##VIDEO ID:HZ0ti60nzfQ## mber 24th 2024 in council chambers Sparta Township Municipal Building 65 Main Street Sparta New Jersey the time is 7:08 and the regular meeting is opened all Council meetings are now live stream and can be viewed at the following link www.youtube.com Sparta wp/ streams 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 Madam clerk may we have a roll call please councilman Herzberg here councilman Quinn here councilman chello I here mayor Clark here all right may we all stand to salute the flag I pledge algi to the flag of the United States of America and to Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all well tonight um we start with a proclamation uh for the challengers program and we have Scott and Stacy Greco and presenting the proclamation tonight will be councilwoman Quinn who's been intimately involved with this uh program for a long time has um sang their praises any chance she gets and it's a an amazing program and I'm very glad to see uh the Greco family here and and then also those who have helped with that uh amazing program that we have so without further Ado I'll turn it over to councilwoman Quinn thank you it is an unbelievable honor to be able to recognize the program the people that started the program the people that are an integral part of this program um this is just an amazing addition to our Township and we cannot thank you enough we'll get into that in a little while but I want to read the proclamation first whereas the community of Sparta has always had a long interest in sports activities and the promotion of sportsmanship and whereas the Challenger the the Little League Challenger division was founded in 1989 and is the Little League's adapting baseball program for individuals with physical and neurodiverse challenges and whereas Scott and Stacy Greco began the sparta Challenger baseball league in 2023 with the help of coaches Shannon Benson and Faith Kelly and whereas Faith Kelly is the leader of the warrior team and is a Sparta High School student that dedicates her time on Saturdays to bettering the lives of 20 players and their families Shannon Benson who also served this nation as a sergeant in the US Army is the head coach of the Rockers team which has served our community school district for years their steadfast dedication Mutual support and commitment of the team exemplify the pride and heart of the sparta Challenger baseball team now therefore be it resolved that the township Council of the township of Sparta hereby extends their congratulations and best wishes to the sparta Challenger baseball team on their amazing and well-deserved victories and urges all residents to join join in extending congratulations to them for their outstanding achievements so I'm going to invite everyone to come on up so I want to just say a little bit more because I think Proclamation touches on some very important accomplishments but I want to just make sure that everyone really understands what this program is you guys bought a program to town for a group of very special children and their families and through you have created an amazing Environ everyone is able to participate that maybe could because of different challenges that they have there are no words to express how important that is um I I know this didn't exist before and it is amazing and so excited unb cannot you forward in this way to reach out and make such an amazing difference in the lives not just the players but their families as well so please accept the proclamation and in addition to the proclamation Cheng people inone and Beyond to do phenomenal things in our Township and for our community and beond so thank you very much um thank you thank you everybody we appreciate it uh the ability to have an idea to change something in the community and have it received so well by the community is staggering right um it takes F yes not [Applause] thank you very much thank you thank you thank you guys thank you guys thank you see you thank you okay I see that we have um AO polymer as a discussion item I see that we have Mr Dempsey here who can assist with um some of the presentation uh I know that you have a laptop I think that you want to use um maybe what we can do is while you guys get situated we can take just set up the way you need to set up but we can go ahead and uh get the minutes approved I think while they're while they're setting up and then we'll we'll turn to the aop polymer discussion all right may I have a motion to approve the July 23rd 2024 regular meeting minutes as presented I move that we approve the regular meeting minutes of July 23rd 2024 as presented uh may I have a second please a second all those in favor say I I I the motion carries the regular meeting minutes of July 23rd 2024 are approved um why don't we go ahead with the manager's report while they're setting up we could excellent good evening mayor council and Sparta residents um I actually in order to allow time for the polymer discussion I've kept my report short with that our Recreation Department received recognition from the Roxberry Recreation program director thanking our emergency responders and volunteers of the sparta recreation football program this past Saturday there was an injury during the game the visiting team was impressed and grateful by the quick response of the on-site athletic trainer and First Responders the injured player is doing well with that uh Chief mccarrick will now read his portion of the manager report thank you manager Zep thank you mayor thank you councel um the police department have purchased and just received two digital traffic signs um I know there's a lot of complaints with speeding and traffic violations throughout the town this will kind of assist on where we could be and help uh minimize some of the speeding so these signs had the ability to uh post the speed