three offices 10 employees so if there's a fire and all those sprinklers go on the sprinklers they probably have drains in the floor that would take the the water out and then out to the or out to the out to here probably not I don't see any pipes out to here so it's probably not there like what happens when there's a firey and all the stuff gets on the floor do you know what the stuff is well if it's a sprink the material yeah I mean what what are they storing they didn't I wonder if it is a musicer corporation that means you have to recruise yourself have a you're getting very excited here what is looks fantastic to me I say yes I could use a new amp is that extra impious coverage original pictures they didn't show many parking spes but here they show 46 yeah wow 46 parking spaces for three offices I mean I think we should probably what application did we recomend recomend that they change some of the paring spaces to impervious or perious sorry yeah we did do that but I don't remember which one right because the whole building the whole complex we did the Mathes well they say unless it could be turned into an Al space and more but if they're over right if they're over the if they're asking for a variant that might be a good tradeoff we look at the landscap allow them to go over 40% I agree we have to be specialized on we're protecting a very important Water Resource yeah one that ex all throughout County well if they get over then this has been going on for a long time every single thing that comes through is asked for a variance like that and this says electric car here I think this is the landscape plan right how much more expensive is it to put prvious pavement or it also doesn't long term it doesn't hold up what I heard as well it's like asphalt just compressed like it's Rice Krispies and then perious is just like Le compressed and more interes so it just falls apart well they do have sections of the turnpike the park bik was the bike that are perious asphalt could also use bricks but also papers the silk can fill in on those and the lifespan is they want to get down to 40% but they have 48 parking spaces parking need to be vacuumed out but then also they only recommend it right now Lanes where big trucks would come through I didn't think about the maintenance of it that's so that's another cost and it's more expensive well you don't need asphalt you can also put they have those like interlocking what they're doing like a checkerboard bricks and you just a flush curve there's a we have a parking strip in front the what's that we're going to do that with but the driveway we can't do because it's got a big tree that the routs extended we can't take it up the TR well here's the landscape yeah because in the renderings it seems like it's a quite be you know Landscaping pretty much all grass well there's three shs right there sorry guys okay n Norway is true Norway what is worth a sh your way it will that means it's not native enviral commission wants to submit something as a proposal uh and dwarf fountain grass I don't think fountain grass go so if the environmental commission wants to suggest to the council that we pass a native plant ordinance you can yeah working on it we hit we hit a road block for sure but really it's it's It's Tricky I think yeah because there's lots of things that are not native but you still want to and then also the remediation and then the enforcement like what are you responsible for if you buy a home what are you responsible for if it comes from start narrow right maybe only for that's what we were saying the last time we left it off I think we got like roll big and now we can get roll small I job development starts small and just ch a chunk it up and I don't know what this one I don't know can we provide them with a suggested list we always I don't see like theurn theg in there anywhere the nine bark is good Russ no we could just ask them to resit an entire the entire list yeah that would be a good with very interchangeable what is pharmaceutical are they manufacturing no it's fortical agriculture say maching can we just go back one second just if we do say um resubmit with native plants um retain the three natives that you have are there any other plantings we want to recommend or are we fine with what's here this the Secretary of or used to be like secretary of agriculture of the state of New Jersey so just I say hey can you call is it f in County yeah coule copies of this if you just want to write on the back of okay but this but the sightings you guys were talking about it being very very green so the sighting of what's laid out here is okay um we could recommend a little in in addition to resubmitting additional Landscaping as well I would say two I don't think they have much space here they have parking spaces here maybe setic yeah they canant setic is over here maybe maybe three here one here they can continue whatever they ultimately they start you can go in the back there's no sight line easement on this side this is neighboring property so is there a reason that it talks about the the round Stone again at the base of the river rock doesn't pack no no no but the organization I work for we do rain Gardens we never put Stone across the entire bottom we put it plants so and this is typical in a lot of the sparta storm water basement that you see around town so is there like a reason there's a in our code in our code it outlines the exact parameters should be St