##VIDEO ID:W_uiCBH_eFg## like I watched my Council presentation on Greece sorry all right Town welcome to the township of Sparta environmental commission meeting for Thursday September 26 2024 the meeting is called to order at 7:02 we are live in the council chambers at the municipal building and also live streaming at www.youtube.com um adequate notice of this meeting was provided to the public and the Press on January 5th 2024 by delivering to the press and posting on the township website a copy of the notice um roll call please Christine councilman Danielle Sherell I'm here chairwoman Kimberly Noel here Vice chair Neil sarwin here Christine dumbar Ted Gul here Christine Rogers Linda Tower Barbara kazaka here Landon tener here robertto John Gro here please join me in the salute to the flag pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation liy and justice for thank you um we have no minutes to approve we did get at the last moment two correspondence items one is um regarding the rivers con conference it's the sixth annual Northwest New Jersey rivers conference it's going to be October 18th uh from 8:30 a.m. till 4:30 at Centenary University um it is all about water our Rivers um the lakes and streams of Northern New Jersey and the highlands region um it they're going to talk about the pressures of climate change extreme weather and new forms of pollution that are affecting the Region's ability to provide clean and abundant water to the people who need it um so if anyone's interested in signing up for that did anyone of our Here sign up for it yet do we know if going not yet sorry I think Christine Rogers is going definitely I'm going to You're Gonna Go to I went last year it was wonderful I thought Chris Dunbar usually goes too right she's in the water yes yes she was there but I know Christine Rogers said she was going yes all right if you guys could let us know how it is that'd be great the second piece of Correspondence that we got is regarding the Sussex County Farmland preservation plan meeting that's coming up on 10:21 at 7:30 they're inviting everybody to the first public meeting on update on the 2008 comprehensive Farmland preservation plan the public is encouraged to attend and participate we want to hear the thoughts on Farmland preservation within Sussex County um there'll be a brief presentation as well as update our plan and time for public comment members of the County Agricultural Development board and planning staff will be available to answer questions um so yes it's going to be at the commissioner meeting room at the county administrative Center at Spring Street in Newton on and Monday October 21st at 7:30 so I think I'll definitely go there I don't know if anybody else is available to attend i g try yeah I'm G try too thank you all right that was the two pieces of Correspondence um next thing is an application we have one application to look at um this one is I think for a restaurant that is over by Sparta Pharmacy so um if everybody wants to meet down there really I think so's empty space there by find yeah yeah behind it yeah I I didn't realize that was there it's a new building you're saying no it's a new building it's behind it I I I I took a look when I drove by today I never noticed before but there's a big there used to be like a nutrition store there okay yeah but the hair salon moved too yeah used to be no that was to the side okay actually let's move that this to the side there we go all right amended site plan I mean if I recall they're not adding they're not doing much to it so where are we okay this is that's SP of un this church that is okay so it's this way this is Town here's the there's a job line yeah and there's another building besides support of Pharmacy the same building it's the same building oh I didn't know there were two tenants in there yeah there's three tenants wow yeah so this is the existing Pharmacy parking where do you pull in oh they're in the back yeah realize Y no looks like there's two yeah the salon is vacant and the the nutrition store behind is vacant that's right yeah in here you're right that's it and so I think it looks like they're taking the salon space and the nutrition store space interesting I wonder what kind of restaurant I hope it's Indian Indian and for vegan small vegan yes that's when we need vegan we need a vegan restaurant the same like the same yeah doesn't look like they're changing the parking W some to say they have how many spaces my at like 12 it's always crowded in that par oh no here's more so they have got 15 but those are the those are the pharmacy parking spots take employees parking yeah you're going to needy five or six employees seven employees yeah there's this parking this parking this parking that's it okay so I don't think there's any parking back here does it suggest 22 spaces how many employees are going to be in a building like that three for the far two let's say two for the phy park because at least seven or eight for the restaurant you know busing waiter dishes um Cooks so you got you got 12 spots right there yeah and you can't expand here you can't expand here is it take out the change what is it oh yeah do you remember what it did what kind of food it was yeah they're not gonna have a huge amount of tables it looks like so then there are 32 total spaces looks like much better oh look there this is where they're going to have entry I don't know the name of the placez they might disturb a little I can is that the original yeah so now they're two spots is that line the original looks like and then that's gravel now there that's what they're adding it's this like little section but still I think they were call RA Turkish Grill Turkish Mediterranean restur they say it's going to be a take mostly a takeout real are know disturb yeah we found it on that one they're adding parking spes doesn't look like it looks like it's just a gravel space oh