mammoth County Health Department to ask for the records available for the surrounding properties to the subject property I met with the health department to make photoc copies of what they did have on file they did have on file some information for some of the nearby septics and Wells and I was able to get copies of those do you have copies of those documents I do have you made uh can we Mark those and and with your permission if I can mark them as an exhibit we'll go through them after I hand them out and how many copies uh there's probably about 10 or so there 10 is just the one page correct oh he's got [Applause] a16 yeah is that a16 yes that's fine don't worry there's also I don't know if you want the well dep from the neighboring well you they it's just the one well how many copies again okay I have a uh another document that goes with that he has another document that goes with this that a separate exhibit yeah7 call [Applause] if everybody's got it I know it's not the best copy but it's the copy I got from the health department and what you're looking at on exhibit a16 is a cop of a plan for a septic approval for the property at third tax lot 13.01 and what's helpful about this is as part of their approval they showed where their existing well and septic is as well as the existing septic and well on the adjacent lot 13.02 so based on this plan we're able we were able to plot the locations of those Wells and septics for those two adjacent properties and then just as a second exhibit which I'm presuming we are calling a17 it is the well permit for the well on lot 13.02 which shows that that well is about 212 ft deep that's the only information that I was able to get from the health department for those wells and septics in that area so uh Mr Civ and in your opinion as a civil engineer would the water flow any groundwater any runoff that would originate at the cemetery would that flow toward any of the homes no the homes are higher in elevation than our site so the the surface water would flow from the West to the east towards the brook and we would expect the groundwater to do the same and in connection uh with uh you know I know we discussed this last time um maybe we could put up would six be a good one put up the drainage or what would be a good one for just sure six which one of these would be the best just uh where bason or and stuff please put up slide number three and on what you're looking there is the colored rendering of the proposed site plan with the three tan colored shapes the proposed Basin locations so can you just explain um or review once again what those those features are on there start with the uh adjoining Residential Properties uh talk about the railroad tracks and the road and everything else so we can just get our orientation pleas get orientation ad Delia road is in the upper right corner of the exhibit our site comes in off of the Adelphia Road via a 30- foot wide driveway circulates through the site in a counterclockwise fashion there is a natural high point approximately where the pointer shown on the North or southwesterly portion of the property which will drain to the Basin in the bottom left corner of the exhibit and again the remainder of the site will drain to the two basins on the East part of the property with the residences to the North or west of the subject property on the top part of the exhibit I noticed the the way you design this is the basins are all on the far side of uh the cemetery uh and furthest away from the houses and uh along the uh you know the bottom of the image was that uh fortuitous why why is it set up that way how how how come it's designed that way with all the basins away the basins are designed in a low part of the property obviously storm water surface water drains downhill so you always you generally put the basins in the low part of the site so that we can collect the water and manage it before we discharge it just some other features um I note there is a a bright yellow line above the green green that parallels uh the green portion can you just please explain uh what that yellow line is uh what the separation is between the yellow line and the green what the green represents Etc just with the pointer just tell us what those different features do the yellow is the subject properties boundary the green is the proposed area for the plots and then the area between the yellow line and the green is the 50ft wide buffer that we're maintaining to maintain the existing trees that are in that area area so there'll be 50 ft of uh forested area between where where the cemetery will be in the adjoining Residential Properties correct we're proposing to maintain that 50 foot wide buffer area why why did you pick a 50 foot buffer is that by ordinance is that good practice by ordinance I know that's what I was getting to yes why they say you're supposed to know the answers when you're avoided thank you um wh why 50 fet because that's what the ordinance requires the ordinance requires so that's what how townships um ordinance has determined is an adequate and appropriate buffer between development activity and adjoining Residential Properties that's the ordinance buffer correct Mr Jackson I just want to note for the record though that you're not 100% compliant with the buffer requirements because you are clearing and Grading on the Northerly property line I do understand that the uh the charry our tree expert has discussed this with you and is finally with it but you're not 100% compliant correct that would be for Mr siiv not for me that's correct we are disturbing the buffer in the Northerly portion of the property you can see that green triangle that's right under the word Adelphia yep and that's generally being disturbed because of the road widening that's required by Mammoth County ad Delphia Farmingdale Road is a mammoth County Road they are requiring us to widen the road and then to install curb and there's already a fairly steep grade change there that slopes from the road up to our property so as we widen the road we end up having to push that slope back to tie back in so that's why we are so you're not suggesting that the road widening is the buffer disturbance you're suggesting that the grading associated with the road widening necessitates the relief correct correct okay because that because the road widening is is not our concern the buffer is on their property so to get the stable slope you need to grade it based upon the road widening correct okay but you do still need that relief correct correct okay thank you that were an issue could we slide this the uh Cemetery back and maintain the 50 Foot buff for there no we don't training okay okay all right so um Mr Civ uh I if I recall from the last Hearing in the comments we were we had agreed to do additional plantings and um filling in in that area if I recall or am I thinking of something else that's correct I believe we agreed to stake out the limits of clearing so that we know where they are in the field and then even post clearing if there's opens and gaps in the 50ft buffer area we agree to work with Sherry to fill in those gaps with the appropriate landscaping and you know I I know this also uh goes into planning it also goes into design but from a civil engineering standpoint buffering is to to Shield one use from another correct provide the visual screen yes so in this instance the activity on the site you know it it's pretty low impact activity would you agree as as opposed to uh churches are permitted in this right uh there is approval for a house of worship on this site which will obviously be more intense than this type of use that's proposed as a cemetery so but you know is it fair to say cemeteries are a pretty quiet use as uses go correct you know you might have uh people come when there's there's a a burial but for the most part it's just like open space almost like a park like some of them some of the older ones that's correct all right thank you I have uh no further questions for Mr s thank you board members yes I'm oh I'm sorry I'm sorry no board members anyone have any more questions from Mr Civ I do Mr chair go ahead Mr Civ are you familiar with any of the World Health organizations's recommendations on cemeteries and we we have an expert who will address those issues I mean Mr C I'll obviously asked him he'll answer that whether he does or not but we have an expert here tonight who uh is a toxicologist and we'll address those issues if you want to wait for that but I don't know if Mr Civ knows that or not that's a fair question for I'm not sure what specific conditions or requirements I'm going to say probably not okay in I've done some reading in preparation for for this meeting um World Health Organization paper the impact of cemeteries on the environment and public health their recommendations go into that human remains must not be buried within 250 m which is about 820 ft from any well bore hole or spring which portable water is drawn does your design meet that recommendation doesn't meet that recommendation no but I'm not familiar with that particular study either they also said place of interment should be at least 30 m or 98 ft from any other spring or water course and 10 m from any and all field drains does your does your plan meet that recommendation so the first one was place of internment so the plot right should be at least 30 m or 98 ft from any other spring or water course I do believe we meet that and 10 met from any field drains field drains like a septic field um we we would comply with that okay the field when it's completed will uh it'll be maintained the plot yes yes the whole cemeterian itself yes it'll be mowed correct it'll be fertilized I don't know how they'll manage the lawn care and that's between the operator and the lawn service on what type of fertilizers or how they manage that do you know if there's a plan in place to take that into consideration as far as fertilize running into the Watershed there is a plan in place on how to maintain the cemeter I think there a question for the operator for when he comes so it is the operator coming or is is there like a cemetery expert coming we have our client Mr Schwarz but we do not have the operator that has not been determined at this point so then I would advise that your client is going to need to address these concerns well if there's concerns clearly there is and this is a use variance and so you need to be prepared to provide this testimony right and also M Mr Jackson um one of your Witnesses at a prior meeting testified that animals die on the property and they deteriorate into the ground and it's not an issue I I'm not sure which which one of your winess Mr Schwarz I believe said that Mr Schwarz if 500 I think he gave that as you know for example animals di yes if 500 plus animals died and were deteriorating on the ground that is being described here would that be of concern to the D that you just recently mentioned you would have to ask the D that what' you think I don't know what if you had Mass deterioration going on simultaneously would that be a more concern if if well I don't know that there would ever be 500 bodies buried at one time um that would be an extraordinary thing as the cemetery fills up I would imagine it might take years um true but and if animals were buried in a and and wrapped in linen and put in uh the ground uh in in a in a pine box um that would be uh the IDE iCal circumstance that's been going on since the dawn of time and in this country certainly since colonial times and uh the D has not had an issue with that as of now in 2024 by all accounts so does the D regulate this because it's my understanding that they don't they do not the question was whether I thought the I understand but they don't like that's my question is does the D does the EP regulate this and it's my understanding that they don't the question to Mr s was whether he's a Ware of any D regulations that that regulate uh cemeteries and his answer was no I think that's also the consensus of the boards professionals as well there are no D regulations that I'm aware of uh that have concern that concern cemeteries and our point in bringing out that testimony is this has been going on since the dawn of time it's not an environmental issue and that's what our toxicologist is going to testify Mr Jackson uh I don't hear where that's right here oh right in front Okay so World Health Organization World War I World War II the meat grinders the wars the burying of bodies this and that the study comes out of from experience that's what that's what I don't know the scientific basis of that I haven't been provided with it I don't know we haven't had world war wars here in years history from the beginning of time that has mass Graves that are being examined over a period of time to determine whether it's an fact or not effect that's all I'm saying yeah and and like I said with that with that particular report we have not been provided with that I'm not familiar with the uh um you know the controls that that was taken under I don't know you know we can't cross-examine those people so we're answering the question as it comes up but I don't know that that is something that uh would govern this circumstance and and and respectfully there have been uh incidents in this country historically where there have been uh thousands of people buried in uh in you know a short period of time I don't know whether there were any studies about the groundwater on that you know I don't know what kind of monitoring they did after Gettysburg and and events like that however um th this is not an incident where uh it would be expected that all the graves would be at once um we have a cemetery here a couple hundred feet away and you're going to hear testimony from the toxicologist that um it it's just not an issue it never has been you look you look at uh drive around there's Church cemeteries that adjoin Residential Properties there's cemeteries on top of hills and along riverbeds throughout this country throughout the area we're going to put some exhibits in and the fact to your pointless beam that the D has not regulated this in my experience as an attorney that does land use law the D is pretty inquisitive when it comes to things that could be an environmental issue and I believe I respectfully submit it speaks volumes that never have regulated this they've never looked into it and there's no statue or anything or any study in New Jersey by any governmental uh entity no municipality uh the County Board of Health uh Etc there's cemeteries everywhere nowhere has there ever been in New Jersey any governmental uh concern about uh decomposing bodies and when you hear the testimony from our toxicologist I think uh you'll you'll see why it's it's a very very uh minimal impact there are just by way of showing what the testimon is going to be there are microbes you know um we decompose very quickly um and there are microbes in the soil that um make us from ashes to ashes and dust to dust and uh they'll talk about what the human composition is ETC we are temporal and uh decomposing bodies are you know it's just uh well you're going to hear from the toxicology we take a I hope I've answered the address well we take a look at Potter's field covid the you know the pandemic six deep right digging deep and everything but it's alongside the East River and that's where every you know it's it's it's decomposing and going into the river which is a large body of water um it's not necessarily the drinking water of New York City since they are provided with reservoirs that come from upstate the third tunnel is in and that's all they're drinking water so it's a difference you know of where you're at how it's done and what does it affect that's our taxologist will address that I think he's going to address that particular situation as well okay some studies that he's reviewed I just want to clarify my role in this is that the current D does not opine on cemeteries that are regulated under the cemetery act and under Health and Human Services so I'm not saying that they've chosen not to act I'm just saying they don't they have no regulatory Authority so I just want to clarify that for the record and and there's a state board of uh of uh cemeteries and Cemetery control it is something that is regulated by the great state of New Jersey never been an environmental issue raised okay did you say I'm sorry did you say there was there were no studies done of or toxicologist will address that there have been and he's going to address some of them uh the flaws the advantages the ones he agrees with doesn't agreee with Etc he'd be the better Authority to address that okay so I'm looking at the consumer affairs that you're referring to so section 13 44j 95 an operator shall only accept for cremation The Descendants remains if they are in a casket or container that is totally enclosed rigid has no evidence of leaking and made up of materials that will not emit hazardous or toxic elements upon combustion so they do regulate it to some extent through the consumer affairs D perhaps may not have a specific but it is regulated we we meet the regulatories for this type of religious Cemetery goes in the pine there there's a pine box as was explained by Mr Schwarz and that is uh in accordance with state regulations it is a religious uh matter as well which I think has some significance Mr chair if I could just ask a clarifying question to Mr s so yes you talked about the Topography of Adelphia Farmdale Road from West Farms Road generally SL uh sloping West to East towards Marsh roog Brook towards the Rail lines and there's also a high point on the on this site right towards the Southwest portion of the site is there correct correct that's what I mentioned yes and and does that portion of the site flow in a Westerly direction