of the roadway and also catch the speed of the vehicle um going by flashes and kind of alert you need to slow down um so these will be rotated I believe the first uh set of signs went out today if not they're going to be out tomorrow um and we're going to leave them up on a roadway for approximately a week and rotate them throughout the township not working okay and with that uh you know a lot of a lot of what we do in Sparta uh obviously Motor Vehicle Enforcement is a big thing and uh we we take pride in in making sure that our residents see us out there so we could deter crashes um and help keep the public safe and and just you know for some some stats in the month of August alone our officers made 1,138 motor vehicle stops and that's amongst um all the daily activities of us responding to uh a ton of different incidents uh whether it's a medical call whether it's just a matter of record complaint such as a fraud investigation or birthy we have a lot of incidents that we respond to and I want to commend my officers for you know being very proactive um in the community so um we appreciate what they do out there um two different things I just want to talk about we have our coffee with the cop which is October 2nd um in partnership with Library uh we will be there from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. um it's open to the public to come out and talk to us voice any concerns they may have or just come out and meet our officers and uh see some friendly faces enjoy some Co coffee that's donated by uh local establishment here in town our hanging with Heroes event is on Friday October 11th this is a annual event that we do uh it's in partnership with the VFW our fire department our EMS um and our DPW and and we want everybody to come out say hello uh we have some programs out there and some activities we're going to have some food uh ice cream and uh we also have our Center for prevention and counseling will be on hand to provide information about clear which is our community law enforcement addiction and recovery and our operation Helping Hands which is uh geared towards uh addiction um and I did have some information about opioid settlement funds but I knew I know that you do have a presentation I want to get to so maybe a towards the end of the meeting we could discuss that okay great thank you thank you and I'll make a plug for eore trail we've gotten a lot of complaints about people speeding on there so we'll be happy to see if there is a a digital sign up there that would hopefully deter people from treating it like a Dragway so thank you are you guys did we get the computer working and our new this is a new projector I understand is that right yeah you you guys are the first ones okay all right you're breaking it in I make a motion that we accept the manager's report as presented I will second that I think it's a good idea thanks all those in favor say I I the manager's report is accepted um so tonight uh people may have seen an item uh discussion item about AO polymer um and tonight we are doing something that actually has never been done uh in the history of this site uh since it went on the national priorities list in 1983 which is that we have people from the Environmental Protection Agency here who have um not only written some of the reports but I think uh one of them has been involved in the site since 1993 is that right um yeah so we have tonight an uh a presentation about sort of the remediate ation efforts that have been ongoing at the PO uh AO polymer site formerly Mohawk Industries uh primarily just to you know there were some questions raised and I applaud uh Mr cmore for raising them um because it's always good to look at the work that's been done to reassure the public uh that the area is safe as as people know there's been substantial construction on that site uh including you know by private business owners uh we've had probably thousands and thousands of baseball games and lacrosse games uh at the site and so uh tonight we get to hear it from the folks who uh have studied this who have the background in it and so I will introduce them um we first have from uh the EPA uh rich pajel is that the correct pronunciation uh he's with the EPA Region 2 he's the chief of the central New Jersey remedial section uh and the super fund and Emergency Management division uh based out of New York uh we also have David Montoya who's with also with the EPA Region 2 he's the EPA project manager uh the central New Jersey remedial division and is the project manager uh for this particular site is that right that's correct okay and am I right that are you the primary author of the uh fiveyear report of 2023 that's correct okay um and we also have uh in attendance we also did something that has never been done before for this site which is that we uh hired a outside Consulting agency ecosciences and anyone who's in in the land use world uh knows the reputation of ecosciences they are a preeminent um environmental consulting firm uh we have the principal owner here tonight Peter Hansen who's also the author of a report that we commission uh whereby we asked asked uh ecosciences to evaluate the epa's reports and to raise any questions that they may have or challenges that they may have to the conclusions uh that were reached by the EPA so he's also here and is prepared to answer any questions that the public may have or my fellow council members and uh Mr Hansen has a Masters of Science and environmental science and geology concentration from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rucker he also has a BS in environmental science with geology concentration from Wheaten and has a bunch of professional certifications um and his areas of expertise that were probably most pertinent here is on Vapor intrus VAP Vapor intrusion investigation and Remediation soil and