this is sewer here right it's sewer here this is the survey sewer map it's got to be sewer let me see what the other Maps where's the looks like there's a grade mhm all right this is the seating plan we don't care about that here retain oh retaining find the sewer fuel is that what that say can't read might be better to read because the section in question this is still the front is back here this is the new Park area so it's a drain it's not for a sewer Christine dumbar just texted me and said that the applicant will continue to provide testimony from the architect and owner on October 2 October they were they they revised the those areed one 2014 that's just a survey right just a survey but they yeah so they're asking variances minimum rear yard they're going to it's required 60 feet and they want it to be 55 feet minimum side yard it's required 10 feet and they want it to be 5.3 they need as much parking as they can do yeah looks like they are removing trees over here right unless that's canopy um and they're going to increase the inous coverage is what increase the imperious coverage much to 71.7 from what 40 40 is what's required and they want to move it 71 little it looks like they're they're more than 40 right now I know I don't understand so 40 yeah because it's p here the back already has some Paving and I think gravel is also technically yeah impervious yeah because is the only section that has grass yeah there's no way this is 40 right now yeah so they must have had another variance before which gave them something over 40 this property has any affiliation why is it for driveway guess yeah there is yeah that's our property but I think they show both because they have access both of them yeah what's up here is up here yeah but this this is not the easement for um that apartment that's over here right or even over there from the but something else somebody else owns this that was years ago and then they sued us when we denied them and then they try to sounds familiar yeah it's an old song it many all right here's here's that piece that I found they were Den right before the captivo was first oh so um I did not do a an interactive summary of the huh I check like I Che wet I Che nothing right the only thing was the tanks that were on the side used to be the gas station like years ago gas and they're still there and I don't know because on the on the data Miner at the D it says duplicate so we would have to contact the regarding I'm I'm assuming they remove them was here because that was actually neighbor mind when I was growing up and they they they took his property through domain to cut make the cut off through I think so this was the oh maybe they this road here wasn't here before when I was in school gas I can't remember the gas station was it was like Auto rep that was not there when I was W took they compensated exactly oh yeah all right so you did you did the ER or I don't so the this is now going to be one tenant and this is one tenant so no longer three yeah just two tenants because the restaurant's taking over all those spaces oh is it like two two separate restaurants that's what I thought oh no it's just no oh I get okay I two just yeah but it's odd right because I don't think you're I guess that's why they have this entrance here probably to connect yeah I mean look the restaurant's not really connected they say it's Take Out restaurant but they have a lot of tables total seating 20 for Park restur see I don't get how they get over here here here's the entrance to this yeah but how do this one connect to this are like completely opposite sides like look yeah they're going to go outside wait so you back this is a kitchen this is utility area these are bathrooms yeah so you can't you're not going to go through here go through the bathroom just yeah my college door in my freshman year you walk through the bathroom they get to one section for how do how do you so there's these are not m female they're just two separate bathrooms for I don't get it so how do they serve food they they pass food through the through the bathroom there's G to be a host stand here and a host stand here so here's what she said Yep they're not asking for any impervious cover waiver employee parking in back needs to be striped along with restriping all around the building we need to know how many seats in both restaurants I understand there will be two restaurants that's Christine dumbar oh yeah restaurant One Restaurant two must she watching us and texting is she watching us she watching us she's in California watching us everybody wave that makes so much more sense the same name restaurants they' got to be two different ones two restaurants they're adding the extra parking I don't know that's interesting isn't it yeah they have and two two kitchens back of house kitchen area back of house kitchen area expanding any build just park yeah yeah it even according to Chris they just going to rest stripe it so it's it looks like it's already there just so what's the what are we supposed to comment on I don't know I guess there's nothing com guess we have no comment um but now Dory likes us to send a memo even if we have no com yeah right yes definitely wish them Lu I'm glad those empty spaces are getting fed yeah F when I was inart the same size guess you guys do I guess they go out every Burger King and McDonald's and Chinese on my camera should we don't eat like maybe though all those apartments don't have kitchens I didn't see any I guess I didn't see any fast food stuff when I was there wow they have good food must be typing again okay next section is public comment we have no members of the public here um so moving on to reports uh Dan you want to go first sure and I want to make sure that I I my comment before about the restaurants who were made Tong tongue and cheek I love our our fast food restaurants in town I frequent them often so since we're on public