so something that we should be recommending as a commission that I tried to like look through all the technical details they give and I didn't follow everything but um they are very specific there's only like two I think that we as a town agree to so yeah that is definitely something I think we compare to the Ruckers the Ruckers has pretty detailed rain Garden they don't they don't do this no they do it they have the stone um and only select areas where you're going to have the water coming in yeah like a dryer R yeah because then you're losing your entire Basin where you could be using plants for yeah you know fight remediation and trying to treat the pollutants with the plant themselves so you need to overhaul the rain garden and the native plants I understood that that was a design uh design shorts SP I know the designer uh and and he said actually we told me that it's not inexpensive too expensive to use so I wonder why they're doing this is a different design do expensive use rocks too expensive to use rocks in use those those round River Rocks oh oh River Rocks are is that what they are River Rocks I mean is that you're saying St the big Stones like like oh I mean the stone cost have gotten through the roof like tripled probably in the past couple years from what we were paying but you still would need stone at the bottom of it only really no we don't use Stone we use Stone only in um like the inlet area and for the out so like there the catch Bas in the bottom you would just rock right around that like the whole bottom would be planted with plants that like the wet conditions so just erosion control yeah so that's something bigger than this application I think that we should look at because this continuously comes up in all the plants that we're seeing and Rain Gardens are going to be on plans moving forward because of the new D regulations that are prioritizing green infrastructure as a first line of defense so that's why we're seeing more applications with rain Gardens it's because of State mandates that they need to prioritize green infrastructure oh I was wondering I was going to say well that's great I'll see if I can find that I'll see if I can find the regulations again and send them to you I wasn't like digesting it but maybe if there's only three offices probably need one handicaps spot sorry it just seems to be very popular right now my neighbors are talking about oh we're going to put Riverstone in the front of our Gard you know these little townhouse Gardens and I'm like okay what about some plants too all right I made a note of that the only other thing that we usually often which I don't see two building mounted lights we get a set on a timer security closing until 7 a.m. no it's a sign all right let's make a recommendation do we have any uh for lighting do we have you guys talked about kind of what what's it called like dark dark skies dark skies and then color temperatures and stuff like that yeah we have a little blur we put at the the m and we also don't recommend leaving them on all night that doesn't make all right so I got no variance recently landscape native plants rain garden and life we what about extending the planting plan if if possible oh what was that about sorry just that everybody yeah too much lawn there should be more plantings well and then the question on your Dan's question on uh if the sprinklers go what's the dra the overall like overflow and what is the use of this Warehouse like for what products do wouldn't be part of the application that's a separate application for each thing yeah you mindful next one is but they also move W so is this the one that has station a Oh yay gosh dying for them to expand there I have yeah and the nail so it's they just kind of beautifying the outside a little bit I think the major change is the staircase it wasn't nail women's gym the other business on the floor is there two floors this yeah oh okay they're not making any change exterior changes to the to the site are they well we haven't gotten there yet I'm not sure I thought they were yeah they are making most most of it is exterior all right so that was the interior I don't think we have any comments on that demol Dem they going to some changes in here used to see in magazines where they do paintings and like this whole thing is a parking lot so it looks like they're making that smaller and making it just a path this is a parking lot here now yeah so it looks like they're taking that away well it says existing yeah but this oh look at that okay good good eyes there yeah expanding the sidewalk too oh and look yeah they're putting that staircase outside yeah that's where the increase in uh impervious cover is they were asking for a variance too no no they're decreasing 51.1 and they're going to 48.6 that's aome here's the list of plants so close no Norway spruce Norway spruce spilled wine and was like Barber it's really just a spruce and are you familiar with this one Weagle the no and no I'm not or the well it says canadensis so it's probably fine but I don't know what it is or the Pia PCF what's a common name to Norway's cruce so yeah that's no whis but again yeah what is this or yeah number seven six doing good number of plants too it says the spiled wine is um native to Asia so that's all in here yeah it's a nice you know pretty color that's why they chose it but then the service PA is nice they just so there's plenty of options there's tons of I'm saying it's nice