to the Residential Properties to the west of the site it'll flow in a Westerly Direction but it will end up back into the East until the marsh fog Brook So within a wooded portion of the properties so was your testimony though that groundwater hydrology T typically follows the over land topography correct and the properties to the West are lower than at least a portion of your the rear portion of your pro property the Southwest portion of the cemetery plot correct the Southwest portion yes okay so I just want to make that point of clarity and then to Mr Ryan's point he talked about the World Health Organization I think the last one was you said 10 meters to like a drain what was that last just want to make sure I have that correct place of internment should at least 30 m 98 ft from any other spring or water course and 10 m from any field drains so field drains is kind of like a broad term I think uh going back historically there wasn't a lot of stor War management infrastructure that was provided for these type of cemetery type uses going back uh in time the applicant is proposing three storm water management basins on the site which does promote you know uh infiltration you know elevation to the groundwater table to function properly can you tell us if your site plan complies with that 10t or 10 meter set back to your uh from the closest plots to your infiltration basins on the site the closest plots to the Basin are about 10 I'm going to say 10 feet to the Basin okay so it doesn't comply that with these 30 m from us even 10 m 10 m is 32 33 ft correct correct so when he asked you if you complied with that you said yes but but in fact you don't no I said I asked him if he meant a drain field being a septic field I said we can comply I didn't know what he meant by a drain field I thought he was talking about septic fields that's what I agreed with so if we apply that term to the storm water management base and it wouldn't be it would be 10 feet and not 30 feet plus or minus correct okay now for you for the applicant to comply with that what would that mean it would mean you'd have to reduce the number of plots to increase the separation for the storware infrastructure on the site to comply with the separation distance correct you either reduce the number of PL or what what has been done for septic systems again it's not for a attention Basin but a lot of times what You' see in with septic fields that cannot comply with certain separation distances you'll put like a plastic barrier or some type of barrier to help reduce that separation distance okay and then the last question that I have and I don't know if you're the one that would have this answer so you you alluded to the existing Cemetery to the northwest of this site do you have any idea of how many plots are on that Cemetery versus what's being contemplated with this development proposal I do not okay that's all I have right now Mr chair okay Kelly yes so at the first meeting the planner made a point that the township Council approve this to come forward but that's not necessarily true the Town Council had just approved the applicant to submit an application to the zoning board it's not that the council approved it corre correct it does not the zoning board still needs to go through their process the state statute requires that the applicant first go to council um to see if it's because they have they have part of the jurisdiction but that's not your zoning that's not this part of it you still have to do your land okay thank you so what exactly did so if I could jump in the the council approved a resolution allowing them to make an application thank you that's it they did not opine on the merits of the case nor support it or object to it it was simply can we make an application and the answer is yes thank you okay yes Mr do we know what year the Emet was was established your I might have just shut it off it must have been on that whole time um do we know the year the Evergreen Cemetery was established again um Mr chairman may I I I I don't um to answer your qu would I doing two things at once but yes if I know when the other Cemetery was established I do not okay um I have the resolution of the council I thought I had attach it to my uh PowerPoint from last time um I I think it's part of the record I I'd like to read that into the record what the council actually said about that it's a public document the um the the uh the the relevant section is in the middle of the uh resolution R23 d270 whereas Third Avenue sent correspondence to how Township dated May 5th 2023 requesting Township consent to the development of block 219 light lot 13 in how Township as a li and Cemetery so this was a request for consent whereas after consideration of the mayor and Township Council and finding no objections to development of the property as a licensed Cemetery now there be resolved that the mayor and Council uh State as follows a licensed Cemetery may be established on the property uh subject to the township of how planning or zoning approval third shall obtain all required Municipal County State and New Jersey Cemetery board approvals uh the the mayor and manager are authorized to exercise all such documents and instruments necessary to effectuate the terms of this resolution so um I I respectfully submit I know I didn't read the whole thing and I left out some lot blocks Etc but um I I characterize this as the Township's consent and and and uh of course it is subject to land use approval but I respectfully submit that this is the council's approving the request of the applicant to put a cemetery here as is required by state law and the council has submitted this will speak for itself and we'll make that part of the record I'll submit that and the board can draw its own conclusions on what that means Mr chair I just want to point out that the um not to take too much from the word consent the statute itself uses that word says a cemeteries shall not be established or enlarged in any municipality without first obtaining the consent of the municipality by resolution I think what Miss beam said is correct that they need to that was the statutory language that had to be in the resolution that's what the it requires in order to allow them to go forward and to come to this board so I don't know that the consent had any special meaning except it was copied out of the statute thank you ma'am okay I think the point is the the council could have said this is not the right place for a cemetery respectfully I don't agree with your assertion on on the determination I I mean the council gave you the opportunity to present to this board yes and the they're not opining one way or the other whether they're supportive of not or not thankfully the council consented to this as being I I I think that Miss Carrie described that language and we're going to disagree to disagree we will so at the end of the day the governing body did not opine one way or the other on the merits of this case it was you're free to make an application to this board subject to as you read all the local ordinances which goes to this board so with all respect if I may respond to that Mr chairman this is a circumstance where there was a proposal to the council the council representing the body politic had every right to vote Yes or No as you do but I respectfully submit it is significant that the council consented to this the council could have said no the council is the same Council that approves the land use regulations uh the council Mr chair I I think we've beat this horse to death but I'm here to tell you that representing the township as well as the both boards the Township gave them the opportunity to make the application and that's what we have in front of us and that's exactly where we're at so we can agree to disagree and we can deal with it at a later date but at the end of the day the council did in no way offer up their support for this approval before you they said you have they have to come to you to get whatever approvals are necessary and that's how how the council has addressed this issue okay my silence just I don't want to have Point Counterpoint I you heard my point on that we're good we're good okay thank you uh on behalf of the four objectors just one point in terms of this issue the uh governing body resolution uh was for a licensed Cemetery not clear whether this will be a licensed Cemetery if it's a religious Cemetery then it's exempt from the excuse me Mr is this the time for cross-examination or conclusion or legal argument this is not the uh obor's opportunity to address that um you there may be an appropriate time for that and I will I will start my question I want to raise that point of clarification for the board we you know this isn't a trial where you have arguments and motions in the middle otherwise we'll be here for weeks I'd request that we stick to cross- examination if there's legal argument at an appropriate time Council can make it you got it sir thank you sir do you have your next witness here I have a I have questions for this witness you have you have questions yes I okay wanted to uh first of all share with the the board uh these are uh these are portions of the uh Crest storm water management report and I wanted to question Mr SI about these these what we want to Mark these as uh go the first document will be P2 P2 yes yes thank you [Applause] you know while while we're passing things out have one more exhibit may as well do that this will be P3 and this is Mr CV's product this is going to be another item from Crest from the this is from the environmental impact better read it fast well then say that didn't prepare this is yeah here yes I'll take that thank you [Applause] so the first exhibit uh that we distributed is what number P2 P2 P2 second one is P3 P3 okay just so you understand he Mr Civ uh we've given you a copy of uh P2 I don't know whether you've had a chance to review that previously but could you take a look at it now okay and I'm going to refer you to page two of P2 you take a look at that according to uh this report this is a Crest uh Environmental stormw Management report correct it is a stormw management report and it's the uh Revis June 27 2024 correct correct and on a page two of this report does it indicate that the seasonal high water table is between 48 in and 120 in yes it does and does it indicate that the soils have a per permeability of 1.6 in Ines per hour to 6.5 5 in per hour yes it does Mr uh Schwarz uh indicated in his testimony uh back in July that the bodies are going to be buried at a depth of six feet in Pine boxes is that correct I believe that's what he said so they're not being buried in vaults correct correct not being buried in caskets I believe they are in wooden caskets wooden caskets not metal caskets that's my understanding correct with the bodies being buried at 6 ft and the seasonal high water table in some areas in some instances being 40 in they going to be situations in which the bodies will be in the groundwater correct I don't believe so no how is that because in the areas where the groundwater is 48 in we're actually filling the site so we're bringing in fill to raise the final elevation so that we're above the natural grade where it is today so the bodies will not be buried in in the groundwater itself is what you're saying that is correct have you determined whether uh any construction work uh the construction of the storm water management system will in any way disrupt the groundwater flow we have done the required analytics and analyzing of the site to meet the njd requirements part of which is the mouning analysis and we comply with those rules and regulations have you done any analysis of the uh what the impact of the construction of the of the actual graves will have on the flow of groundwater again being that we are proposing the caskets and plots to be above the groundwater we don't anticipate any but I'm not sure what specific uh construction activity you're referring to well the the excavation of the individual plots for the graves have you done any studies to determine whether or not that's going to have any impact on the groundwater I have not done a study on that but again the plots and caskets will be above the groundwater so they're not anticipated to begin it if you look up at the diagram and I'm not sure which this was identified previously it's up on the screen uh and actually I'll refer you to as well exhibit uh P3 which is the crest diagram it's the crest drainage area map if you look at the lower leftand corner there is a uh a basin detention Basin correct that's correct and there's an overflow of that detention Basin over to we say the left side here correct and isn't it true that there is a residence uh in the area where that overflow is the residence you're referring to is to the I'll call it the North or the top of that sheet there's a residence it's uh slot [Music] 1302 that' be 1301 you're referring to 1301 correct and that storm water discharges to the west and it'll actually loop around and go into the bog the marsh bog Brook to our East so it's not going to go your testimony is it will not in any way impact 1301 which is right next to it correct I have the mammoth County aerial Topo that shows that we are the drainage is heading in a South to Southeast direction are you familiar with a there's a Baltimore County department Environmental Protection white paper entitled Health implications of green burials are you familiar with that at all I am not report recommends that Mr chairman yes I have a question I'm going to be asking about that yeah and and I have an objection and um the uh I I know the rules of evidence do not uh apply but the board can certainly uh take its use from the rules of evidence and the The Rules of Evidence do not allow a witness to testify and be cross-examined on a document that the expert did not rely upon and does not know about and it doesn't provide an opportunity for the witness to read into the record uh a document that has not been substantiated that is a deprivation to Due Process uh and it's a violate which translates to Fair procedure because I cannot cross-examine that document I don't know who wrote it I don't know who funded them I don't know what the purpose of it was so you can't backdoor the testimony in the form of a question to a witness who says he's not familiar with that so with that in mind I'd ask that the board not allow uh this area of inquiry Miss Carrie Mr banana do you have a you do have an expert coming up as well we have an expert coming up as well can we address that with him and he can I think that would be the appropriate way to do this well I'd like to this if you have a general if you have a you know certainly more general questions from Mr Civ that's apprpriate but if you're going to bring actually following up on one of the questions that was raised by Mr Ryan in terms of the uh the nature of the the study that's been done by Mr Civ and maybe by the next witness as well in terms of the individual the the elements of the study and he's indicated he hasn't read it so he's not familiar so I don't believe he's going to be able to answer your question so why don't we bring it in want to bring it in with your expert okay can I rephrase the question then yeah in your in your study in your analysis of the impact that the groundwater that the uh Cemetery development would have uh on the groundwater in this area uh have you looked at the uh the density of the burials and the potential impact of the buried remains on groundwater quality no Mr banano have you looked at the uh existing proposed Wells and septic systems honor within 200 ft of the property line and existing proposed structures yes as previously testified I went to the mammoth County Health Department obtained the records that they had available to us and use them use that information appropriately Mr banano yes that Baltimore study you said yes what what what organization was that it's the uh it was a study and our expert will be testifying about that it was a give me a moment it's entitled environmental health implications of green burials a white paper uh and is prepared for the Baltimore County Department of Environmental Protection and sustainability okay thank you uh give me a moment I can give you the year Mr chair could I just ask a clarifying question for Mr please so 2015 or 2016 so Mr s you one question about the depth of seasonal high water table right your report says it ranges from 48 in to 120 in correct so the 48 in those generally tend to be for the test bits that you performed around the Eastern portion of the site next to the near the wetlands and the marshrock brook is that accurate that is correct and then the ones that you performed at the southwest corner of the site those test bits indicated that groundwater was is not encountered generally I believe all the test bits that groundwater was not encountered and this the 48 in came from seasonal High indicators yeah but for five and six I don't think that seasonal high water table was or modeling was encountered and and that's and the test bits were done to a depth of 120 in and that's okay so so and you said you're filling the site in the vicinity of where the test bit showed that seasonal high water were at 48 in correct so in generally for the site layout your Basin your stormw basins are located around the perimeter of the site did you do any test pits interior to the site where you may be matching existing grade we have not okay that the elevation rises from east to west and as we get farther away from the God bless you thank you but would you low area of the site we would expect the water table to be the deeper or the but to some extent groundwater table separation from ground surface should roughly follow the topographic elevation of the the surface