record I want to retract that um um so um what is related to um to this committee uh what's going on at the to we did uh an ordinance for parking uh we restricted parking to one side of the road in North Village that was a safety issue that the residents there had brought to the uh attention of the township and um so we were acting on that um the other ordinance we also passed or we introduced was oh a um it was bringing us in bringing us in line with the new state regulations on flood plane um flood plane regulations uh so that was the other ordinance that passed I don't think any other is that in regards to when you're buying a home you have to get that flood plane report plus when ever you're doing construction in this in the in a on a house or on a property that that is in a flood plane there's certain uh other land use ordinances that you have to land use laws that you have to abide by so this ordinance that we're introducing brings us up to State Standards which recently changed I I think at the next meeting we're going to introduce uh cannabis ordinance to allow certain cannabis businesses in town I don't know exactly what the final product of the product meaning ordinance says but there are seven different types of cannabis businesses grow grower distribution wholesalers you know and there's a bunch of others seven in total and at the township level at the municip at the municipal level you can determine which zones these would be which which businesses in which zones of which quantity so you can say specifically I would I would only like two retailers in this Zone and this many growers in this in these zones or whatever so the it's it's um it's very specific as to what they offer and I think that first reading is going to come up at the next meeting uh ideally this would come first before the planning board because that's what the planning board's day job is to determine what gets built where uh but um that is a long process and so we want to sort of get ahead of it and there's actually a catch 22 the plan we had we have an existing ordinance at the municipal level that says that um uh there's no cannabis businesses of any kind allowed anywhere in Sparta we passed that 4ish years ago right around the time that the state passed the regulations or right around the state the state constitution was P was was amended and within months we passed that ordinance so right now the planning board had told us that well we can't do anything because you made it all um you know not illegal but you know not allowed and so we were like well will you tell us what to do and they're like well you you've said they nothing allowed so we're in this sort of Catch 22 so I think this kind of breaks that okay um so I guess my point is that once the planning board starts looking at the master plan we could make amendments this is just sort of our first uh pass at it uh what else uh I um I wanted to ask about the oh we talked about the minutes earlier uh we are as a at a municipal level we are backlogged on our minutes for many of our committees including this one so we're trying to get caught up and we talked about ways to sort of speed that process along and so I think we're uh over the next couple of months I think we'll make some good progress there uh I wanted to get an update on the Green Team but I see that's going to be uh next on the agenda and then um there was an ordinance that we were circulating around for the tree tree removal Ordinance do you know where we are with that yeah the next step is to send it to well actually have a meeting with Jim and review it so we just need to schedule that I did read it again I didn't read every word of it but I read uh a lot of it I do have some concerns and one of the things I want to make sure that we ident we document or at least um note for ourselves is what we're what our overarching thing that we're trying to accomplish here because it seems on the surface very aggressive like unless I read it wrong that every every time where're a tree is removed that's over six inch dyam I think it was that we have to have a permit that sounds hard to police uh and it sounds actually quite aggressive and uh I I found myself thinking about like what's what are we trying to accomplish and on the surface I can guess that we we don't want people to come and clear cut trees I think there were already ordinances existing that addressed that um and that's why I got confused as to you know sort of a sort of a mission statement what what this is trying to accomplish and I think once we come up with that to hold up that ordinance against that mission statement I think that might provide a little bit more clarity anyway those are just some comments I thought of while I was reading it um had some concerns I don't think in its present form that the council would have a lot of appetite to pass something that aggressive um that's why I'm trying to think of let's let's take it back to the to the roots like what are we what are we trying to accomplish here and then let's hold it up to see if that's actually accomplishes it and U maybe there's something some middle ground or middle ground's the wrong word but um uh make sure that we we paint it in that light um I think that's all um I can offer oh yes that was quite a um so we had a resident that had expressed concerns about the AO polymer site this is the super fun site by the By The Station Park and there was a lot of there was some discussions in online forums and otherwise about the safety of that area um we had commissioned eal Sciences to review the the the state reports that are regularly generated from the testing that regularly goes on on that site because it's still an active site that the EPA the federal level um monitors uh the report uh came back and we distributed that report there's still seem to be that didn't seem to quell the interest or discussion in it so at the last meeting on