so instead of putting service the Asian species why not just put a couple more service CS yeah and I thought there was also this oh yeah did you just duplicates they might be yeah um see if they have an environmental impact statement or anything [Music] it's warm water storm drain do they have a catch there's a catch base in the property no I think it's a sewer are they on the sewer looks like AR they on the sewer does the sewer go over in that area no why wouldn't they all I thought on another one yeah I thought another one I saw a septic I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure just but I don't remember because I I live in that area I don't remember seeing a c Bas or Gard or anything CCH Bas so they're installing no they're existing oh the cor there there there so 7-11's here oh I guess this is a green yeah yeah but there's there no base in there right there's not there's no depression imp one that's probably pre-existing and probably not allowed today although that that apartment building that did have the septic underneath park it did or was a water stage water it's water storage yes yeah that was for um storm water overflow did we see this one already yeah it was like 90% in prvious well they were using a lot of the property for parking building I remember when I came up with the um the Captiva they had uh had old Underground storage for storm water like how much storm water if you had your 100e storm 50e storm how how much storm water can you possibly hold under underground it didn't make any sense yeah the new application is like that also it is yeah plus it's all underr they have a filtration system underneath there and they're required to clean it you know so often interesting yeah and tested if I recall it was like a brand new te ology the drainage they were put You' seen it before it up you saw this already any other comments questions so far what I have is but there's no storm water capture system just the water I'm sorry the native plants we want to add something about these existing catch Bas I don't think I thought it was the same it might say catch basins but I don't I mean the Basin is a depression right I don't think there's a depression there it's the one we already saw they sent a bunch of duplicates but that's a question right they not that they're doing major major changes but and I thought I saw somewhere oh they were just saying storm drainage structures and pipes are they shown upstairs should be sort of mitigation isn't this what we saw before storm sum here's the property that's the front there that's that's there's no there's no base in there stop it's just yeah I I my bike there almost every day there's really no place to this is a big slope in the front but there's no storm water they're improving the impervious but is there any you guys try to like since you're changing can you bring it even lower and put in some storm water proper storm water management yeah so just direct the gutters to here maybe or so if this were developed into can we tell people to add those big catch fa I we can it doesn't have to be big I mean it just but has to be big can't tell anybody doing I know I'm just I'm just wondering if it has to do with just the size of the drain off area when one is proposed and when one is not because a ketchup Basin really could be anything right it could just be a tank under the ground that the street you know drains into and then releases but I don't know what all the definitions are well it shouldn't be a tank because you want to use vegetation you know no but I'm saying not a big swell not a big um rain Garden situation I don't think stor yeah okay and I'm not saying one should be over another it's just I'm confused about when one is proposed and when one is not because there's tons of places that don't have them and don't put them in even when they're developing new areas so it does have something to do with the size of a lot and the cup like there there is a New Jersey I think there's a New Jersey law that says you have to keep storm water on your property and so if your impervious coverage is low you probably have enough prvious area for it to just melt away but as it impervious coverage increases then you need to some way to capture it before it runs off to somebody else's property so you would capture that with a with a bowl and you fill up bowl with plants and let water drain there and hopefully just so they add added locations for catch Basin can just actually put a catch Bas in there provide more detail as to is what they mean yeah it says they they have type A and type B but I don't know what that is maybe those are in there paperwork one two three four no these are existing yeah these are existing this is the new one right but that doesn't mean they're we still want to know no no no yeah I'm just saying like these are exist yeah they're not adding them right still it would be good to know because they're still over yeah they're slightly they're over the impervious coverage they were 51 and the cing 48 or something oh and the standard is 40 catch that part 51.1 48.6 so to me it would be it wouldn't be unreasonable to kind of say Dan's pointing out there's there's this great potential spot here and then there's this well what's what's there but there's trees there so could this be developed into something to capture some of that storm water and this side is a big slope it's probably 8 feet or so you could I mean you can use the front