land correct um that's one of the things it can do um as it usually gets closer to its low point it generally kind of levels out um yes that's not can do that so towards the center of the site where you're matching your finish grade is roughly very close to the existing topographic grade you didn't do any test bits there to see what the seasonal high water table that's correct okay just wanted to clar clarify that for the boards consider we'd be more than happy to do it some additional test bits if that's needed chairman the interest of interest of whatever um can we hear from the experts because we're talking around the experts and we're let's start here we should probably let him finish his cross examin I have two more questions and then okay yeah uh Mr s would your assessment of the uh groundwater flow from uh the Evergreen Cemetery uh be any different if uh you had information that the uh cemetery's recent burials in the last whatever 25 30 years uh were invol and not uh so-called natural burials my storm Water Analysis was strictly based on anal analyzing storm water rain runoff it has no bearing on what's under the around so you're not making any judgment in terms of the uh any potential impact on the quality of the groundwater uh any contamination of groundwater from Evergreen Cemetery correct the marsh bog Brook uh is on the on the perimeter of the site right it is to the east of our site correct and you indicated that uh at least an aspect of the groundwater flow uh on the site is toward the marshbrook creek that's what we would expect is what I said and the marshbrook creek is a tributary of the Manasquan Reservoir correct it is a tributary of the Manasquan river which ties in the marsh BR Marsh bog Brook ties into the manisan Wyer Downstream of the manisan reservoir so we're Downstream of where it would tie into but it is it is a source the morish Brook Creek is a source of the reservoir correct again I believe it's a source of the manisan river south of where the reservoir is I don't believe it's a source of the reservoir just based on some mapping that I looked at okay I have nothing further thank you Mr Jackson is your yes sir is here yes can we get him sworn in please thank you with your permission I'd like to call Dennis stenin PhD okay we're going to take five minutes I while he's uh getting ready may I pass out his uh curriculum V or resume he'll sign it yes thank you okay the board will now take a five minute break and reconvene at 8:09 p.m. iane please call the meeting back to order the meeting will now reconvene Mr Jackson thank you uh Mr chairman uh with your permission if I can call Mr Dennis stankin PhD uh Princeton Somerset group as an expert in the field of uh Health toxicology and environmental engineering and analytical Sciences if we can get a sworn in on the record please raise your right hand please do you swear from the testimony about to give this matter is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yeah can I State and spell your name your last name for the record please uh and it's thank It's s t a i n Keen thank you very much thank you uh dror stankin can you please tell the board what is your profession um I'm I'm not sure I'm a toxicologist but I'm also an analytical can you speak into the microphone please excuse me I'm a toxicologist but I'm also trained in medical physiology analytical chemistry and environmental science so can you please give the board uh the benefit of your educational background that led you to that area of expertise um had a bachelor's in biology from Wagner College and Ms and PhD from Ruckers and environmental excuse me physiology and analytical chemistry but I did all the doctoral work when I was uh in the US United States EPA yeah we'll accept your qualification sir thank you Mr chairman uh I I would like to uh put his full credentials on the record because this is going to be a case of which experts the board believes and and does not believe perhaps and I think it would be beneficial for the board to Mr Jackson it's already it's already in we have it it it is and I'd like to explore some of it so I don't want to uh you know disregard your admonition to move it along but at the same time I'd like to uh establish his his authority this area you know Mr Jackson that can go two ways right one it's bounced around it's all over the place various things but if you want to touch on every one of these ex you know experiences that Dr stankin has go right ahead so uh Dr you said you had your PhD and I'm sorry you were saying where you uh did most of your doctoral studies or but most your doctorate yeah well the per part items is that I was in the uscpa in charge of analytical methods development um most of the analytical methods they use today and uh all the environmental monitoring and Safe Drinking Water monitoring our methods that were came through our Laboratory um I'm one of the co-authors of the oil and gasoline fingerprinting handbook um you have to speak up I'm sorry that prism on the table is the microphone I can barely hear you here so I can guarantee the people in the back room cannot hear you at all okay um anyway within the uscpa I worked on quite a few different method developments from different sources uh we were looking for Malahide uh hazardous waste um different studies at that time during the 1970s and 80s we're looking for sources of contamination one of them happened to be cemeteries uh but that was from ancient and old cemeteries down in the South because they often use lead coffins um and some of them had um density what we call multiple use where they put body on top of body over time that were bombed with from aldhy so you could see that uh uh sometimes in the groundwater thank you to President Nixon for establishing the Environmental Protection Agency okay go ahead sir speaking of uh State uh governmental agenc see I'll just uh with the Chairman's comments in mind and and this has been marked into uh the record correct the 11 page resume what's exhibit number on that a 18 corre 18 thank you Mr chairman the board will review that I just want to touch on a couple of the highlights I I'll move it along um I see from 85 to 90 you're the bureau chief of quality insurances for the state New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection can you please explain what that was yeah the Audi insurance office in the D between 1985 and 90 uh we codified all the analytical methods that are now used for drinking water in the State uh for environmental analyses and U uh also it was a was and still is a laboratory certification program uh I also did a lot of internal affairs work and a lot of research work uh because many of the things that were happening during that time were Innovative and new new contaminants coming out uh I was involved originally in the SEI outfall study um later on uh the Toms River brain cancer study I was involved in that in fact it was my work that actually fingered the C effluent into the Toms River uh wellfield um and a lot of the research that we did at the time was was uh again developing new analytical methods but also troubleshooting because any data coming into the Department of Water or any of the remediation offices had to be evaluated uh so we had to make sure that the methods worked and a lot of times if there were questions on the data we had to determine whether it's a sampler the lab um or sometimes a um criminal activity by some of the permites So Pro principle was in order and then once you found that you had proof of principle you in invoked it yes yep okay uh you had experience with the uh biologist chemist physical scientists with the United States Department of Environmental Protection yeah can you please explain what that was and what you did for them um within the usca I had the analytical Met's development section for hazardous waste oil and gasoline most of your contaminate chemicals but also uh uh we had quite a few contracts out and studies going on for development of biodegradation uh when you go back into the field of environmental contamination treatment there's waves of what's in Vogue for a while it was burnning then it was uh Buri it then it was biodegraded uh I had uh behind the scenes wrote quite a few of the contracts and was a contract reviewer for a lot of that work plus we did a lot of it in Edis um and part of that was to develop also whether or not for some of the hazardous waste sites and super fun we could use biodegradation or uh and some types microb amendment to try and expedite biodegradation of compounds have you had any uh teaching Prof uh positions as a college professor yeah I've taught medical physiology and several colleges I've taught biology physiology at Ruckers Manhattan College uh lot of environmental courses at Manhattan College toxicology so and they are all listed on CV correct such as human anatomy human physiology comparative physiology Etc right all right so those are all the questions I'll have thank you for your Indulgence I just wanted to highlight a couple of them but well you know I would like to ask many a question now you know you know I'm I'm teasing you but super fun sites and everything else that came out of the 70s into the 80s was uh you know was a big deal in this country and um you know there's been a lot of remediation going on and not all of it's been complete so I still work for the U Attorney General's office on certain types of fraud recovery cases yes okay go ahead Mr Jackson so doctor um have you performed any studies or analysis um specifically related to human decomposition in uh various settings um yeah actually I've had in the course of doing toxicology work and personal injury I've had different uh criminal cases I had to evaluate the um last supposed murder victim of nurse Cullen the mass murderer um someone thought that one of their relatives was a Vic victim so um 10 years after he was killed or died U the aop the corpse was exhumed we had to evaluate that in an autopsy um I've had projects one of them was Naval um criminal investigation service NCIS the fate of a corpse somebody thought one of the petty offices have been murdered and dumped into the fuel tank of a tanker um and the seat h fire all those victims the three kids I had to determine them uh as part of a lot of the different work that went on I had to determine the time of death uh and act the actual manner of death uh I've had cases of drowning where had to determine whether or not they was accidental or intentional um I've had a variety of poisoning cases U were they really poison was it accidental overdose was it a medical over injection um the those are not quite like TV but they're pretty interesting have you had any uh occasion to study uh decomposition and and what happened to the body as decomposes particularly in the in the setting of a of a ground burial burial in the earth so Mr chair before we get to that does the objecting attorney have any questions about his qualifications no I have no qual qualification questions thank you well in terms of corpse decomposition and toxicology one of the things that uh uh goes on quite a bit is determining basically what comes out of the human body how does it dissolve and U you'll find that there's probably two venues where myself and people are mostly interested in and one is if a corpse is left on the surface uh there's one manner of decomposition and you'll find one body of literature where uh uh and it's still an active study there's different groups around the world that have permission to lay out corpses and they watch them dissolve and the object is to determine uh underneath the corpse are there a body of chemicals vertically in a zonation that we can identify relative to the rate of decomposition of the corpse that would give us time of death uh what they call a postmortem interval how long has he been dead here um and the other approach in which they use buried bodies uh there are also another bunch of human experiments going on around the world on that the bulk of that type of data has actually been uh using pigs uh pigs metabolically are quite identical to the manner that we decompose uh and once again the object is from the the analytical chemistry side to come up with methodology and evaluation of the zon zonations underneath the corpses uh to see just exactly how the body eventually decomposes disappears and again is there a way to relate that to the time of death or the time of burial of the individual so that said there are studies and there are reasons for uh forensics Etc why different nties different groups have actually done scientific tests on some of this stuff yeah on decomposition so in in in connection with uh preparing tonight uh did you prepare a bibliography of of uh some of the uh materials that you've reviewed and rely on and being prepared for tonight yeah and this that bibliography right that's just a a quickie I mean a quick of some of the uh things so there are hundreds of articles on this with your permission Mr chairman if I can mark this and did you already Mark part of a 19 19 well he did yeah a19 thank you you're welcome got it pass okay stankin um just Mr chairman if it might be faster if I just read uh some of these into the record to go over and say have these some of the Articles please do because we're sharing here thank you and that will probably go faster um uh regarding uh corpse decomposition uh stages of decomposition Australian Museum corpse decom decomposition you looked at Wikipedia dust to dust eventual Afterlife by avard vas 2010 chemical process of decomposition you reviewed the Wikipedia for that is that that that's all correct yeah those are the simpler ones so uh in section two chemicals and soils beneath the human decomposition luong uh monitoring the extent of vertical and lateral movement of human decomposition products through sediment using cholesterol as a biomarker forensic science International 28593 page 93 through 104 is that one of the Articles you reviewed yeah and are the is that the type of article that you know people with phds and in the field like you said that do forensics is that the type of thing that you review to you know see what the other uh uh doctors are saying about this type of yeah we use these use these as a basis for how we'll set our own sampling C cabalero Moreno 2024 lipoderm and cavic decomposition and determination of the postmortem interval systematic review International Journal of molecular science 25 page 984 is that one yeah an evaluation of soil chemistry and human caver decomposition Islands potential for estimating postmortem interval PMI forensic science International 279 that's one tailor soil Elemental changes during human decomposition feedler 20 23 cadav imprint on soil chemistry and microbes knowns unknowns and prescriptive Frontiers and soil Sciences those some of the art articles that you've reviewed yeah regarding microbes and pathogens mic microbial diversity the fate of pathogenic bacteria buried in cabers Journal of American Medical Association uh 2005 Morgan o infectious disease risk of dead bodies following natural disasters uh uh Reverend PanAm salude publica uh Van Wick at at all potential sorus Co contamination the groundwater as result in Mass burial and Min reviews science of Total Environmental uh Thomas microb micro microbial diversity of septic San effluent in a soil Biomat applied in environment microbiology American Society of microbiology 2022 human body alter soil microm after death decomposition just a couple more uh Parkinson 2009 microbial Community analysis human decomposition in soil Yates 1988 modeling microbial fate in the subsurface environment critical reviews and environmental science and technology meski JNS subi MD microbial pathogens and on-site soil treatment systems North Carolina State Extension Vernon James Center uh pathogens and Vector attraction and sewage sludge EPA um tarnowski 2024 cemeteries and graveyards potential reservoirs as antibiotic genes and bacteria review environmental chemistry letters um Saba Ed 2023 evaluating the impact of a cemetery on ground water by multivariant analysis Environ uh assesses um and the last two impact of cemeteries zakowski uh 2015 impact the cemeteries on groundwater and World Heth or Health Organization 1998 the impact of cemeteries on the environmental and public health those are the ma some of the uh articles that you've red yeah so you've provided the board with one list of this right today I'm going through his test I I that's not the question you provided the board one list of all these things that you just rattled off at 100 miles an hour well I could read them more slowly no I I'm not interested in that the question is you provided the list one copy today correct that's correct so you didn't provide a copy to the objecting attorney I did you have this he show me one he only two but you didn't Pro like you made multiple copies of a CV it didn't occur to you to make multiple copies of this there's no requirement when you're putting an expert on to give so that's great so we we'll give the weight the respective weight that it deserves but I'm here to tell you you'll give it the resp of weight I if you legitimately think that I have the capability of writing that down 150 mil an hour I don't and I'm not interested in you repeating it slowly I would have thought in out of respect for the board and its professionals you would have provided the requisite copies that's fine I I understand you're not obligated to you just said that on the record that's totally I assure you when the objector has his expert come up and testify that I was not provided with the docum neither was I so that's totally fine so that is not the way this is done well it is the way it's done but it's the way you've chosen to deal with it and I will also respect the fact that anyone