Tuesday we did bring two people from the EPA from the federal EPA coming from New York state to discuss the concerns or discuss the process and the concerns with the with the public if I had to summarize U the I want to say it was like 35ish years ago I can't remember exactly when when the EP when the at first it sat with the D at the state level for a while uh and then uh at some point the federal EPA got involved and uh took uh took remediation by action by removing the source contamination and then doing as much cleanup as they could and then during the process they sunk 30 something monitoring wells around to assess the extent of the the plume or the damage from the uh contam mination um so the one thing I learned was that this there are there are no Technologies existing that can clean the site um better than 300 parts per billion and this is 300 drops in a billion drops which is about the size of a 10,000 gallon pool so it's it's these are very small numbers we're talking about so they they cleaned it uh down to 300 parts per billion the safe uh range for drinking water is between one part per billion for for the types of chemicals that are that we're talking about here and 100 so we started out after after the um after the remediation to 300 and we have to go down from 300 to get to the one to 100 range Beyond one they can uh up when it gets lower than one then they they consider it finished so um what they're um as they sunk these these Wells over time some of the wells stopped registering any detectable levels at all for these chemicals so they stopped after a couple of months of zeros they stopped monitoring those Wells and the plume actually you know got smaller because the um the you know the the concentration was was had dissipated um so um they're right now on average it sounded to me like they're still in the 150 160 170 parts per billion so still very low but but still beyond the one to 100 range to continue to monitor now from one reading to the next sometimes you'll get a little variance it doesn't continuously go down you might get an off reading uh it'll spike a Spike spike is like going for 170 somebody mentioned one rating was like 220 parts per billion but the next time could be 112 so as long as you see the trend line going down you're fine so you could have individual little mini spikes along the way um and um so what's what's the assessment is now that everything is seems to be exactly as they would uh as they had planned on removing the source contamination so the the contamination is not growing anymore because we removed the source so the uh and and nature is now taking its course one thing I'll also mention is that the it's we're they're concerned about of about groundwater and Vapor only in uh the well the groundw and they are only concerned about vapor in enclosed structures like the DPW shed and so when they they set up monitoring wells and in stations inside the shed and found the levels in the shed to be well below um the maximum safety range so they're they're very they're very safe in the in that enclosure outside the enclosure you're in the air and so there is no concern there um another thing I learned uh from the the gentleman from the EPA was is that once those those contaminants if they were to leech into the river the walkill river which is there or if there was a flooding event and some of them were brought to the surface those chemicals volatize very very quickly he said within a second sometimes less and so once you know especially once they get into the into the river to to the flow of the River or the exposure to the air those chemicals are gone so the river itself is not much of a concern in that respect um the other U line of questions are that were brought up with the ground that the soil itself they asked about testing the soil uh while the safety threshold for portable water is 1 to 100 the safety threshold for the soil I think starts and you probably know more about this than I do at like 15,000 parts per billion so we would nowhere we were nowhere near reach that level that the soil itself would have a problem because some people I I asked about cont ating testing the soil that's just not it's not an issue um so again what we learned was uh they refused to use the word safe because safe is safe for some people might not be safe for somebody else but um what they did say is this is well within uh accept acceptable parameters that they're in their monitoring um uh and the so the conclusion is that the area is safe um it has City water in there so nobody's drinking the water the ground water from in Station Park or the surrounding area there um and um the levels continuing to go down and they they're not going away until it gets down to below one part per billion and uh they I was very happy with um the conversation that or the information that they offered anything I missed you think was a good discussion yeah um actually maybe one at some point at some people did ask you know well why don't we just just for just to be really really sure can we just test all those Wells we haven't tested any can we just test the soil the problem with that is the actual cost of the testing is borne by the owner of the property U and you know a polymer doesn't exist but the current owner is IBM or IVM I couldn't remember couldn't catch the name of the owner and according to DPA they've been very very cooperative and uh has no push back really at all but when the EPA asks them to test something they they oblige and they test U but the EPA will only ask you to test things when there are scientific grounds for testing like they're regularly you know I don't know how many times a year they test uh but if we if we if we if there's no scientific basis for us to request a test uh the EPA won't recommend it and the the client is under no obligation to pay for it and these tests are not not cheap so um their conclusion is we