of that as well if you wanted to where's Wood Road oh here yeah you go up here here's the um here's the 7-Eleven here's the hardware store Goa so it says here that the plan shows roof drains being connected to the existing storm drainage system in the parking lot parking to help eliminate two parking lots so I think it's over here yeah as we said there's no depression there so it's nothing to catch water yeah that would be a recommendation actually I think the rubber band goes on it [Music] first try to put back me but I often don't manage to do it exactly these are so many effec great um thank you everybody for your comments and looking at the plans um next item is public comment and we have nobody from the public present um reports who wants to go first I I don't have a report okay yeah M me Dan okay um couple things I I can talk about real quick uh next council meeting is the this coming Tuesday I believe there will be two items of note on the council um the budget uh will which was um introduced and subsequently amended once I think we'll get a vote on Tuesday but I um I haven't seen the agenda yet but I think that's up um we are asking for a after eight years of no Municipal increase said we are asking for a small Municipal increase this year um and uh mostly due to hiring and our CBA contracts that we renewed um the um I believe also on the agenda would be uh the um hearing for the short-term rental agreements uh again I haven't seen the agenda but I think that what I understand that would be up um other than that the uh I'm meeting with representatives from Greece tomorrow which is kind of cool I'm excited about start planning our 2026 possible convention here uh and the last thing I'll note is uh the next meeting of the Revolution NJ committee is next Monday uh we uh did meet with the state committee a couple of weeks ago and our Municipal committee was trying to focus on the colonial Revolutionary War period as a place to study because that's what we thought um was about uh what the state committee sort of advised us instead was the the point and not every town has Revolutionary War history sport it doesn't really have Revolutionary War history not or not much uh but the point of the Revolution NJ program is to sort of highlight the Arc of history as it pertains to your town or your municipality and so don't think broad don't think or think broader than just Colonial period how does the how does this is a celebration of Sparta's history over the last 250 years so uh we might come back to the table with some other ideas we had some good ideas before but we might rethink that uh one of the things that we might try to highlight is some uh Trails uh in town um that are have some historic significance we talked about I think the Milton tunnel last time we met um connecting that to the Edison properties might be an interesting Endeavor U and there are other Trail uh opportunities historical Trail opportunities so um we'll talk about that on Monday and uh that's all I got nice yeah um let's see the the um Pak plan endorsement advisory um committee met last week and we're planning on we had in uh a couple of weeks ago we had a joint presentation um so we presented uh our statements to the public and we're planning on having another one coming up sometime in the next few months the master plan advisory committee we were supposed to meet uh but we had to post we were supposed to meet next week I believe it was postponed till June I attended the sustainability Summit uh last Friday in hell for uh sustainable Jersey and that was a great event uh I saw some a lot of interesting things there I took a bunch of pictures but I haven't had a chance to compile them but um one of the uh sessions I attended was on food waste and I know Dan has done a lot of um research in this area but maybe we can talk about that at a later dat okay I don't know if there's anything new that you might not be aware of or just to build enough a little bit so when we when I was exploring it a couple years ago we had met with schuma um to see if there was a program there nothing really materialized from those discussions uh I did have a meeting with the people from Newton they towned administrator manager and um people that were managing the program and Newton Newton had just implemented a program um their program was a thin at this time rather voluntary uh people would bring stuff to a collection place um uh and it's hard to bring food waste to a collection place cuz you got to put in your car and hope it doesn't spill and all those things um my next route was to try to work with um a choice is it I haven't contacted them yet um but I bet you there's um smart people there and that might be able to figure something out um but anyway I guess the the point is uh it seemed like a hard nut to crack yeah well um the Newton School was highlighted as uh one of the places they're they're uh they're processing their food waste good have a a dehydrator oh really went when on the school so there yeah there might be something new I'll I'll go through my notes and talk about it later that's interesting I briefly spoke with the representative from the school years ago mentioned it you know because that seemed like you know it's a it's a should be an easy collection point for food waste right um nothing came of it unfortunately but um maybe it's time to revisit that the Florence uh Bird School in Andover is another place that's doing uh food waste