who comes here on a regular basis provides this stuff digitally so it can be broadcast on the screen so everyone in the public can see it so I know that this is maybe the third or fourth time you've been here but we here in Howell light things done on a USB so we can broadcast it to the public so you're free to continue yes and Mr chairman in a perfect world that would have all been done I mean not for nothing you were carried to August 26 you carried from them to now that's been mon Mr I'm addressing the chairman Mr chairman respectfully okay wait wait wait whoa whoa whoa who M Mr chairman there there is a point of order and I'm addressing the chair now and if I may do so briefly okay go ahead Mr the um you know for example several board members did some research and read articles to me I heard about them for the first time the World Health Organization is on this this is a a unusual type of case it's an unusual uh type of expertise in a perfect world I would have provided this you know I've been here more than three or four times you could see I prepare I do a PowerPoint I pass things for example the storm water management report that Mr Civ provided I didn't give everybody copies of that that's in the board's record and uh when an expert testifies it's not always feasible to have everything that the expert relies upon and you take a different tact a different uh approach when you put an expert witness on on how well you build their background now I did not know I was going to be addressed with World Health Organization uh articles that I know my expert viewed I would normally just do this in a narrative format but as an advocate as a as an attorney who's you know presents cases based on the the the questions from the opposition confronting Mr s with articles that was never provided to me I thought it would be appropriate for me to spend the time to go through my client's credentials and his background and some of the articles that he's relying on those are some of the reasons why we don't give everything every expert testifies ahead of time now I appreciate Miss beam is schooling me on how things are done and how Etc however this is how it's also done in a lot of other places in Mr Jackson thank you Mr Jackson we um are on Uncharted Territory we all are right for the board members here for the public for the professionals we just want to make sure that we follow procedure process get everything on the record so that we can make a a decision um Miss beam is correct you know you did read very quickly where is it at it's over here now you want it again sir oh no no no no no into the record it's going to take time to digest it all you're correct because we're on uncharted waters some of the members might have done their own research to understand where this is going you know it's not unusual for a board member to want to do that um they ask the questions and that's and we are where we are so I would ask that you continue with your witness we'll hear what they have to say We'll ask the board members if they have any questions of Mr stankin and then we'll open it up to the objecting attorney for questions here's the other thing it's not just the objective attorney there's also the public that has to have public eventually at the end of this because he's only representing four we're giving him the courtesy to consolidate for those four members and I'm hoping that those questions and comments are satisfying the majority of the other public that's sitting out there so that we don't have to duplicate that process so that's where we're at okay I I'm just thank you Mr chairman it's all good I'm simply responding into some of the comments that Miss Bean made uh you know basically um saying that I should have handed this in ahead of time I read it quickly it's very unusual in a uh land use board setting to have a toxicologist come in and give testimony on the decomposition of human bodies and frankly there's no manual on how to prepare for that so I uh hope the board will give me some indul Indulgence and latitude on that um I only have two copies of that with me tonight I could probably email it we could put it up on the screen if you'd like I could make more copies available uh but that's I'm doing the best I can Jen would you like for us to get an email and put it up I mean if the board that might correct the record for I I agree I think that it should be submitted and I think that you know we should have an opportunity to put it up do our own research but if you're going to ask us for our opinion there's no way I can give my opinion based on two pages of res notes we're going to take five okay the board will now take a five minute break and reconvene at 8:32 8:42 I'm sorry e we're back the meeting will now reconvene Mr Jackson thank you the public can now see what's up on the screen it's part of the record it's part of the video broadcasting and so forth thank you Mr chairman you're welcome um so uh I I did the background and the uh Foundation if you will uh that I wanted to I got through the bibliography uh and now uh with your permission I'd like uh to ask Dr stankin um to provide his analysis of of what happens uh during human body decomposition uh and how does it affect the groundwater how does it affect the surrounding properties please proceed yes can you answer that doctor and please you know raise your voice and go right to the microphone yeah um first off the bibliography was just an example I don't want you to think that that's all as I said there's a lot I mean we have text textbooks on it uh but getting back to the main issue of a corpse de decomposing uh this is an unusual issue for this in that we're not talking about EMB bombing we're talking about just a a body decomposing now there's two ways that it can do it I said earlier you can have it body laid on a surface or a body in a box in the dirt uh my understanding in this scenario is that the body is going to be wrapped in a shroud and put in a pine box or a wood box um that box then is put in the dirt so really we're talking about the decomposing of the wood the Shroud in the body uh the minute the body is dead uh and they say it's brain dead and you leave it there uh there's actually activity going on inside that body um as a toxicologist that's the part that we're most concerned about because things start moving moving from one part of the body to the other they're all heading eventually to the liver um but you do find then that the body slowly steadily drains its organs into the central body cavity as that done happens um you'll see lots and lots of references to different types of total liquids in the body 60% of the body uh six gallons of what uh it doesn't let loose instantaneously what happens is that um as as the body starts to decompose the liquids themselves uh become a medium so the blood cells lice the pancreas lices the proteolytic enzymes are let loose throughout the rest of the body cavity and basically it's starting to digest itself uh you also had the release of a lot of the microbes from the intestinal tract and so little by little over the next 0er to three days you find that internally the structure that was holding the body together starts to dissipate and basically you now have a sack more or less that you call the body um strangely enough when you look at the total composition of some of that it's very similar to a typical fertilizer and I always say that we're walking Miracle Grow um while you're alive your chemicals are functioning and working but once you're dead uh you can become fertilizer and there's quite a few people advocating that type of mulching and using humans uh but again the liquids will gradually reconcentrate into the the central cavity now the fats in the semi liquids will start to change also you've got aerobes still in there at this point in time right you've taken the body you've sealed the body up whatever oxygen was in the body it's still stuck there myoglobin whatever in in some of the blood corpuses the body is put into a box it's not a vacuum seal so there's still oxygen in there so what that means is for a while you still got the ability to have aerobic decomposition that can proceed relatively uh quick but as that oxygen is consumed you now start to get the uh continued liquefication of the rest of the body the putri action um that's the part that you usually see in horror movies that's the part that you may see of the deer laying on the side of the road um that's where they're starting to gradually bloat belly up the gas is are being uh produced now keep in mind most of that is still happening within the box now in this case it's not a casket or or or a concrete Vault like some people use so it's really all going on within the void within the box everything is still within that box that hasn't really gotten out of the box um and now the muscle and the uh bone start to gradually uh do very intricate changes but in essence you're heading towards breaking down everything into its uh components and the components are going to be mostly oil protein carbohydrate and fat and lipids now even with the fats and the lipids when the fats and the lipids get liquefied and um not I don't want to be too gross about it but if you start poking a hole and watch what's liquefied in the corpse uh you'll see that a lot of the Interior liquids have started to get if you use your hands um without rubber gloves it'd be kind of um greasy oily because the fatty acids are starting to break down too and the lipids as the oxygen is consumed now you got to start to get anerobic degradation and at that point then the body has gotten to the maximum over about 20 days of as putrified as it's going to get the skin will start to rupture at some point the gases are getting out um but again it's still in a box right body in a box the liquids now are going to start to soak into the wood under the body so you've got now actually in essence is sort of a wood sponge depending on the wood uh and the body liquids are going to get out of that box unless they make it way through cracks so it's not a matter of like instantaneous dump it's a matter of a continuous sheep and that's why I said earlier that most of the studies that are done um by us are looking for that zonation as the material comes out of the body and percolates down through the soils depending what they are uh that slow release is critical to allowing two things to happen continued biodegradation of the material being released and a start to see a change in the microbial composition you will see at first aerobes aerobic bacteria and some anerobic bacteria coming out of that body but as those microbes along with the liquids start to get into the soil uh the soil itself is not empty I mean I don't care whenever you look soil if you take a microscope and a little bit of water you will find microbes in there whether they're amoeba parium uh there are other groups called bordella um and they're pretty aggressive because they're seeing these microbes coming down into the soil as their food they're Predators they're basically microbial Predators you also have certain types of anerobic and aerobic bacteria that are predators also so throughout that zonation you're G to get the liquids come down gradually percolating down through the pores and and sort of like a a pinball going back and forth through the soil particles some will absorb to the soil particles depending on whether cation anion and so will some of the vi viruses and the bacteria now as they're sitting there you've now got a zonation of the soil acting as a combination of a a chromatography medium holding some of the stuff back as it's going through at the same time you're starting to develop a microbial mat and that microbial mat is going to be the organisms that first came out of the body and as they change and then becomes the soil uh organisms it's very similar in some respects uh to the way septic systems work the septic system is basically your own affluent just that you're not dead yet it's coming out of your Cesspool and it goes out into the um uh septic field the leeching field and if you dig up those leeching fields you'll often see a microbial mats that's one of the reasons why some of the septic systems fail is the mat gets too thick closes up its ability to drain um and that's one of the reason why they say a well managed F will last about 50 years and don't pour greases and oils down because that will help form that microbial mat you get the same thing under the P the body in the Box uh as time goes on the months that you're going to end up with then coming out that zonation will be roughly about a foot underneath the box you can then find zones as you proceed down of the more water soluble fatty acids and more soluble some of the the proteins and stuff they may make it down another two or three feet but basically the most dense areas of everything are going to be in the first foot under the box and then it's going to lens out to be two or three four feet down below rainwater if it comes down during that process isn't going to do too much because the mat is almost like a semisolid uh again you've got greases fats lipids and the proteins but the proteins are a variety of weird uh biological degradation products that have rearranged so they're going to uh be more more prone to be um reactive to soil particles uh most soil particles also have its own native microbial matter on the surface of it uh the net result is that you're just getting eventually complete biodegradation of the Eon coming out of the kadavan now that's the first stage now you have the longer stage the remaining body in the Box how long is this first stage um usually not more than 20 50 days tops depending on what's happening in the Box please continue we're about to say what the next stages well the next stage gets to be much slower because now what's happening is that the muscle mass has started to dry up uh with and when I say dry up intracellularly it's going to be uh become really leathery takes much longer to buide the grade uh if you've ever seen deer corpses laying around the road or animal corpses you'll often see that at that point the skeleton starts to appear a little bit the skin maybe the muscles have shrunk around it um that's going to take a lot longer to degrade that could take U uh months to years but it's it's a continuous slow process in the meantime the microbial mat uh depending on soil conditions gradually will change over time too unless it's fed with another body which you don't do body on body here um that is a problem in other World areas where they actually do put a body on top of the body uh to fill the hole uh that technically would have a negative effect because now you're expanding the mat uh but over time that mat will reduce in size a little bit uh a lot of those nutrients will not disappear for quite a while they'll be stuck in that zone uh because you now created a whole new microbial community and some are growing and some are dying and so it's just sort of feeding on itself now the water soble components over time like the phosphorus and the nitrogen compounds they they can laterally move and they will over time um what in the movement which is another part of what we follow is that that's going to depend a lot sorry that's going to depend a lot um on the soil type the paracity whether or not it's silk clay alkaline acid they all affect the uh ionic capability of the soil particles to hold things back U the other aspect of it is that you usually don't have constant flow flows comes and pulses um people sometimes think of groundwaters an underground river that's only true if you're in Limestone formations with underground caves with the water flowing most of the time especially in New Jersey you have different zones of flowing um It's relatively slow in the North in the PED mine areas where we have shale it's really difficult because it follows all these fracture zones once you get down into here you got lomy Sandy soils but as you go deeper you also have Clay lenses which hold some of it back um but getting back to the concept of the zonation that will also move imp pulses so the bulk of any lateral or downward movement is really going to come in the initial phases of degradation after that uh it's gone uh there's a question about uh raised that I I was told about the the movement of bacteria and viruses you'll see there's a a lot of Articles um on that and a lot of them are pro and a lot of them are con and a lot of them sort of waffle in the middle uh those that were cited in some of the literature that I reviewed and and other people cite them uh when you look at the experimental design of of how they did those they're looking at cemeteries where the bodies were physically almost sitting in water and that was step one step two is that when they say they're putting in bore holes or Wells they're hand oring holes roughly about 10 to 15 ft deep within the areas where the corpses are so in that scenario yeah you would pick up stuff especially within the first months um some of the studies that I I saw they they didn't even really get groundwater was a seasonal when it rains during the rainy season their bore holes had water so it's difficult to make sense out of some of those um I know from experience in the D and quality assurance in charge of the water Pro parts of the water program uh we have what are called groundwater quality standards and they include looking for colorforms and most of the compounds that people have expressed interest in I guess um that uh requirement applies anywhere it would apply under the cemetery it applies to a contaminated site uh it's a universal standard so uh I've never seen any issues of that com in in the uh 20 OD years that I've had to work with Bureau safe drinking water but I have seen him in is things like