we can't ask we can't demand that the that the current owner do this testing of the soil testing of these Wells and they're not registering anything at all it would be um um Superfluous or um arbitrary uh and then not grounded in in any scientific need um so that's and and because it's not that they're really not an issue there and so there's no reason to just test just to you know why not just test it um I think that's all I can say about that but thanks for reminding me that was a two-hour discussion yeah yeah is right yeah uh Neil do you have a master plan subcomittee yes um at the last planning board meeting uh our planner uh Katherine sad gave a presentation on the new community engagement hub for the master plan um uh re exam and there's uh there's a link to it from I believe on the on our Township uh website homepage uh and also there's a survey that similar to the open space survey that we had um so everyone should go on there and take the survey if you haven't already so I tried to take the survey it was making me log in what was I doing WR I don't know I haven't I haven't taken it myself yet for in real life so I'll what imagine you want to make sure that people don't take the survey more than once so maybe it asked you just for an email I don't have a log to the master PL well there's probably one to create one right when they created the new website you can now like make an account and there's like a community Tab and stuff on the the new to create an account yeah was that what I got to go do yeah but it's also not open till October 1st it says here so I think we have a little time okay um and is the plan to put it on Facebook too um we can all share it in groups I've already shared it in one I Haven at the other groups yeah right yes any other reports am I missing a report Christine's not here so I think think we're good good okay uh moving on to unfinished business okay the last meeting we reviewed the open space and Recreation plan the final draft that we got um but there were a number of folks who did make comments and send back uh edits to that final version um are there any other comments that we didn't get yet to send back at this point I do have some comments and I can send that copy now if You' like I think that's probably more appropriate but I can also read some of them as well they're nothing major but just some typos I caught probably was already CAU by some yeah do you know if you reviewed the very last version of it not the most recent one I the one that was provided to us before the 12th okay but um I also think it would be interesting if we can add the new zoning map I know that just got added or completed and that's available so okay um that'd be great and I'm not sure what's the plan with Rob's suggestion with the supporting documents that he provided and that was sent out I don't know if that's of interest to incorporate into this or what what was that going to Le to what did Rob send out again I believe Rob provided us two different reports let me see if I can pull them up the ones from Ruckers the yeah the from oh you're talking about the synthetic Fields the plastic grass fields no it had to do with um rainu the reported the um creation of some documentation that Ruckers had done regarding uh flooding in Sparta and different ways to remediate some flooding and then there's some additional reports in there too um I don't think the plan was ever to incorporate them into the open space plan or like I don't I don't he brought it up and I was just wondering if that was something that was going to be referenced in maybe the appendix or something or I didn't know well we're still talking about what we're going to do as far as moving forward with the green infrastructure plan it's here in the agenda still and then I thought he was getting the other reports from 2021 too and then we were going to talk through what are the next steps there okay yeah and then it was just like two smaller things it was at one typo on page 12 for Boardwalk playground and um or excuse me page 24 and on page 12 I was a little confused with the second graph there was a peach shaded graph on the pie chart it didn't have any label and on page 20 um I really like the recommendations that they provided but I was a little interested with the poisin Valley Trail extension I we don't really have the Terminus of the poisin Valley Trail completed yet so to kind of suggested extension to the non-exist from the non-existing Terminus May maybe that recommendation could have been to complete the poisin Valley Trail um and then I also had a question about excuse me some of the like the maps were kind of difficult to read and I don't know if Google Map screenshots are great to use for the longevity of a project like this or if you been allowed to right so like I would recommend Google Earth or something or some other map that they can then edit themselves and point out whatever particular items were on that as long as they have the rights because we don't want to right yeah and um the final thing was is there any I didn't know if I read fully read the final part but is there a reference to when we're supposed to update this plan going forward so that we don't fall fall in a situation again where we're here you know 15 years later and spend spend all this time and effort where we can then start to build off this continuously so maybe that can be something that can be You Know spoken about when how long we should think about that and then I don't know if there's the ordinance that says dan when this was supposed to be done I think we were talking about that that we were way out of the uh parameters for when this update was supposed to be um I was given a copy of an open space plan fiveish years ago and and it wasn't an open space plan it was just a list of properties it was just a schedule of properties um and what I had wanted um what I had asked for an open space