groundwater investigation remediation environmental audits and do diligence so uh we're very pleased and honored that um that you're here tonight and uh I think what we'll do is start off I know that you have sort of a 5- minute presentation about the site if you would you can do that um then if Mr Hansen wants to come and present what you were the scope of what you were asked to do give it a background on that and then we can take questions uh from the public and from my fellow council members thereafter so thank you great thank you mayor my briefing will'll take about five minutes of your time uh it's broken up into three parts uh first part of my briefing I'll provide you with some background about the aop polymer site and how volatile chemicals became present in groundwater the second part of my briefing I'll share a visual overview of the current groundwater conditions and you know now there has been some concern sorry I'll pick up on the video okay I know there's been some concern about Vapor intrusion so I'm going to explain a general overview kind of the concept of vapor intrusion uh and the final part of this briefing I'll show you the levels in groundwater that would cause us to look further into the possibility of vapor intrusion into buildings so to begin um just a bit of a background of the site there was a resin manufacturing plant that started operations at 44 Station Road U you'll see on the map here um this is near Station Park um we have a blue triangle uhum uh yellow um shape that um denotes the original operations uh where their operations occurred um from the 1960s through the early 1990s the plant operations did not handle their waste in a responsible manner these poor waste management practices resulted in the release of volatile chemicals uh which entered into the soil and migrated into the ground water so to address soil contamination a soil Vapor extraction system was installed in 1995 it ran for 23 years until 2018 in this system it removed the source of the volatile chemicals to groundwater uh to address groundwater contamination a series of extraction Wells were installed that they removed the highest concentrations of volatile chemicals out of the groundwater and captur them in a treatment system this groundwater pump and treatment system started operating in 1998 and it ran for 22 years until 2020 so it's just a bit of a background U for this briefing but the second part I want to explain um this Visual and uh show you the extent of volatile chemicals in the groundwater which we refer to as the volatile chemical plume so this first figure uh you could see the extent of volatile chemicals in ground this is August 1993 this before the soil and groundwater treatment was started and you can see those kind of oblong circles the highest concentration the red circle about 19,000 um parts per billion to 1,000 parts per billion and 100 in the the furthest um plume as it dispersed with distance um um but some key features here on this map the the source of the volatile chemicals was a disposal Lagoon it's located if you can see that faint blue triangle up on the map um that's where the chemicals were were dumped into disposal pits and entered into the groundwater we measure the level of volatile chemicals in groundwater by concentrations in parts per billion and to give you an idea of what that means uh one part per billion equates to one drop of water in a 10,000 gallon swimming pool and on this figure you can see U you know again just the extent of that that plume um and again just not this is this is in 1993 before treatment began so this slide presents the current footprint of the plume after the treatment uh and keep in mind uh this particular monitoring well um if we have a laser pointer rich but oh doesn't work so you can see almost dead center um of this map um you'll see aop aop 9 uh is a monitoring well and that well uh provides data that is used to determine the potential for Vapor intrusion in the area of the building just below it um and as I I wrap up this overview I'd like to speak about Vapor intrusion chemicals in the groundwater here are volatile and that means that under certain conditions uh they may volatize from the groundwater migrate up into dry soil above the groundwater and have a potential to enter buildings uh the building here in the park it's used as a storage facility uh with some office seating it is a nonresidential building and the first phase of evaluating potential Vapor intrusion is to consider groundwater concentrations in the area of the building groundwater concentrations have to be above a certain concentration to trigger further Vapor intrusion investigation so we compare groundwater concentrations in this area to levels that are protective of commercial buildings as opposed to residential building a home um and this is is a table of groundwater concentrations around that building I mentioned um compared to commercial Vapor screening levels and the table lists the concentrations of the most common volatile chemicals in the groundwater at this site compared to levels that present a potential for Vapor intrusion uh so these values are they're highly stringent screening values that are conservative or protective of human health so should concentration in groundwater exceed these values uh beneath a commercial structure um then additional steps would be considered to investigate Vapor intrusion uh when these groundwater concentrations are not exceeded then Vapor intrusion is not a concern for a commercial building so to wrap this up I the use of the building in the park is primarily for equipment storage not for continuous occupancy the groundwater concentrations below the threshold used to initiate further evaluation for Vapor intrusion um this building has a vapor barrier that was installed during the construction of the addition that