radioisotopes from radon in the north arsenic from the Arsenic greens Sands and uh radiation from some of the uh soil down around Burlington uh and then the Trenton water supply which is always under attack big problem with maganese um but getting back to the concern about the bodies and and the bacteria and the viruses one of the things to remember that again not everybody remembers unless you're into this is that they're gram positive and gram negative bacteria the gram positive bacteria are the ones that are usually in in humans the gram negative tend to be the environmental ones the difference is that the gram negative bacteria being mostly environmental bacteria are very uh aggressive enzymatically and they also have a nasty tendency to form a Spore caps it naturally that's why when you get a bacterial infection from an environmental bacteria it's a real difficult medically to kill it but conversely the grand positive bacteria don't last very long once they leave their aerobic uh or moist semi anerobic environment they die off and they're eaten um what happens with a lot of the viruses and I heard it mentioned about the co um there have been a couple of studies on covid recently one of them was in in sight I provide a copy it's available in which the covid particles don't last either in soil uh because of the ionic Matrix of the outer envelope of the co virus it has a tendency to adhere to Silk clay particles and at that point then if there's any dryness that the capsule just break so uh they haven't seen it in my own life I've had a lot of experience with looking for let's say infectious bacteria uh in different areas I did quite a few studies of the rar and during that time period in the 70s and 80s people were worried about polio virus and all the shellfish I was working with a microbiologist up at Fairley Dickenson and he isolated quite a few uh different aggressive bacteria including polio virus but when he tried to infect rats with it it was noninfective uh what happens with a lot of these organisms even though you may culture it uh is that they're not necessarily aggressively in effective anymore uh I've sampled a lot of times in sewage uh spills both in houses round houses and there was one with a county spill out in Philipsburg where the County Sewer just drained across somebody's lawn for half a year um two years later yes I could isolate uh viable eoli in the soils the trouble is that there's a differentiation when they say e coli there's coliforms which is why the quality stand is say total coliforms and then there's one called FAL coliform which is a different test than a different species and some of the ones like h120 and some of the others which are incredibly infective you just don't see it it's usually uh transmitted person to person or by some vegetable Vector um so Dr stank um you've indicated various uh pathogens Etc that go into the soil different types of U microbes Etc um bottom line how long is it before uh the body is decomposed and and it stops um you know whatever comes from it stops moving in the soil well the bulk of decomposition will happen within the first six months to a year um the REM remnant of the body could take U long as 10 years depending on condition body said this only goes down a couple feet because of this micro Mass I know I'm uh Matt I know I'm highly oversimplifying what you said that is that the the gist of it yeah the water soluable components can move past that um one of the problems that I've seen with some of the studies that talk about lateral diffusion of viruses and bacterias and ground water and running around is that they're really not talking about groundw what they're talking about is perched water if you think about it for a minute and right now one of the biggest problems we have in this state is dry cleaning fluid we call it a sinker chemically because it's heavier than water but it's tinier than a microb or a virus but it and that does sink sink that does sink that's why we call it a sacred but viruses and bacteria are not the same as these uh organic chemicals and a lot of these studies that I've seen when they say that they're St they're finding microbes of viruses and groundwater and most of them have been overseas type studies uh where I question the experimental design but regardless not you mean by that you question the experimental design um you I know when when you get your PhD when there's a scientific method a lot of these studies do they file do they follow what an American PhD would recognize as a as a a genuine scientific uh analysis I I know I'm paraphrasing L could you just expand on that a little or explain what what you said where I think you said it's questionable and the scientific approach I'm paraphrasing not really when we started with the usapa we we came out with contractor means how to sample uh contaminated sites how to set your wells UPG gradient downg gradient that wet depth understand the flow of the water and so forth um the d uh went went better um we have an incredible sampling manual it's almost uh step by step of setting UPG gradient Wells lateral side Wells um depth of sampling the screen and so forth so that when you're trying to evaluate contamination on a site you're in a scenario that you can really tell is it contamination from the site is it coming from offsite is going off site uh so you can actually draw some types of of information from it a lot of these studies that were done elsewhere that I said don't conform is that uh if you're really going to try and study let's say what's coming out of a cemetery or a contaminated site don't just put one downg gradi in well where's your upgradient well where's your side gradient well some of them even mention that well it could be coming from offsite well then how do you make this conclusion and as I said most of them are not looking at Deep Wells now uh when I say deep uh typically in New Jersey um we will do hand order looking at Gasoline sites oil tanks things like that maybe down to 10 12 feet that's can be groundwater but realistically it's more likely just a perched ground water it's not where you're D we're definitely not taking a drinking water at that depth the majority of water water wells portable wells in New Jersey are usually down below 100 feet uh good many of them are in 200 300 feet uh it's combination of better water and also more water because once you're in Shallow Wells you don't know what you're going to pick up I have had cases in the past uh uh where restaurants people got sick drinking the water in the restaurant restaurant had a well when we looked and the septic system was not just 50 ft away number one and number two it was in Shell up in northern New Jersey and the shell was fractured directly to the screen on there well shell has fissures right so in that case yes the Rin water was washing the effluent from the septic field right down into the Shale cracks to the drink roof just goes along the beam and just goes right to well again that's why that's why in the DP regulations and setting wells in place and drinking water in place um we State clearly don't do that uh we have regulations about 50 fet minimum distances 150 ft minimum distances and well casing depths you mentioned well casing uh you mentioned fissures you mentioned wells should be 200 feet I think you said 150 ft the uh where this effluent that you described goes a couple feet under a six foot grave um over a certain period of time would you ever expect that to get down 150 ft into a drinking well and and if so please explain if not please explain now uh because number one is there's no way that the water would get to that depth from the surface unless there was actually some kind of waterfall crack the only time those issues come up is in community wealth um the state of New Jersey established a Wellhead protection system years ago uh it's a Zone around Community intake Wells so that uh when Community Wells are pumping and um uh they can suck a lot in summer uh that's because they're feeding hundreds however many houses large amount of houses yeah the community Wells and so therefore that area uh is designated as as a radius around these Community well there a Wellhead protection and nothing's supposed to be in there and uh God help you if you if you have any contamination in there will be all over you um residential well is that the same um no the the residential well standards are basically where you put them how you screen them the depth you screen them um the water quality standards are the same um the criteria of the list of contaminants you would look for are the same you said mentioned several times uh septic fields um how does what our our client proposes compare uh with the hazard contamination uh that would be from uh a septic field on the well the same property as the well the same lot as the well well in the end again you don't have a constant input but it hypothetically if you took five five body in of boxes and laid them one next to another uh and set of a watch at Time Zero you have basically a septic field at that that point the bodies are all going to they won't all degrade or explode at the same rate some faster than others but within bounds you'll have the same amount of material and the same zonation and the same amount of materials that may get away now the water soluble stuff typically is nitrogen and phosphorus and one of the things a lot of cemeteries do and I've seen in some articles is they plant trees and shrubs to absorb some of the nitrogen and phosphorus uh which again is why humans are basically a uh walking fertilizer in the end I've been called that so in Mr shiv gave testimony that the uh the water flow is away from the home I'm paraphrasing you heard testimony as well how does that factor into your evaluation uh of this circumstance of this case well the ground the groundwater I walked in at the End by the way the groundwater flow the way I heard it was a heading uh in a west to east general direction and looking at the maps it seems to be heading predominantly into what shows up as a vegetated area the mosh bog Brook okay uh the nitrogen phosphorus would probably eventually make its way in there I think you'd see the Marsh Grass a lot Greener Over time um marshes are actually used as a major filter to take out wastewater treatment material um I don't know if they still use it but the city of San Diego I I had the in another lifetime design waste treatment plants um the city of San Diego actually has a a uh complete closed loop drinking water system so the um uh poops go to the waste treatment system and then they go through a series of clarifiers and solids removal and then the raw effluent goes through a man-made Marsh and at the end of it is the drinking water intake to the drinking water plant where it goes back and it gets filtered out and you have San dieg drinking their own own water uh it is in fact I just finish for a second it is that that approach by the way is also used in NASA um because uh when I was in involved in designing waste treatment plants and stuff it turns out that the National Space Center down in Huntsville has a whole series of experiments in which they use marshes and artificial Wetlands for cleaning um effent to drinking water standards so in in summary uh in your view does the uh Cemetery that our client proposes uh POS any risk for contamination to the drinking Wells of any of the homes surrounding the cemetery I can't say there would never ever be a risk that would be silly but I would say it would be a minimal risk depending on where the well is cased and screed scened um uh if it's a shallow well that still could be an issue if it's a deep well that's been properly uh drilled cased and sealed um i' see it shouldn't be an issue thank you I have no further question I have a question Mr stanking D New Jersey level one two three four and five contamination levels you're familiar with those right the yeah okay so there's a cemetery that's decaying 5,000 bodies over a 20e period let's say does that present a level one two three or five concern I'm not sure uh because I don't work with the level one two three four five okay go ahead Mr I just wanted to clarify you had said that five caskets kind of equates to a septic field is that well it's just a crude analysis I mean we know that laterals usually they'll have anywhere from uh six to 10 laterals in a typical septic field okay all right thank you yeah Dr sanken um the chairman asked uh well no you stated by Mr Jackson Jackson's uh question that the homes nearby are unlike very like unlikely to be affected by it but what about Downstream from this Brook where water the the grade goes towards the uh Brook and then goes towards the manisan river into the reservoir area can you be certain that's not going to be an issue normally your your grandwater goes to levels uh when you look at the streams and the rivers they have a bedding plane and that bedding plane doesn't change very much with the Contour of that stream unless something crazy happens like H 100 dear floods every day and it scours it out U that bedding plane is also a function that of the lateral water coming in there's always going to be a certain amount of seepage coming in from lateral in through there now if that lateral seepage has to go through that Marsh I can't see anything getting through that Marsh or not deposited in the mud where it would just be part of that ecosystem um it wouldn't make sense to to have it suddenly dip underneath the the bedding plane but what if there isn't morsh there that would be a different story if you had if it obviously if you just had straight right to the river then you'd have to question whether or not the the rate at which is coming in because this is a rate function also it's not a constant function in other words like the body is decomposed but then the movement and everything else after that is's a rate over time because water pulses it doesn't go in a constant wave okay thank you just just for my clarification but you said a lot of the a lot of the decom decomposition chemicals are beneficial to the the soil below or to the the to to what's underneath the ground yeah um if you look at some of the literature for instance in uh forensic they actually call it if you're looking at it at a corpse that decomposes on the surface not buried uh over time they call it a decomposition Island because that area will be greener than the rest it's it's one of a couple of we're always looking for ways to find something uh and that's a good tip off then that something's going on that's abnormal thank you here it is of all the um studies or papers that you read are any of them have anything to do with a cemetery of this size meaning 5400 plots some of them do some of that the a what's the biggest plot the overseas ones I don't remember 10 hectares I think what was that 10 hectares 10 hectar they call them hectar what explain that to me I'm sorry I'm not sure it it sounded like to me it would be like about five to 10 acres in size these are old cemeteries but I don't know the exact dimensions and of those those studies that you read said there's minimal to no negative effects on uh ground on potable water no they did the ones that were overseas almost all of them said there was right except two or three I'll take that back there were two or three of them that in the end concluded that there was no real U threat that they did identify the same type of microbial change in the soils but they didn't see it as a threat to Public Health and why do you why why do you think there's this difference of in studies or opinion I think it's a combination of factors one of the studies that I read U they were using hack kits which have a very in they're commonly used for field working uh college courses and quicking measurements but uh the level of sensitivity isn't there um and again as I explained earlier um when you put monitoring well right next to a corpse in a box don't be surprised that you find something I mean that's not really telling me anything I wouldn't have expected to be there anyway uh what I'd want to see is you're upgrading you're downgrading well it's your side gradient and actually if you're going to tell me your ground water is contaminated uh what level uh I understand that overseas in a lot of areas they use much shallower well in Bangladesh I know for instance they were using Wells that were sometimes less than 15 feet deep so of course they're going to be picking up all sorts of contaminants um but I didn't see any of that in any of the the rest of the literature and it certainly those studies never conformed to ours are you saying they're substandard overseas studies I'm saying that they experimental designs stunk and if I was on an lsrp review board looking at those I'd kick the study out so your your opinion of the World Health Organization study from 1998 now they did a let me finish I read that study to they had a variety of different evaluations but they also didn't conclude that um all cemeteries are contaminating grandwater and it's dangerous they didn't make a blanket statement so when they when they when they made their recommendation of well they had it in meters but it we'll use feet since we're in the United States of 820 feet away from um sources of drinking water do you think that was unnecessary I think it depends on site by site and and I'm not making a comment on it yes I know I know what our standards are and I know what our standards work and I said I don't have confidence in some of these other studies and I've been overseas and seen a lot of these other sites and they're not quite like ours and so they are just getting back so so there's studies in the United States of cemeteries of this size having no well little effect on drinking water I haven't seen well take a step back I did