plan was more of a um well doesn't doesn't matter it was not that so that was the last time it when open space plan technically was done it was was a nothing planned but before then I don't think money even existed it was an inventory that was it was an inventory it was it was it was means to tell me to stop asking questions about it I kept asking questions about it but I think there's something that says it has to be five five years I think that makes sense and I think you're right that's why you probably got just inventory because nothing else was updated so we just got the list of the properties and that's it yeah well at the time the township was installing a plastic grass field on a over an existing natural grass field on Station Park which is a property that was not purchased through open space lands and then we're using open space money to do it and I strongly objected to it and that during the course of that objection I asked for the open space B plan to see if they're that's even considered in a plan and that's when I got this list of properties um Landon if you could email your your comments and I'll forward them to Barbara yeah sorry about the delay but I appreciate that yeah no problem but other than that I was really excited to read through this play and it was really in depth and I learned actually a lot of new stuff and I think that this will be a great reference for you know people of Sparta and people you know nearby who are interested in using all of our great resources so I'm happy that this was finally put together and I think this is finally a great base plan that we can build off of for the next couple years and keep going if the commission is amenable um could we put some language in there that has has them discourage or prevent any future plastic grass fields from being installed Sparta I don't want that to be my unilateral um recommendation if I don't know if everybody else isly look at it again is okay I was was okay with it I was where and if it would fit yeah and if everybody else is okay with it because I am I'm yes very disappointed that we moved ahead a couple of weeks ago to install another grass at the same time we're joining a lawsuit to against posos chemicals we're going to put posos chemicals within a few feet of the Walk Hill it's it's absurd um anyway that that's don't get me started um okay so after those comments from Landon and we look to see if we want to add anything about um plastic grass fields The Next Step then is to have a public meeting and intro a presentation about the final product um and also I think the township counil already got it I was told the Town Council yes we did get a copy okay so um and also share with the planning board so share with the planning board after we get um the final comments then U make sure Town Council has it and they have their opportunity to do additional comments or questions and then we do um a Public Presentation of it does the council even get it again the environmental commission is a Advisory Board to the planning board they get it yes they're welcome to have a copy of it and I guess we could provide comments if we want to but we're not a gating yes fact at all okay we're not actually asking I say we the council approve it or anything good okay thank you um after the then we have the public meeting so I was going to suggest I we do have two meetings in October and I was going to suggest the second one so that we had plenty of time to um make sure invitations got out and everybody was aware that they could come and hear the presentation so I think it's the 24th October 24th so unless anybody has objections I'll propose that date as the next public meeting regarding the open space plan and then we'll go from there good okay um Green Team appointment I have to be honest I'm still not exactly clear what we need to do on this one I thought that the green team members were not officially appointed been officially appointed appointed yeah yeah and so do we just need to send that request to Michelle I think so okay I'll do that then and I think didn't we also so we wanted to see if a member of the environmental commission would be sort of the captain of the Green Team and I don't think we had any takers so I think Plan B was to identify one of the green team members who wants to step up and be the captain of the team and maybe that person would be uh another non- voting or another leaz on to the commission um just to make sure we have some conduit between the commission and that force that labor force or that um volunteer Force I think we didn't ask anybody if they want we didn't send out an email Christine I did not and I and I told you that I would and I did not so I'm I'm all right so we got I'm at fault for that I'll try to to do it this weekend okay and that list that you gave me months ago it's probably still the best list we have right yeah okay so my my question is going to be hi my name is Dan I hope you're doing well um I your name as the Green Team Member are you a are you still interested and B if you are we're going to nominate you and see if you want to be a captain let me know something like that okay y basically all right um next item is the green infrastructure plan and other um studies that were done by Rucker University um and I thought that Rob was getting the additional ones or Christine was but I don't neither of them sent them to me so I think we'll table the rest of that discussion till we see the other two plans um Dan last time we shared the green infrastructure plan plan that was created in 20 2021 um and talked about that there were two other additional ones studies that Ruckers had done for us and we should be taking a look at those and seeing if there's any actionable items on there this is a state plan no it's not a state plan it's ruers oh ruers Ruckers do it on behalf for us for us by Township specifically yeah why guess did we engage