was that was made U and if there was a concern for Vapor intrusion that barrier would mitigate it so considering the continued reduction of volatile chemicals in groundwater Vapor intrusion is not expected to to be a concern but however we will continue to monitor this area and evaluate if conditions change so that includes my briefing that and um I'd like to return the floor over the the council uh but I'm happy to address any questions that anyone may have I think maybe before we do that if I can just bring Mr Hansen forward and and um you can and tell the folks um you know the report that you generated the purpose of the report and and anything that you you found particularly if you found anything in contravention to what the EPA is that would that would also be particularly helpful sure uh again Peter Hansen with eall Sciences I'm a principal owner of the company um I have a about a 20-year history doing environmental investigation remediation to diligence work I'm a licensed site remediation professional in the state of New Jersey um we were asked by the town to review um the history the documents we were provided with documents uh prepared by the EPA review the the levels in groundwater and provide uh independent assessment of the work that's been done to date um in general we would concur with the epa's approach um while it's it's not a pleasant thing to to think about a site like this in in your backyard in the things that have happened there unfortunately it's it's a relatively common occurrence in New Jersey there's sites like this throughout the state throughout Mars County um it's not uncommon unfortunately for one of these to be in in your backyard uh and you're not alone here in Sparta with that um but I there's been a lot of good work done there to clean it up the levels are consistent with um uh what we see on other sites throughout New Jersey where a monitoring approach is taken um there's only so much you can do to clean up a a site actively and at a certain point you have to let nature kind of run its course and um allow the the contaminants levels to to degrade naturally over time when they get to ve a very low level there's only so much more you can do actively to get to that remediation standard um from a vapor perspective uh we did take a look at it um I think it's important to note that the EPA has vast resources in um assessing vapor in my experience and I've had experience on other super fund sites where we've worked for private parties um with property within superf fund um that EPA takes a uh in my experience takes a a a site specific approach and they look at things on a site by- sight basis um we did note in our report that New Jersey has a somewhat generic approach that like myself as an lsrp we typically we have to follow D's uh generic approach and we would probably have to sample this building under that approach um because D uses a one- siiz kind of fits-all approach to make sure that things don't slip through the cracks um but I would say that the EPA is studies things a lot more spend a lot more resources on a given site um and their recommendation um to continue monitoring is consistent with what we've seen elsewhere from EPA on similar sites um and I would defer to the EPA we did ask that you know you we suggested that maybe there' be a little bit more discussion about it um when we reviewed our rep uh the documents provided to us we were not aware of the vapor barrier below the building which is another uh you know kind of mitigating factor that would um that would uh prevent the the potential for Vapor intrusion into the building so in in summary based on our review of of the documents we we concur with the epa's um conclusions and uh the continued monitoring at the site thank you uh before we get to um comments from the public does any of my fellow council members have questions uh for the either EPA or Mr Hansen yeah I have a question I have probably more than one but my first question is I know you talked about the difference between what the requirements are as far as before you'll do vapor testing between commercial and residential can you explain that sure uh so there are different thresholds for commercial residential because obviously ly at a home there's continued uh exposure to any potential Vapor uh the numbers Factor much more conservative for residents compared to an office building or in this case a storage facility so the that threshold is is much higher I know in the report it states that it's used for storage mainly but you know there are times where there are guys in there for extended periods of time so that's my concern is that and I don't know how close those thresholds are but my concern is that there's I mean there's currently equipment stored there there's office there when there's late nights um I was told that sometimes the guys stay there when it's snowing when they're doing snow so and and we do uh we do equipment handout for kids in that building too so I wouldn't consider it just for storage so my concern is if those thresholds are close to what we're currently at that that looked that it's looked at a little differently I could um the thresholds that we have here are for commercial facility that's exposure assumptions are that people will be in there on a continuous basis eight hours a day 40 hours a week 365 days a year and that's what those are buil in have less time in the building don't come to those kind of same I I understand that I understand the whole need for threshold you can't go testing every single site but my concern is thresholds change right I mean pfas were one thing and now they're something different because science got better right so my concern is 20 years down the road when a bunch of kids have cancer we're like yeah we didn't know we thought the threshold was good but it wasn't so I guess my