not look to see physically the size of the cemetery so that I can't make a statement on but the cemeteries down south that you studied those are different yeah those were like uh if you see pictures of the old Louisiana type swamp cemeteries uh those types of cemeteries exist along the Mississippi um that's a different story yeah you would have had dense uh numbers of coffins in those and uh most of those actually in that time frame that they were boring use lead or lead line coffins actually have spent a lot of time and most of those are above ground prps aren't they some are because they are lower than yeah yeah Mr burlo yeah one one Hector is equal to 2471 Acres one hectare is it's like almost a little more 20 Aces 10ar it's 25 AC yes okay um what about um I didn't hear you mention anything if if the bodies were um had metal Prosthetics or teeth filling or um implants like pacemakers or defibs or anything like that how does that factor in really depends on the age of the person um in terms of Prosthetics artificial knees hips joints those um they're designed not to biodegrade uh the earlier ones there were problems with some of the chromium metals and some of the ones they did they are actually uh breaking down in humans that they put the implants in with the and how how how far back we talking with those I think that first came to light in the early um early two late 1990s early 2000s so it is possible that there will be some people buried with those oh I'm sure you could have some people buried with uh parts of an artificial uh joint pacemakers that's uh depends on who what when they come in different sizes um the ancient ones most of those were removed I think um the modern ones are much smaller uh I'm not sure whether they take them out sometimes in the morch and not but it it it would change the the biological breakdown of what you said before where you said the body could be fertilizer those parts that are now in the body would not be considered fertilizer is that correct right they would just stay there for eons well they wouldn't just stay they could break down into something not healthy correct they're not going to break down that fast how fast or how slow if they didn't break down in the body while you were wearing it I doubt seriously that you're going to see this thing dissolve overnight or within years 20 years 30 years 40 years I mean he's I don't know nobody has decided to far as I know nobody has taken prosthetic devices and tried to measure the rate of degradation so there is a possibility that the degreg could be problematic if you have that many I can't imagine that one or two people with artificial hips can out of 5400 I don't think it's going to be one or two well I'm just saying that if you have a cemetery full of nothing but people with artificial hips I don't know where they got that many there is so there is the potential potential there's always a potential okay that's that's what I got Mr Ryan I'm good good everybody's good good Charlie yeah I have two questions so um I think you made a statement to the effect of shallow Wells could be potentially compromised by this type of use and I know the applicant provided some information regarding some wells and septic systems on the neighboring property they provided one I think it was a17 for a block 219 lot 13B which indicated a depth of 212 ft to a well but did you do any of your own inventory to to know what the depth of any of the wells in the vicinity are like if some are historic they could potentially be shallow Wells but that's not outlandish to say that correct no they there's one or two there's one or two ways you can search which has I don't guess hasn't been done the data D has a lot of their records online uh but when you get into old records you have to manually search uh they do keep records on a lot of these old Wells for houses sometimes going back to the 1950s 1940s um it's a question of of somebody has to manually call through some of those down there uh if you send an oper request they will probably make it available U or they used to I'm not sure if they still offer it they used to have a service that if you call then uh they will assign somebody to search for you but you wouldn't find it electronically so but to your knowledge has the applicant done that investigation to determine whether there is a presence of any shallow wells in proximity to this site no okay uh the second question that I have is the applicant is proposing Stone Water Management infiltration basins that have retaining walls uh adjacent to some of the plots and you indicated that the degradation of the bodies generally happens in the first let's say 1 to four feet below the casket right right so um and water through this uh underlying soils can go vertically and then horizontally right more typically it'll go U horizontally than vertically the only time you'll see the groundw go vertically is usually if there's a actually some type of hydraulic head pushing it down or if the um the substrat start curving down has an equator in front of it so as some of this uh decaying happens and it gets transported horizontally if it came to like a retaining wall that had say like a drainage system in it to allow for weeping of water table and and and groundw and things like that would that allow for that bachate of let's say those components of the body to be transported into the surface water Downstream as opposed to into the groundwater table it really depends on the rate and it depends on the Matrix that the the system has made um I don't know if you're talking matter U because I didn't go into the engineering design but most storm weather Bas right that the DP wants permeable U rather than in permeable uh which means then if anything got in there you more likely to not have grasses and weeds they'd have to maintain it so so what I'll just submit to the board right um when you're designing like an an engineered retaining wall generally speaking you don't want to have um sources of um surface runoff or things that can contribute to the groundwater table because it can impact the wall you usually have to implement uh Drainage Systems behind the wall to allow for the water pressure to to alleviate out of that and this kind of goes to the question that Mr Ryan had earlier about like proximity of you know burial sites to um drains and things of that nature you know it's possible with a retaining wall if you have horizont transport you could have microbials and other things being transported through the drainage system of the wall into the stone water basin where it becomes part of you know the water course that then gets transported to the downstream area so um I just wanted to put that on the record for the board thank you Charlie sir yes thank you uh fing up on one of the board members question questions uh in addition to you know pacemakers and prosthetic devices uh would you also have situations in which uh decomposing bodies would release uh different types of medicines that the individual had taken and chemicals like chemotherapy would they be released into the ground as well potentially depending on the type of medication yeah um antibiotics are designed to kill bacteria or kill microbes so until they have chemically degraded uh that there's a potential this gets back to uh it's still an active question I was on one of the first FDA panels back in 1992 when we uh uh went after the drug industry for the Food and Drug Administration of that very question you're talking about um the question there was more simply down in Florida where you have a lot of these homes with the the elderly and aged uh taking cardiac medicines and cardiac glycosides and uh at that time I don't I think most Physicians have backed off on it they were giving them a larger dose let's say the necessary understanding that a certain amount would be absorbed that's your effective dose and a large amount would be excreted and it was being excreted into their local retirement home septic field and right next to the drinking water well because Florida doesn't have our regulations and so yeah they in that particular scenario I think it was Glo Smith Klein uh had an issue and uh that was one of the first things then that uh became if you look at NDA new drug applications now uh they have to the pharmaceutical companies have to address that issue U the USGS un us Geological Survey has identified all across the United States the presence of pharmaceuticals and water so it's an ongoing problem everywhere but for future use and and basically really since at least 2010 I believe all the pharmaceutical companies when they're saying we're going to put a new product on the market as part of the approval by FDA they have to show that uh either it's biodegradable or how it will be managed in your review of the uh the application and for your testimony did you consider uh the impact of the groundwater flow flow rates on the transport of the body contaminants not the flow rate per se um Flows In A lot of these areas including Howell and Burlington are relatively static they're very slow now you in your test he talked about generically different types of soil strata uh in different parts of the State uh in your analysis uh and your testimony tonight did you base your conclusion on the specific type of soil that was is located at the uh the s in question I looked at the soil survey of MTH County which has how Township soils in it in this area and U they were classified ifed as Sandy soap loans but did you look at the analysis uh in the crest storm water management report of the specific types of soil at this location no I just you uh you you indicated that uh you thought there was a a minimal risk to uh private wealth at least depending on the depth of some of the private Wells would monitoring Wells installed on the property be a a way to determine whether with certainty whether or not there's any risk to the uh the drinking water of the residents who use use well water nothing further J thank you Jen you have anything no sir okay I think they do Dr stanking thank you okay I soils are incompatible what you said just uh want to have have a moment to reiew the report since it was marked um the uh storm waterer management report that identifies the soils so just have uh Dr stank take a quick look at that so should we take five um you're chair ien we're going to take five the board will now take a five minute break and Rec conven at 9:42 p.m. thank you ien we're back the meeting will now reconvene so Mr Jackson you had Dr stankin review the storm water management report for a reason so can thank you have you had an opportunity to review the storm water management report yeah um or the logs and the soil is consistent with the overall uh view that you had from how when you said you looked at the state mapping yeah it's the same thing same so it doesn't change uh your assessment in any way no okay and one one final question if I can have that um the the septic fields um how did the do they have a bigger or less impact than the cemetery is going to have on them properties wor that have septic fields it's kind of a strange question it's really more proximity if you have a septic field you don't want to put your drinking water well too close to it just for safety sake um it would be the same thing with the cemetery I don't know i' put a a drinking water well I don't know that I'd put a drinking water well uh immediately within the cemetery although I've seen them it it depends on how deep the well is and how well it's screened okay thank you that's all I have okay all right folks um Mr banano yes you have a witness that you would like to on the yeah opposing side and you say he's from out of state we're going to Grant you an opportunity to have that testimony put on the record so that we then can carry this to another date with an extension of time okay great thank you thank you chair gu sworn in he's representing the opposition if you raise your right hand do you swear affirm the testimony you're about to give them this matter is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth please State and spell your name for the record Frank gel g t c h e l l thank you okay uh Mr I didn't get the spelling of the last name Frank gel thank g t c h e l one more l two L's thank you uh could you run through uh your educational background for us please sure um I have a uh undergraduate degree in mathematics and a master's degree in geology from Syracuse University and I've have been a professional geologist since about 1982 I'm still working do you have any uh professional licenses and if so could you summarize those for us please excuse me one second the public I hear can you hear him okay what this is microphone okay what university okay I went my undergraduate degree is in mathematics from University of Scranton and my master's degree is in geology from Syracuse University okay and you've been practicing since 1982 and you're as a Consulting hydrogeologist I'm licensed geologist in the states of Pennsylvania New York Delaware uh New Hampshire Maine North Carolina accept your credentials then sir go ahead okay I just wanted to run through a couple of background things I'm not this will be very quick we want to move along if with the chair will allow yes and you have the microphone right there okay yeah just share it okay good okay uh just very briefly uh could you just run through your your background as a geologist sure I'm actually a hydrogeologist um and uh my area of expertise has been in water supply development specifically groundwater groundwater Supply impact uh groundwater Supply contamination groundwater resource um evaluations uh Geo engineering aspects of groundwater and seage issues uh worked in New Jersey since about 1985 um till about 2019 I still do some work down here but I actually was the office manager of leers and Graham in Upper Saddle River New Jersey for most of that time have you uh done any work in uh Mammoth Mammoth County and if so could you tell us about that sure um like the previous expert I also worked on the Tomas River chemical uh contamination project I was an expert hydrogeology on geologist on behalf of Thomas River water company uh also Suez water um specifically with respect to the Union Carbide contamination at the Reich Farm site um I've also done work for Oldbridge on uh modeling uh related to well field expansion Monroe Township with respect to expansion and increase of uh capacity for many of their uh their water supply Wells I've worked elsewhere down the coastal Plano also but those are three probably that are closest and can you tell us about work you've been doing up in SATA River related to uh groundwater issues and concerns there okay actually it's Upper Saddle they they would beg to differ um to make the distinction but um we actually are uh working on evaluation of potential impact from a large natural burial Cemetery that's literally over the Border in New York State uh it's targeted to have about 20,000 grave sites uh in 18 acres and uh we're in the process of establishing a monitoring Network for them to determin background conditions so that if there are impacts there is a way for them to be able to um identify that before too late now you're aware that you've been sitting through this uh application uh before the board to uh develop a cemetery uh at block 2019 how Township uh have you had an opportunity to visit the site yes I did today and have you had a chance to uh review documents that the applicant has submitted in support of their application for use variants yes I reviewed uh the two stormwater um reports and the environmental impact uh statement and then there was some periphery documentation that was associated with those in the materials that you uh reviewed uh did any of those address the uh the the PO the proposed cemet the effect that the the proposed Cemetery could have on groundwater and drinking water for the people in the surrounding area not that I recall they seem to focus primarily on storm water management and other aspects of the site development I don't recall seeing anything that was specific to impacts on groundwater quality related to the uh proposed Cemetery now you heard the testimony earlier today of uh Mr Civ right yes and uh do you recall him testifying about uh filling in areas above the graves uh so that uh they would be uh so that there'd be more depth beneath the uh the graves yes I did and can you tell us what your reaction is to that what your thoughts would be about that well it was the first I had heard of that and if it was in any the documents I don't recall seeing it so um as you had questioned I had uh focused in and saw the comments regarding the depth to groundwater even though they were projected um there's no monitor Wells observation Wells there were no physical data besides looking at soil uh conditions to kind of project what that groundwater surface would be um so that was you know kind of one of what I was kind of looking at for to 5 ft and then I was aware that the graves were going to be 6 feet which simple algebra tells you that means they're going to be in the groundwater um so that was the first time I had heard that to deal with that that the um grade is going to be changed I don't know throughout the site or just in those areas that they anticipate having that shallow groundwater surface but with the uh type of soil used for I guess essentially fill would that have an impact on the flow of groundwater potentially well I think in terms of when I look at the site and what I saw it's it's heavily vegetated um so when that vegetation gets removed which I expect given the what's being put up there for drawing that's going to change a lot of the surface drainage it's going to also change um a lot of the uptake of soil moisture and frun off natural occurring