them to do this I don't know this was before I was on the Commission in 200121 and I don't remember this I mean it's possible I think Christine said that she recommended before she was on the on the commission that she recommended uh she was approached by rockers and she recommended Spa as one of the towns that they could work with and then they approach Township and that's how those PS were created was this part ofta Chris abrupta yeah I think this was part of the uh the rain Garden Project right okay it was with abup okay interesting I know that um at at the league of municipalities conference last year I did go to one of the a seminar on uh infrastructure uh and and vulnerability that's what one of the topics over here uh climate changeable vulnerability assessments and I think that there are some grants available to offset the cost of doing these studies anyway I think they were done free I I don't think we paid for them back then either interesting okay yeah all right um next item Sustainable New Jersey certification um Christine Rogers and I met uh this week um sorry barbar you got your calendar mixed up and and Chris Dunbar away I've done that so many times um uh so we we went down the list of actions and started uh identifying um actions that we either already have or that we think are are feasible okay um and we be um there's a um Master spreadsheet uh that that sustainable Jersey provides that we'll start updating and sharing okay so um when is our certification current certification run out in in 2025 we need to recertify March uh well you know when like if it's January we got a problem right because January is like three months away no I yes I don't know whether it actually expired but we need to recertify in 2025 and that certification process doesn't you know doesn't end until until when this November oh so we got plenty of time yeah we have all all next year most of it cool so it's a good idea to start now does an open space Plan update get us points yes it should should get us a lot there other good ones we should be able to do the master plan uh rewrite might also I'm not sure about that that's need any help from anybody at this point the rest of the commission or um well there are four of us now so okay um but we can certainly anybody wants to jump in that's fine okay how about John would you want to jump in I'm not putting on the spot I guess I just am yeah do you know what we're talking about you can say no you do I'm not sure yet okay so the um New Jersey at the state level has um what they call a sustainable Jersey some kind of a certification um and there's silver gold and platinum Bron silver bronze bronze silver and platinum bronze silver and gold it is gold I thought they skipped over one of these things I gu so so if and and every municipality is encouraged to to do this and to to doing it means uh there's a checklist of things you can do that's really environmentally nice um have a green team is one um we just talked about one having an open space plan and so things that promote environmental um environmental sensitivity uh that's the right term um will get you so many points so there's a schedule there's like 100 things on the schedule and and this this thing is worth 10 points this is worth Four Points this is worth two points whatever and if you achieve X number of points you get bronze certification Y numers is silver and then I think there's only four gold in the state at one point there were very very few gold there still are very very few maybe zero I think it last time it was very it was single digits I think yeah yeah um so we're we're bronze yes okay and we're trying to see if we can get the silver and so really what it means is you have to look at the schedule of things okay what's what's feasible for us to do we can do this we can do this we can do this maybe we can do that maybe I don't know and so the team that we have is is going through that list to see you know which things can we can we achieve by whatever our date is um to book these points and then get a I love me certificate that says hey you're now a bronze or you now a silver um sustainable Jersey and we get to advertise that as you know our Township is a silver or a bronze sustainable Jersey town um so they're looking for people to help out with um looking things you can do and maybe some things involve the school um anyway so if you're interested I don't want to put you on the spot but if that's something that sounds cool since we can't have a quorum of people meet uh uh that violates open open public meetings act in New Jersey so since they're nine members we can't have anybody any we have to have fewer than five people in any subcommittee otherwise we have a quorum and we we can do things and so that's why the green team is only four the sustainable Jersey team is only four but since you're not a voting member if you want anyway just give you some background thank you y you might want to visit the sustainable Jersey website and and get a log in there yeah yeah it's a cool website it has everything all the actions and webinars and presentations thank you did did I hear somewhere that the the schools were going to start the sustainable Jersey for schools there is a sustainable Jersey for schools yes and the middle school has been thinking about doing it um Cara Johnson um and I have had discussions about it but I don't know if she's moved forward with that I had always wanted the schools to adopt some kind of a um food waste recycling program because they're at the they're best equipped because they they at the point of their point of collection is very tight they should be able to manage that well and I haven't been able to push that forward so maybe I should try to do that again uh one of the sessions I attended at the last Summit I believe um I think I mentioned it to you that some like the Newton School is doing a really good food waste recycling