concern is when there's kids involved and we we have from what I'm told a lot of cases of cancer in that area maybe some of it was prior to clean up maybe that's when it started I can't say for sure but there's too many coincidence in that area that for me I think any area I mean I would have I would have made different decisions on where I put kids right but now we have our whole Rec facility in that area so for me I would just love to know 150% and I don't know I mean are there tests do you do are there tests for Vapor out there what's the I mean obviously it seems like the concern is buildings because it builds up in there not not outdoor areas but the kids are you know there several hours a day every day so you know if there are things we can do to to know for sure that there's not exposure to Children there's not exposure to our employees I I would personally like to see us go that extra step to make sure yeah we we've looked at it from that point of view or a vapor confusion issue it primarily is associated with enclosed structures where you have a low turn over out in open and Recreation areas where you have excuse me can you try to look the microphone sorry thank you in in open areas where you have uh you know Recreation scenario where you have a vapor issue beneath the ground where you have volatile organic compounds come to the surface you don't have that buildup same higher concentrations that you have in an enclosed building um so it's not really exposure that we're very concerned about based on the science of today as you say science can change we can find out more information as time goes by and we adjust but looking at these levels today for this building in in the park we can say we're well well below these thresholds the concentrations in groundwater are declining over time these are residual levels post cleanup we started out this uh plume contained about 70,000 parts per billion when it was first discovered we've knocked that down to those levels that you saw on that previous screen in addition these Vapor intrusion screening levels for commercial mentioned that hey I'm concerned there are children in the building from time to time and even with those limited exposures by children we're concerned about that when we take these values we find in groundwater and we compare them to residential exposures which is much greater exposur and these numbers that are vapor screening levels they drop we still find these levels in groundwater below the residential thresholds as well so we believe that's a great safety factor in using these numbers and relying on them but still with all those precautions at an abundance of caution we're going to continue to monitor the groundwater to make sure it continues to decline in concentration okay one more question y so I know there's a very simple test you can test you know in your basement for radar is there are there simple tests that we could do in the building just to check for Vapor not a simple test it it takes a you can do indoor air monitoring but that's the ultimate step in the vapor intrusion invest vation there are several steps in a vapor intrusion investigation the first step here is to look at the groundwater concentrations and compare them to the threshold values you see here and the building usage that you have and that's the first screening step that we take these screening values are extremely conservative like David pointed out before they're some consider them overly conservative overly protective that they trigger a further investigation at extremely low levels but that's how we roll the second step in Vapor intrusion if you exceed Ed these levels on commercial buildings for this situation we'd step in and go into a building and do a Subs slab uh soil gas test where we drill down into the building slab put a probe down into the slab put a canister on that probe that we inserted into the below the building slab to measure the vapors in the soil beneath the building and take that air sample and take it to a certified laboratory to analyze it and then get the results back on what levels of vapors are below the building and for those levels there's another threshold value if you if your levels in Vapors in the building are not above the threshold levels for subsoil uh gas beneath the building you don't go to the next step on a vapor intrusion investigation if they were those levels in the soil Vapor were above a threshold level you take it to the final step of your Vapor intrusion investigation which taking an indoor air sample and in that regard we pull the same canister into the building to test the air but before that was done in a residential or commercial facility you have to empty the buildings of any kind of aerosols hairs sprays uh things you use from dayto day or in a commercial building any kind of solvents cleaning fluids have to be out of the building for about a 24 hour period you get enough air exchange and then you can turn that canister on to test the indoor air so that's the three three level uh three tier excuse me approach we take to Vapor intrusion which each step has to be satisfied before we take the next step that justifies a full investigation Vapor intrusion you don't start it the other way around go in people's Place homes or businesses and start testing indoor air that's just not productive and it again it takes a bit of resources as far as funding to get that work done um and that's three tier three tier system we have that's what we use throughout the state of New Jersey throughout the United States and what we look for here when we first investigate this and look at the vi issue or the vapor intrusion issue here uh that three- tier method and we are come to the first step and does it tell us hey we need to step into the next tier and the data does not support that okay thank you yeah just a question