um obviously that's why there's going to to be storm water retention basins there to to deal with some of that flow so that could potentially change groundwater flow Direction maybe locally and in your review of the reports you described the storm water management report uh the environmental impact report uh do they do these reports address the impact that the uh removal of trees for the cemetery uh would have on groundwater flow again I don't recall seeing that now and in reviewing the storm water management plan uh can you tell us whether that addresses the potential impact that that would have on the groundwater flow no um the closest would be the mounding analysis that were completed but what those are they're projections of what will happen to the groundwater surface in the immediate vicinity of these um proposed uh basins they don't uh continue to project what that would actually look like in terms of the actual groundwater flow Beyond those conceptual bases and those are all uh those model runs their analytical models they're based on they're not sight specific specific data they're based on some generic data related to the particular types of aquifer materials or soil materials that are there so they're not based on somebody actually going to the site and doing some type of testing or sampling and and determining an actual permeability or hydraulic conductivity I believe they're based on actually percolation rates which then are converted to hydraulic conductivity which is not the same in reviewing the STM Water Management plan and the environmental impact plan and visiting the site uh and doing I guess your own research uh which you can tell us about uh do you believe that there's a potential for uh the uh the cemetery sit have any impact uh on the flow of water down toward uh the area by the uh Marsh bog stream or creek well first off we're all assuming that's the groundwater flow Direction there is no hard data besides looking at topographic maps which is something is practicing hydrogeology geologist would do at his first blush also before actually going and then to kind of refine what it would be with using observation Wells some sort of a device that I could duplicate measurements I could look at variations over time seasonally with respect to climate change and impacts and so forth but with that said um regarding the uh the flow towards the uh Marsh uh bog Brook I think pretty much that would be what you would expect it would Pro primarily be from the Northwest towards the South Southeast would there be the potential uh with uh 100e storms 50-year storms for uh this to cause flooding to the area uh beyond the marsh uh there Apartments over there would they be at risk the intent of those storm water management basins is to put the water back into the ground you know once it goes into the ground as you'd heard previous testimony yes it's going to eventually discharge back up into that Wetland area into the uh into the marshbrook um it's not necessarily that we're going to be going down a slope there's going to be there's a three-dimensional aspect to the flow goes it's not two-dimensional um so the question is how readily can that water go down vertically before it starts to move and then discharge back up into the Wetland area and then of course the question just comes out as to whether or not the stream can handle what that excess flow would be and in your in your work in Mammoth County you're familiar with uh the types of soil uh that are typically found in MTH County I look at them in respect to aquifers okay so you know in terms of you know in terms of the makeup is it mostly sand is it mostly clay how does that affect the amount of uh you know in terms of once keep in mind when we talk about soil we're talking usually about the material that's above the aquifer it's the stuff that's not usually under a saturated condition and let's say it's a hydric soil like in a wetland complex and those soils developed from a native geologic material okay so in this case the kohany which is the kohany Kirkwood so basically it's the upper part is primarily a a sand with units of fine gravel units of clay and silt in it um when that material is exposed at to the atmosphere under natural conditions over time with vegetation and so forth organic material mixing it develops into a soil okay so I just want to make that distinction I look at it primarily with respect to its groundwater transmitting capability it's its groundwater storage capability but yes I am familiar with the with the Cur Goan so that with the uh the with the surface water getting into ground would it just flow straight through the soil or would there be areas fissures and different types of of Strat in the ground that would affect the way in which it flows horizonally vertically this is unconsolidated material so it's you go to the beach that's probably the best way I could describe it you see loose sand you know if it gets saturated sometimes but has a lot of silt it can get kind of dense in that but it's not going to usually have fractures or fissures in it that's not the nature of this particular aquafer unless there's some really different type scenarios but what will normally happen is that water will go down vertically it will spread because it isn't just a straight por space conduit that continues down so as it goes down is going to kind of trickle out and it's going to kind of spread if it gets to the situation where it winds up with some kind of a low permeability layer you heard the reference to a perch Zone that water may get onto that perch Zone say a silt or a clay um some people you know see these large like iron bands that maybe form in the soil and so forth it may spread horizontally but at some point it'll find a case where either enough water goes through it can continue to move it through or it'll find some kind of a break or a change in the uh in the makeup and and then it will continue down once it's in that saturated aquafer situation then it's going to be dominated primarily by What's called the gradient or the hydraulic gradient and it's going to be more of a spread we'll just say laterally but then there is the potential for it to also migrate downward yeah it these aquifers get their recharge you know between What's called the outcrop areas which are further to the West okay where they occur under water table conditions but there's also a vertical components so under certain conditions you have what are called flow regimes so shallow groundwater can actually discharge to local wetlands and streams but some of it depending on where it is topographically can continue B vertically and then mix with deeper groundwater and move further in this case further to the East and the East would be toward the the front of the the property I'm sorry yeah I mean so theoretically looking at that stream there uh Marsh bog you know that's probably a major discharge area for most of the aquer but there could be some that could conceivably be have more of a component towards the South towards the Mana squant now have you reviewed uh uh literature uh articles regarding uh the impact or potential impact of uh decomposing bodies on groundwater and drinking water yes can you tell us about some of the studies that you've rebut well there's the there's the Baltimore study which was put together by the sanitary I believe engineer for the city of Baltimore because they were starting to put together a land use ordinance that was going to start to regulate um these types of natural burial uh cemeteries and so in there there's a lot of information regarding other studies um you know as um as Dr sankin had mentioned earlier a lot of it is from Europe but there is some from the United States also um there are studies being done actually up in Hampshire there are studies being done in New York state there are studies being done in Virginia um all focusing on this because it is becoming such a larger part now of you know of dealing with um and none of the studies are complete excuse me any of the studies complete they tend to currently be ongoing sorry that's there's a USGS study actually that focused on Michigan that is a complete study but it looks at a bunch of different types of cemetaries and again the impact on groundwater can you tell us uh about the uh the Baltimore study and whether the Baltimore study makes any recommendations uh for the type of hydro hydro geological study that would be uh useful uh in determining whether or not there's an impact to uh groundwater drinking water well as objection to a Baltimore study that's based on studies that aren't complete simply to make recommendations for zoning regulations I don't know what the relevancy of that is here what the recommendations are whether they were adopted whether they were approved it's two different things this is the Baltimore County white paper we're talking about yes but that County was the basis for the actual regulations that were put into place or Baltimore County regarding cemeteries but those regulations are not play here so I don't know what they Bas politically Etc their regulations we don't have those regulations got it I think I think it's it's instructive for the board to hear what other what other entities are doing what other parts of the country are doing well we've heard it is there anything pertinent to the study that we need to know about well I think what is pertinent is that you see as a common theme is the concept of Separation distances specifying minimum separations between these types of cemeteries and Water Resources whether they be streams whether they be storm water basins whether they be Supply Wells so there is recognition of the fact that that is something that looks at and certain certain researchers give certain distances but they all tend to be the same there's also identification of certain types of parameters that should be monitored for water quality as being indicative or for tracing or setting up benchmarks for future reference as to whether or not there are impacts from such cemeteries okay Mr bana yes uh in reviewing the uh the crest the applicant storm water management plan uh in addition to uh the removal of trees you said possibly having impact on uh surface water flow and groundwater uh with the construction of the actual Graves potentially have an impact on groundwater flow well when you're obviously the soil currently is in its own State it's been it's been that like that way for about 10,000 12,000 years so when you go to excavate a grave obviously you're disturbing that soil and you can be changing the properties the permeability of the soil the paracity of the soil and so forth so just by de facto that you're doing that it's going to happen you're going to change the properties of those soil now the soil below that that's not Disturbed obviously will still continue to be in whatever state it is would that have an impact potentially on the uh the seasonal p water table well you got to keep in mind the groundwater that you see at this site originates not just from the site but it originates from other areas okay and so that seasonal high water table is typically reflecting recharge to the aquifer that commonly occurs during like we get most of our recharge normally uh between starting in late fall all the way through to early spring because in late fall what happens all the plants stop evap transpira and so they stop pulling the water out of the soil and so now what happens is the groundwater levels can start to come up then you get snow melt you get rain and you don't have plants taking that up so a lot of that water now can get past the root zones and that's what contributes to the high the seasonally High ground water table that's why they call it a seasonally High you don't typically see it during the summer months so if if now you change the vegetation and and the land coverage of an area like this you're going to see some localized influences when that precipitation occurs and those recharge events occur you may get localized unintentional I'll call it mounding just like with respect to the storm water systems now have you factored into your your assess of the uh the site uh the presence of the Evergreen Cemetery uh that's you know just I guess through the northwest of this and if so can you tell us how I just to be honest with use it as a point of reference and I went up there I just recognize that as a my understanding is it's a conventional Cemetery conventional Cemetery meaning vaulted or natural that's my understanding it's you know at least more recently they would be vaulted Graves and it is up gradient as had been previously pointed so you're talking about your work in Upper Saddle River uh so that uh then the as you were describing it they're installing monitoring Wells to determine whether or not there would be an impact potentially on the cemetery isn't the town is the town's putting it around the periphery so basically for early morning because all of those residents are all on private Wells there's no public water system there so in your opinion would the installation of monitoring Wells prior to any construction uh be able to address whether or not uh potentially uh there would be there could be contamination of private wealth well it would establish a background and if there's contamination there now well it's not from the cemetery um and that would be useful if sometime down the road somebody were to start saying that they were getting contamination they would have a way to have a benchmark to uh to compare to but also what it would allow is to have an actual determination of groundwater level and groundwater flow Direction the other thing is we keep talking about the groundwater flow and so forth and we are really only looking at it from the perspective of the natural flow if a well is in the aquifer and a well pumps it reverses groundwater flow Direction how far out it goes is contingent upon many different factors but you know it could be on the order of tens of feet it could be on the order of hundreds of feet so if you had a network of monitor Wells that were out there they could also be used to take water level measurements and you could establish very quickly whether or not there is any influence between the wells in those homes and the groundwater surface at the cemetery and if there isn't I think that would you know that would lay a lot of fears charie yes Mr chair you heard what what just said about these monitoring walls yeah I mean certainly if you can install them in advance of any project you'd be able to set a baseline uh um you know uh at least for the existing condition with any potential impacts that may have occurred with the Evergreen Cemetery Upstream just question so you you said your understanding that's a traditional so they're in vaults do you know have you spoken to like the owners or The Operators of that I just looking at the cemetery there's some newer Graves and so forth there I'm sorry there are some newer Graves there so the best of my you know I'm just you can call it an assumption but I I'm willing to bet on it okay so so with the monitoring Wells right um there have been other applications in the town you know I think um it's long before my time with the WWA up on I think uh how Road in Route 33 there was residents up there that had Wells and were concerned about underground tanks with you know the fueling station stuff like that you know the board stipulated conditions requiring that the developer put in monitoring Wells I'm pretty sure they're still in there to this date and that gives the municipality some sort of Safeguard to set a Baseline and be able to monitor to see whether there's an impact um you know I guess the question is over time uh it sounds like there is no set pro protocol of like what allowable levels or thresholds of bacteria and microorgan microorganisms are so I think that's the challenging aspect of it you can set a baseline of here it is prior to construction but what's a safe level well let me ask let me ask this Charlie all of a sudden you find out something's down there isn't it kind of like too little too late at that point yeah I mean I would think any kind of approval potential approval from the board would have to be very uniquely worded uh to have safeguards on what can and can occur after something trigger some kind of Benchmark for what's a safe and not safe level and like I said I'm not an expert in cemeteries and how bodies decomposed or anything like that so I I can't tell you what that what those levels would be thank you Charlie could I just offer something to that um I think in terms of those Wells what you would be looking at is you wouldn't be looking at bacteria you'd be looking at some of those soluble compounds that the previous expert had discussed nitrate phosphorus chloride sodium so you could establish those right away okay they all have uh drinking water standards associated with them and the point would be just to establish that background and along with it though which is very important it's not just the chemistry it's also the physical aspect which is the water levels which way is the groundwater flowing so if it's showing that that groundwater flow direction is pretty consistent going away you know that allows you to lack that concern but right now you don't know that got it thank you I have no further questions at this Mr Jackson excuse me one minute yeah no question okay so board members you have some questions go ahead um so there was mentioned earlier in the testimony about Phil adding Phill to raise the levels of the cemetery so that the bodies wouldn't be hitting any sort of uh water you water planes or anything like that so how will that impact whether it being just laid or ultimately dug how does that impact the the flow the water flow or any sort of