but what do they do with the food waste after they collect it they I think they work with a choice uh I I have to go through my notes again okaying that up again there right now there's only two organizations in town that are obligated to recycle food waste according to the laws that were impact implemented two years ago requiring businesses of a certain size and and and the only two businesses that qualified were um shop right and Stop and Shop so there's another option might be to partner with them since they already have a process the problem is how do you keep the the stream clean that's another thing we couldn't figure out right you know somebody throws rappers in there and stuff and how do you somebody going to pick them all out so in anyway they were just it was too hard of a problem to solve and I wasn't smart enough to solve it but they they have some good educational uh programs as at the school they start the kids out young uh learning to do that and make it a a challenge I guess well let's let's talk about that you you know at some point again saw a bunch of um electric vehicles or electric front end loader um and also I believe that the state is providing grants to municipalities to help with the purchase of uh EVS some towns like the town of Patterson has uh has a lot of uh EVS now on their Municipal I had brought that idea up with the town manager a couple times just as we replace Vehicles because we do that quite often in town and we have a lot of vehicles we drive them a lot uh especially police cars we we get one or two a year um the problem with police cars have become very very expensive uh to fit to outfit um and so um electric vs police call it even more so um and the other thing is our police our police vehicles are almost continuously being driven um right so um yeah it it might not work for for those but for for but for other vehicles yeah um we'd have to have a charger here which we already do I don't know if it's a fast charger here but um is that a public charger or is yes it's a public charger yeah might be a good idea um I'll go through the through the uh funding opportunities that the state provides okay because they have some new programs I think yeah if you find a program that they would there's a grant to to um to purchase an electric vehicle even if it'll chop the price down to be the equivalent of a uh a gas vehicle right I think that would be helpful yeah if you got thanks anything else no okay um op space planning we um have our next meeting um with just the committee next week um and we have two dates for the next tour one is next week and then two weeks after that um we're only going to do the next tour one time I think Dan you're going it was Thursday I think it's I think it is Thursday but I'd have to double check the timing okay um does that not work anymore um I do have surgery schedule for Wednesday on my knee I might be hobbling but um was supposed to be lot this week and now it's next week so um okay well I'll give it my best shot and if it rains I think it is supposed to rain actually yeah exactly then you get more time oh thanks okay um but we are moving along with that and last time we had answered a bunch of a bunch of questions about um our purpose and the reason for needing an open space plan Etc and I did share those with her them also as well as the link to the actual meeting so they can hear the discussion um public hearing is June 13th still June 13th and um I did come to the town council meeting to the yeah Town Council and announced it the other week when we got the um Proclamation for uh Arbor J oh yeah and and um Christine Costco is going to be sharing the invitation with all the other committees and stuff and the flag yeah the flag look great can you share the invitation with everyone here so we can distribute it as well yes absolutely thank you all right next item is road salt testing update yes um I do have something to share with everyone uh what I took Christine Rogers advice and I um looked at the bottom at the data for each of the sites uh there were actually in terms of the number of sites I counted approximately 20 sites that we monitored uh in Sparta and collectively we took 60 readings and I believe that we uh covered not all five watersheds but possibly three I'm not I'm not quite sure uh about the senal lake but I'd like um you all uh who participated to take a look at this if you if you put in data and you don't see your location and your data here let me know because we want to add it perhaps it just went to the food shed side or the general salt watch site so um take a look and also take a look at it please for what um would be accuracy also and then also we need to be thinking about how we would like to present this data um on our website and share it with the community yeah um I we have working on the I'm working on the on the summary for this so I already yeah I already have something written but I will confirm with this data if this is accurate and then I will I will have this ready awesome thank you I shared with you the draft press release that I started right right no okay I can send it to you okay yeah okay um anything else on salt watch I think we got them all down here oh I'm sorry Neil didn't get one okay um Sparta Glenn arba Day event um yeah so the event went really well it was a couple days after Kim and I had gone to the town council meeting and we received the proclamation so that was really nice um it's a