uh program and there's some other schools in there Newton Newton has a food waste recycling program but it's it's I did meet with the person it's very unstructured like it relies on people to go to a certain place and drop food off and like in their recycling center I I think it's better now it is okay yes they um let me see if I can dig up that presentation okay that'd be interesting yeah I know that um Andover what's the is the food it might be the Florence Birds no there's there's a company that does food waste recycling in Andover oh oh um why can't I think of the name of the uh it's like and over recyclables but it's not that it's no it's um it's over on yeah any anyway I always thought about maybe even asking them like do you have any best practices or or if you had to design a program what would you do I just haven't got gotten that point gotten to do it yet going to send that to you yeah please do thanks right and the new business item I think this is you Neil free technical assistance on a climate vulnerability assessment yes um this is uh something uh that we need to actually this is something I think the planning board uh sub committee should be uh interested in because it's part of uh the uh climate change uh comprehensive climate change related Hazard vulnerability assessment that will earn us points and it's also a requirement for U for our to um adop in the master plan so uh there is a webinar on this on December 3D and the application deadline for um for the free technical assistance is December 20th so this is something I'll I'll pass this on to the uh subcommittee take a look at that there's another interesting webinar uh the sustainable Jersey ran this week that I attended it's called the uh direct pay plan where um tax exempt organizations municipalities and schools can get tax credits even though they don't pay taxes uh they can get tax credits for um um alternate fuel alternative fuel vehicles um charging equipment investment tax credit for jol solar geothermal small wind uh Etc and production tax credits for uh different projects you said schools and municipalities or just schools schools and mun municipalities okay um and uh here it says that uh you can get a $7,500 credit for uh light light duty EVs and plugin hybrids and in one example they show they call the they also have they call them adders direct pay adders which are other other programs that can give you another U another discount or rebate so one example is um uh spending $24,000 or or or a lightweight EV costing $24,000 with the uh njbpu clean Fleet Grant of $4,000 and the pay tax credit of $7,500 you end up getting the um uh $24,000 vehicle for $12,500 which is this is a new program and uh I think it's something that might be of interest yeah we do replace our vehicles um quite regularly at the township level I bought this up with a manager a couple times and um uh I'll bring it up again yeah can you share the link I'll share this yes okay uh the other thing is uh I'm attending the uh this year's environmental Congress tomorrow at at Rowan University so cool have a long drive in the morning yeah there you do but I'll hopefully uh last year's was really good and uh sure this one will be just as good all right let us know what you like I will great all right anything else that's it for new business anything else that we didn't have on the agenda I think I'll mention very briefly so I was um I I attended a uh academic lecture AC academic conference in Sparta Greece two weeks ago uh gave a a a a welcoming speech there as well um conference was actually held in in our name uh and the 2026 this is an annual conference that they have in Sparta Greece uh met with the mayor the next day it was was fun but the uh 20 and the 2026 conference which will be the sixth annual conference from this from the sparta Institute will be held in Sparta New Jersey so we have a committee set up to plan for that event uh where we're we're broadening the scope of that committee to not just be the committee that will plan the event together with the people from Greece that are planning the conference uh that they do every year U but also uh we're sister cities with Sparta Greece and so we wanted to expand the scope to be a sister city committee and uh what we wanted to do not again not just to planning the conference but to also explore ways that we can start building our relationship as sister cities we've been sister cities since 1969 we really Haven done anything with that relationship uh until this year when I went to visit um but um I'm hoping that there so we're going in this committee we can start talking about ways we can work together on different things U maybe there are student exchanges maybe there's business exchanges um it's not really environmental so much but um in in Sparta they do have a lot of archaeological sites as you can imagine because the cultures 25 200 years old or more however a lot of those sites uh the old sites are not very well maintained and presented in Sparta uh there's the a Roman Acropolis which is in pretty good shape in terms of being presentable but a lot of the ancient Greek sites are are not um are not in good shape and uh the I asked the the mayor the council that what what keeps you up at night that's the first thing they mentioned is if we have an opportunity here we're just not taking advantage of it so I thought there might be kind of exch changes where if somebody's interested in archaeological stuff maybe they can go there for a couple of weeks and work with people to help clean up the sites and stuff um for an annual trip to archeological something like that too so if you're interested in joining uh this sister city committee working with people in or friends in Sparta in Greece um let me know and that's all I have all right anybody have anything else all right do I have a motion to adjourn so moved thank you Landon Ted seconded all in favor