settlement with the prop with the grounds so not knowing where specifically that's going to take place so again this is all just conceptual if you're going to start altering the topography um that could alter also what goes on with that surface water runoff that isn't necessarily targeted for those recharge basins but it's just going to be allowed to infiltrate in again it's I don't I don't have that information all I can say is conceptually it could alter it on a very localized level I'm kind of asking as a general like yeah I think the one thing about it too is when we talked about I that earlier question about you know some of the commonalities to a lot of the research there's also the issue about that separation distance you know and the previous expert talked about you know how the body decomposes and you know vertically how it you know migrates down it's kind of the same as and he used the term I hate to say this but kind of like a septic system you need to maintain a minimum separation distance state of New Jersey requires four feet it's a good number to go with some researchers go to six feet but my point is being is if the whole point of raising the elevation is to get the six foot of burial and still maintain the four feet of Separation then that sounds like a good practice and it seems kind of consistent with other things that the state of New Jersey does and how it regulates and by the way the use of monitor Wells if you put in large subsurface Disposal Systems I'm not talking about individual but if you're doing it the large type systems monitor Wells are typically required as a mechanism by which you monitor the effectiveness of those beds so I I hate drawing those parallels to the cemetery but there are a lot of parallels good Charlie um you you'd mentioned the effect of the trees on the ability of the soil to the the groundwater to drain into the soil and and the fact that that when there's trees there it slows down the absorption of the the rainwater I guess what I'm what I'm getting at is they're looking to basically clearcut the property and then put a few trees in there would it be effective to leave islands of existing trees in the property it couldn't hurt um but again a statement like that is I would feel much more comfortable if I knew how that groundwater flow moved across the site because I might identify the areas that would be more conducive than others as opposed to just willy-nilly you know affecting I mean somebody put a lot of thought into how they're laying this out so rather than just affecting it you'd want to have some sort of a basis for that thank you anybody else Mr chair if I could just make a point of clarity because so you know there's talk about the storm water report prepared by Crest and that there was not any uh soil information or testing that was done so uh any application that comes before this board has to comply with the town storm Control Ordinance and also the state stor order management rules the rules that were amended and even prior before that but the the most current rules require intensive infiltration testing and test and soil test pits that need to be done so the applicant did do six soil test pits so that's not a case boring or anything like that they actually did profile pits you know within the footprint of each one of these basins then they did do hydraulic uh conductivity testing in accordance with the BMP we had some comments in in our report about them needing to demonstrate whether they were Disturbed or undisturbed samples because that can lead to misleading results on the infiltration uh rates that are used in the hous that it would need to be rectified as a condition of any board approval should this be you know approved and go to resolution compliance um I do want to point out for the boards you know just general understanding right with the grading plan for the site you know where the plots are they're generally grass area right when you do storm water modeling there's a certain they call a curve number which is basically a measure of how permeable or impermeable surfaces you know uh good soils good grass could be be on the low range in the 30s or 40s impervious asphalt something like that's 98 so all your runoff is basically falls from the uh sky and it basically gets conveyed uh to the downstream once it's collected you know ultimately to stor water or water course so their parking areas on the site they have curbing along the Southern and Eastern portion of the parking area so any impervious surface that's generated with the site development is captured by a conveyance system and directly routed to a storm water management Basin so um that's going to be a big source of surface runoff that supplements the groundwater table that is captured and is directed to infiltration basins but you do still have a significant portion of the site that does get rainfall into the grass it does supplement the groundwater table I just wanted to make that point of clarity for the for the board's understanding thank you Charlie pleasure of the board do we want to open this to public to see if there with Mr stankin is that Dr stankin is Dr stankin available for questioning from the public yes he's here other Witnesses you have no other Witnesses Mr Jackson I was going to have my client testify uh but if you want to cross-examine Dr stankin I mean we're this witness can Dr stankin be here next meeting uh I don't know what the date is I what are we looking at for dates um October 7th I have two applications October 28th I have two applications November 4th I have one and November November 25th I have three scheduled and December 9th and 16th I have nothing 25th I might not be here myself um I I don't know what does that mean are all those dates Ava well yeah I'm not going to be here on November 4th I'll just tell you end of October Federal jury duty end of October so December December 6 of October to November 1st like I pick for federal yeah yeah we're going to do it from alen you said December 6th or 9th December 9th and 16th they have nothing scheduled yet okay God bless you thank you December 9th and 16th F clear are you clear December 9th and 16th yeah 9th and 16th works for us I I know if Mr ketchel was done being cross-examined by the public or I don't know if yes I don't know what it is the Public's witness right um go go ahead some of the public the public is there anyone else from the public that would like to question Mr Gretel gret get all right so let's open it up make a motion to open second all in favor yes Eileen we're opening to public for question the board will now be open to the public for questioning if you have a question please come up state your name and address am I they're going to have questions oh a couple hi my name is anjy Becker I live at One Maran Avenue in how New Jersey and you can swear me in are you ask question I have one question only if you're gon to ask questions you don't don't need to be sworn in unless you're giving testimony okay question no testimony I'm sorry okay um question if a cemetery is situated on a porous soil and if I heard correctly um it's sand or gravel the seit which is contains bacteria viruses organic inorganic chemical decomposition products from decomposing bodies can't it rapidly move through the soil and potentially contaminate the underlying groundwater posing a risk to water sources if not properly managed well I think one because I was I was told it was sand so now I just need to understand is this like a dual question for either witness I don't I don't know how you're doing this did either either witness either one can answer is he coming back for cross examination or I'm sorry I just why do we keep on talking about cross- examination question he keeps yeah that's the term that's what the question is yet the question is it Mr gel go please okay so from my perspective in terms of you need to have enough fluid flow and I believe this is consistent with what Dr stank said earlier Mone you need to have enough fluid flow so you're talking about a body it's it's not as if you're dumping out 55 gallon drums of water onto the ground they're going to see so it's a very slow process and that separation distance from the water table is what works to your benefit because the longer that that fluid to use a it's the grayish flu yes um stays within the sand obviously gravel it goes through quicker sand it goes through not quite as quick fine sand it goes through slower silt and clay and so forth that's called the permeability the course of the material the quicker it will go through but as it's going through you're in a Zone where there's not it's not saturated okay so you have microbes that already live there and they're going to be looking at what's going by and there's going to be a certain degree of a fixation it's what they call the Vos zone so there's gases normal pore gases that are in there that that liquid's got to get through so it's a slow process the closer you are to the water table and the more permeable the material that's the bad situation so it really depends Case by case all I can tell you is what it's going to range from but I I think to be consistent with the other testimony it's not a lot of material going through very quickly I think what you have to worry about is precipitation driving through and the precipitation coming in contact and then helping to move it through the poor spaces sand and gravel doesn't work as good as silt and Clay right and this is allegedly sand I heard okay yes so 5500 plots in a 10 acre radius and not being EMB bombed or whatever it's a decomposed body how does it not get into the drinking water of farming D well let's make a distinction between drinking water and aquifer okay all right I got so the aquifer is the resource becomes drinking water if there's a well that pulls it out okay so to the best of my knowledge from what I've seen here the only Wells that currently exist are to the north and those are to the Northwest I'm sorry and those and those are the ones that are in the upgradient direction so to simplify it they're up here the cemetery is here and what is going now but as my previous comment was that if a well pumps depending on how much it pumps okay you can hinge it and so then you can move the water back in the opposite Direction I don't have any indications to say that that's the case they're domestic Wells if it was say a municipal well that was over there pretty good chance you would be reversing you wouldn't have a problem because you'd be pumping hundreds of gallons uh per minute which is a significant amount typical residential Wells only pump a couple gallons a minute unless maybe it's an irrigation well or something like that okay so the chances under the natural conditions it's when you start moving things with the recharge and so forth and this was my point about if you actually had observation slm monitor Wells you'd know what that groundwater flow Direction actually is you could monitor over the over the you know over the course of a year you could put a logger in one of them which measures the water level you could see what happens if you know during the course of a day if somebody puts one of their Wells on if that doesn't change you're not influencing the water level so the chance of that hinge occurring isn't going to happen okay but you don't know any of that and you can only right now it's conjecture just based on distances and so forth okay thank you thank you Mr Meyer question stepen Meer 56 Adelphia Road um I don't know which of you I want to ask this of well first Mish bog Brook is called that because it's two Cranberry Bogs if you're going to make comment and statement we need to get you sworn in are you g to ask a question you g to make statement sworn the last meeting okay then you continue to be under Earth we're good okay that's why I went ahead I didn't realize you wanted to rewear me um you've spoken about the water moving through the problem is not just the wells from of mine and my neighbors the problem is also those Wetlands that are just below your property and really attached to it anything that comes through the ground now your water your water source uh your recharge area starts up in um Turkey Swamp and becomes continuous coming down through the east and by the time it gets to there you've got water moving through the soil but not necessarily part of your water table that's where we're more concerned with is that water are moving laterally through the soil picking up whatever is in it which is going to include all the drugs you're taking how are you um how do we deal with this if we find we have a problem afterwards now I'm hearing the discussion about test Wells what do you do when you find something the bodies are already in the ground you're not ever going to be able to exume a cemetery how where do you how do you deal with this Mr Jackson that question had a a lot of factual premises in it that I don't know if that's what the witness agrees with I mean there was a whole testimony about where the water comes from I yeah trying to get some background to it I don't know if any of that's accurate or not um that certainly wasn't in the testimony so far about where it originates I think we both well the water that's moving through there let's assume it comes from two lots up and from the from Evergreen Cemetery it soaks in now this question still is what do you do how do you prevent that water coming through the graves from getting into the wetlands and once into the wetlands into Marsh bog Brook so not just rainfall but anything that's coming from Upstream well you have two different things you have sheet flow and then you have uh what moves through the soil the ground flow Dr stanking sheet flow is what your pond takes care of I wouldn't expect I wouldn't expect there to be sheet flow um well of course there's going to be sheet flow rain that runs across the surface yeah but I mean it's I would not expect that to be picking up any kind of pharmaceuticals from bu we're not worried about the sheet flow the lateral flow soil right the lateral flow goes back to uh the rate of flow and what microbes are in between the point of discharge in other words if if when were to take a line of bodies and suddenly put them in a row 10 feet from the target area as opposed to 150 ft and 100 ft so you're going to have a different rate of input of the material because you're talking about uh when you're talking about residual Pharmaceuticals in a human uh it's going to be in the micro micro to parts per billion so Mr M if I could just interject and maybe rephrase the question that we've lost in this if monitoring walls get put in place yes after after the the cemetery is approved and bodies are buried and there are contaminants that come up in the monitoring walls what happens then that's the question Mr 's question I thought that was answered I don't think it was answered also what wasn't answered is what is the test type of test schedule Who's going to be testing it who's going to be keeping the records I mean you can throw test wells in I mean I can go out and I can ask somebody come in and do a boring on my property for a test well if there's nobody testing it it doesn't accomplish anything that that becomes part of the operational but I still think that the question of if you find something in a monitoring wall after the fact what happens that's the question right so I right I don't and I think Mr Myers had said he assumes that there's not going to be this Mass exam so what happens then I think that's a legitimate question and I'm not sure that you're prepared to answer it tonight we can you know obviously we're not going to finish tonight so yes it's but it that is a question that has been asked multiple times and has not been answered so are we recommending that we carry this and have that question answered I think at the next meeting I think it's an important question very important question yeah I'm up I'm up past my bedtime at this point so it's okay too us too all right thank so are we saying that that's an operations question versus a question that he can answer I don't know that that's operational to be honest agree with I think that's more Regulatory and so we've already established just to be clear that the D does not regulate this kind of issue and lsrp would not be involved in this kind of issue so I think that the offering up of monitoring this is great but who's and I think Mr Myers as asks another good question who's actually doing the monitoring and when something comes up in that monitoring what happens before okay but you do use that as a reference so Mr Meer we're not going to get that answer until December 9th I just want make sure before I went and sat down okay you got it chair I think um Mr Kel has a clarification on that that might answer that question I and because he's we we'd hope we don't have to bring him back so I I don't think the the balance of the public has had a chance to question him so I I don't necessarily think it's 20 to 11 this is way past so we're going to need to bring Mr G back okay okay so case number ba 24-3 Third Avenue Associates close the public all right let's close no I don't think we should close the public I don't think all of them got a chance we're going to leave it open carry public we're going to carry to public case number ba8 24- 03 Third Avenue Associates we're carrying this to December 9th correct first applic appliation on maybe the only application on the agenda right with an expiration date end of December we'll consent to that yes we agree stipulate extend the time period to the end of December thir 30 31 December okay okay expiration 2024 and we will continue public comments at that point in time thank you thank you good night can I have a motion second all in favor I I we're closed is now CL