nice framed copy that we can share with all of you but on the day of the event we had 41 Sparta Middle School students who ended up coming so in that last week before the event there was a a change um where the high school was not coming so we worked with Cara Johnson and Dr Wilson um who's the science supervisor and kind of scrambled to get a big enough group from the middle school but so they were all Middle School seventh graders um from Cara Johnson's team and um we had different stations like we had talked about uh New Jersey Highlands Coalition did the hike up the trails in the Glenn we did um trees for for storm water like that discussion was led by my boss at the walkill river Watership Management Group and measuring a section of impervious surface to calculate the amount of runoff that would come off of um that paved area and how much would be collected by the trees that are being planted we had a representative from the New Jersey invasive species Strike Team talking about invasives um and then the americore New Jersey wers Ambassador for the Walk Hill Watershed collected live macroon vertebrates from the Glen Brook so that was a student favorite um they had a good time kind of looking through the trays of the live insects and then on the day of the event we had forest fire service Dropout uh I got an email in the morning that there was a forest fire so he was not coming so I hopped in and did the fourth station and I brought that big envir Escape model that I brought last year to our Earth Day event so did kind of an interactive um Hands-On display with talking about how pollution gets into our waterways um so by the end of the day we had 150 trees planted in the Glenn so if you go and you walk through the site you'll see our plantings we left it was a combination of containerized and bar root trees which are just be root would just be a tree without any pot of soil around it and we kind of covered from that main parking lot where the portapotty are up the hill um to really Target some of the areas that had lost the mo most trees from the emerald ashb so it was a really good event I pulled together a picture slideshow that we can take a peek at um that Christine has posted for us so this is just pictures of all the different stations so I took everyone's pictures that they sent me and compiled a bunch of them together just to get a sense for those who weren't there of what the day was like so we had um kind of an intro in the beginning some members of the environmental commission were there as well as um the director of the as part of um Parks and Recreation did you send me that picture yeah remember mhm yeah Town Council uh Dean spoke come on freezing up an En thring picture why you're working on that I just want to recognize Christine Rogers for an amazing amazing job all the hard work thank you so much I'm sure the kids appreciated it yeah I think they had a fun fun day it and it was a lot of like on the flly a little bit of chaos the bus was late but we did good adjusting as it always happens right only one school mhm we need to come up with some of award ceremony at the end of the year well as we're waiting for that to switch I can just say that um oh all right perfect sorry we can flip through the pictures this is still as we were all waiting for the bus a there [Laughter] superar that's the Talking Rock yeah the Talking Rock uh de Dean gave an overview of the original Glenn Brook project that took place in 2016 Dan was there greeting everyone Kim with Kim asking what high school students might want to be on the [Laughter] environment oh neat look at that yeah so this was the macro invertebrate stations and why this was part of the event is because there's a direct connection between water quality and the type of macro vertebrates you're finding so by shading the brook we're helping to cool the water temperature and that's going to improve the conditions for the macro vertebrates do you have permissions from the school to publish the yeah in case you understand them yeah yeah what grade was it again CHR uh seventh grade so it was a seventh grade student life science students that's the station where they were starting to measure the the parking lot there's the envir Escape model so this shows for those of you who haven't seen it how I put cocoa powder on it and spray it to represent the rainfall and it shows how the pollution gets into the stream like a watered yeah it's a watershed model yep invasive Strike Team New Jersey Highlands Coalition with their hike seems like it was a beautiful day too it was wonderful and then the whole afternoon was the planting and the the hiking so the kids had a good time they look like they really were doing it too yeah they were well that site is so Rocky that you like we needed to have pickaxes there as well for some of the tricky holes but yeah and you'll see in the gland if you go and and walk through it those are some of the tree tubes that were installed on some of the the smaller Tre so oh very nice y nice I'm jealous I couldn't come now yeah it was a good event It came it all worked out in the end um so the last part of that and Grant that we have is the signage um which is supposed to educate about their emerald dashbo and the destruction of causes and then also the planting so this is something that I've been you know working on trying to acknowledge the different partners who were involved so this is kind of the draft sign where it's at right now so we just need um I already got permission from the organizations that were involved in the event so we just need I'm going to need an updated Township logo just that's a little bit higher resolution um so that it prints nice and crisply but that's really the last piece is the the signage that will be installed and uh the parks and wreck department is going to help um get it installed for us they choose a place is it by where the Rock The Talking Rock is or is I don't know they didn't yeah they didn't specify exactly where they want it to be so you know I should mention um the township has an arrangement with tap into Sparta to submit press releases okay so if you want to press releas ify that or anything else in the future you know um let me know and I can we can connect you and get that out great I like this a lot yeah I should have mentioned the rain barrel press release went out this week I saw it okay yeah I did I did see that yeah somebody who's good at editing should definitely read every word and make sure just just because yeah have a second eye right all right yay thank you so much for next year's Arbor Day um I always thought it would be nice to give out plants for the public is that something we can get on somebody's weight list uh like some is there some group that would make available a thousand I don't know I I know that the I think it was the state had a program um for third grade right it's a certain grade I think it might be third graders that they general public like I'd love to go and I don't I've never heard there that was like you can pick up I think I mentioned that at one point and then I looked it up and it's program doesn't exist anymore it was in Florida it was in New Jersey it was and you would just go show your license and you choose from five native species whatever they had bare Roots we can also reach out to the Native Plant Society and see if they do really inexpensive ones they probably wouldn't do it for free free right yeah maybe as a fundraiser uh a fundraiser or um or forget the expensive ones just anything that um just to get shade are you talking trees or you talking any kind of native plant you're talking trees yeah specifically yeah but little yeah so I think we last time that I saw it it was flowering dogwood service Berry and the only program I know of is that there's the state nursery and they just charge like a dollar a tree it's not it's not free it's just cheap but if we had something in a parking lot I'm yeah somebody comes in with a thousand trees or whatever first come first serve like I can ask around or we can all ask around okay ask that for next year great all right um any else on that all right that was it thank you thank you Sparta day any updates on Sparta day to share or anything we need to talk about um no I have a I have reserved two models from an Jack that we could have at our table um and we have the site secured um I have brochures that an Jack gave us that um correspond with our models and I guess at some point I just need to know a little more details about who's going to be at the table when so we can schedule it a little bit and make sure know one person is stuck there without a a relief spell um and that's really it we should have one more meeting before then right yeah okay all right wonderful um at some point maybe we could distribute these for folding that would be fun but not yet okay all right last item on Old business was the municipal tree replacement ordinance oh I contacted the DP I'm waiting for the response okay they usually take times so when I when I have it from them I will I will I will uh let everyone know what they say thanks Barbara Bar um just so everybody knows Barbara um agreed to take the lead on that um revision there so thank you Barbara all right um new business so every June for the especially for the new folks the environmental commission um submits an annual report to the town Council um the um report contains not only all the applications re-reviewed from either the zoning board the planning board it contains all the membership information of the commission the environmental commission um how many meetings we've had um with the dates of the meetings but then it also includes a whole list of any extra things that we also did um so we're already at like two and a half pages at this point a little bit more um I'll send out a draft um I've been keeping a running list of all the different things that we've done so pretty much anything that ended up on an agenda is already on there but if you know of something and I'm going to add that you attended that meeting too because I had forgotten that one um if there's any trainings that you went to that maybe um I happened towards the end of last year that I might miss or new folks any training that you went to this year please let me know um and then it should be pretty complete and I can share it the draft next meeting with everybody any feedback I found it's much easier to keep a running list the whole year than to try to recreate it like in June what the heck did we do right yeah okay the other new business is Japanese not weed and um over the years I've Just Seen It Grow along the roadways and what happens at least my understanding of Japanese knotweed is that when you mow it or cut it it causes its root system to go into overactive mode and then it grows faster um also it doesn't take much of a piece of a Japanese knotweed to start growing somewhere else I've heard I've never I don't know if this is entirely true but I've heard that a fingernail size of Japanese knotweed a piece of it can spread it down the roadways so at least what I'm seeing in my neighborhood is that it's slowly started from one little patch like five years ago and now it's just when the mowers come in to um mow the streets now it's just spreading right down the road um and it's slowly getting into the wetlands next to next to the road too so thoughts on approach um what kind of conversations or what other ideas do folks have um I have oh inv oh here Christine has something we need to have hold an invasive species removal day like the one that's occurring this Saturday at the Blair Creek preserve that you're all invited to oh nice a lovely way to spend the day for Mother's Day with loppers and long sleeves and hats and bug spray out getting rid of the Japanese knotweed and all these other this is very lovely pictures of Barberry and multif Flor Rose and um Autumn Olive but um but that's that could be if there was some specific area that we is very noticeable just focused on the Japanese not weed of course you'd find lots of other invasives there too yeah you know we could dig them out especially after all this rain that's made the soil nice and soft and easy to pull yeah can commit if we could find a way to commit to a particular site over um like three entire Summers you really can of eradicate it by pulling it's really uh I don't think that that's true that the um energy goes into the root system they do spread they have Runners but you can actually exhaust the root system by constantly um pulling them and I think what the mowers are like you're saying they're sort of spraying the um plant material everywhere so it does spread by mowing but it's not actually it's not necessarily the underground roots that are making it happen um but when you do extract uh you just have to be really careful with the debris and make sure it's disposed of in in a proper way like dried out like burnt or you know bagged up um something like that and it does take a lot of person power but it's totally doable I've done it at three different sites that are really still awesome um and my only suggestion for that is to like activate the green team in a different way and like put maybe like bri Valley does like once a month on the calendar like a volunteer project for the town um but I don't know how we would go about that with the Parks Department um if they would help uh or or if they would host I was going to say just the same thing we had you know we talked about this a couple meetings ago we have a green team but what do we do with them here's a perfect example of what we can do with them uh you said as you said pick a project pick an area um pick a date uh I think the DPW will give you you know safety vests and bags and whatever and spend three hours knock yourself out if there is like a certain public location where it's bad I can also get the like high school a Colley Club to join in on it that's not like a difficult thing we could just do that after school so but that would only work if it's like a certain public place because we're not going be able to go to like a random neighborhood yeah and then we'd have to still just coordinate with the DPW they would just have to know when you're out and how they want the debris left and then they could come by and pull it we have a green team captain I think if we not I would suggest having somebody in the commission as the captain of the Green Team oh that's a good idea so they have a central point of contact if they need and yeah go to like your Army Reserve this is these the guys I can call it the reserve yeah exactly okay um let's think about some of those ideas and we can do yeah thank you Christine pass those around all right any other new business um I just wanted to add that the this Saturday the Sussex County Municipal Utilities Authority is doing an event called recycle more and the whole idea is to encourage people to understand that you can recycle more items by visiting um the recycling center in Lafayette then you can you know just putting out your recycling curb side so in addition to the recycling that you know the pick up on our street you can also go to the scmua in Lafayette on Route 94 and you can bring styrofoam plastic bags boat shrink wrap is a new program um that started this year clothing and shoes and textiles Electronics lithium batteries um cooking oil and used oil and antifreeze and they're also going to have a a number of those are all free programs and then there's going to be some pay to recycle events as well including document shredding hard drive shredding car batteries propane tanks wood pallets tires rigid plastic and appliances wow that was something I I learned at the sustainability Summit I didn't realize you had a styrofoam res recycling operation there I I should have known that take to throw out these huge it's a whole bag full of Styrofoam you can Appliance no we take it down there that's great and then they convert it into it's densified and it's converted into either picture frames or the molding that is found on like cruise ships so it does get reused for a good purpose good anything else all right do I have a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion to adjourn second and Christine second all in favor I hi all right thank you meeting adjourned yay Playground now right I want to read make sure