about the test itself um did the test that you employed in order to reach these values is that a test that's generally accepted uh by the scientific community in order to determine whether what levels of tce and pce you have uh in the vapor intrusion is that I think I'm asking you what's the test you use how do we know that test is reliable okay the the the test is really an an analysis of the concentrations we have in groundwater and there's a specific methods that are EPA approved for the analysis of concentration of volatile organic compounds and groundw that we use and they are the analysis is been vetted the analysis and the process of taking the samples and analyzing the samples is very stringent they follow quality assurance controls that we strictly monitor these analyses stand up in court theyve been very well vetted and they're just we stand behind them they've been challenged in court early on years ago and they stand today there's a lot of uh science behind them and there just uh very you know they're they're used Nationwide the states have adopted our methods as well and and use them as well okay and ju just to make sure I'm interpreting uh this correctly so the the current level uh in aop 9 uh for tce is 1.7 is that 1.7 parts per billion parts per billion correct okay and 7even .4 is uh parts per billion is the maximum level that you're allowed to have in a commercial building uh before you trigger additional testing is that right that's correct okay and so am I correct then that the current level and aop 9 which is the uh area right next to the storage facility right is uh about I'm not very good at math but between five and six times less than the um standard uh for commercial is correct am I reading that rightly okay um and then for pce uh it says not detected what does that mean that means during the sampling Event in May of this year uh we did not detect uh pce at that well okay and the test that you employed if it was there it's a type of test that would be able to find it if it was present is that right correct and then um for uh triola eth ethane it's 68 parts per billion is that right cor okay and the applicable standard is 31,000 okay so it's if you're above 31,000 then at that point you have to employ additional testing or and may even some additional remedial measures is that right start with testing uh okay correct and what would be a and just because something hits the level of say 7.4 does that automatically mean you have to employ additional remedial measures or is there a certain Delta above the threshold that then triggers additional remedial measures yeah it can be an anomaly sometimes we wait another sampling event U to see if it's one constituent that may be just you know a tenth uh of a a ppb above sometimes it there is some fluctuation U but if we're seeing consistent uh results above the threshold and that is you know subjective to our uh our review yeah and you know if uh if we exceeded that commercial value here it just doesn't uh instigate a remediation and it triggers the next step in our investigation process the the levels that are measured that would uh be of remediation value are the concentrations you would find in indoor air that are measured in different units those are micrograms per cubic meter because you're measuring in air so it's a whole different value system as far as those levels that you find in air that trigger a an action to be taken and when you have Vapor intrusion in an indoor space in a residential or commercial space you generally want to put a basically what's similar to a radon system in the structure or in the case of this building that you have down there a vapor barrier uh installed when it's the building is constructed okay um did you uh putting aside uh aop 9 UM did you detect any presence of volatile organic compounds either through Vapor intrusion groundwater or soil uh that exceeded a limit by which you would say that additional remedial measures are required or that additional testing is required and this is for the entire site we did not no uh there are elevated levels upgrading closer towards the source area uh away from buildings uh but they're below a threshold that will require further groundwater remediation they're at a level which natural attenuation natural processes will break down the residual contamination that's in the groundwater in that area and there's a rule of thumb for investigations you uh if you have a concentration of volatile chemicals in the groundwater that's closer to 100 feet to a structure that's where you want to start your first screening level that's we've done here and who sets these levels where where does that come from is that the EPA generator it or do scientists get together and determine what they are how does that come about EPA generally sets those levels after we go through some vetting process through public comment periods through and scientists and interested parties look at those levels those are risk based levels um that are you know take into consideration the toxicity of each individual compound and the exposures to them and those levels are set with those very conservative or protective assumptions made and they are they're very thoroughly vetted thank you any other member of council will have questions yes okay um so throughout the course of this entire thing and thank you very much for being here tonight and special thanks to Mr castore who really did an amazing amount of du diligence here for the past 5 years and really through his efforts brought this forward Ward um I will tell you I have spent months and when I tell you the amount of reporting that is available and I'll be honest with you obviously I'm not a chemical engineer I don't profess to understand this but even as a a Layman I I have some questions that I would like to have answered um so first and foremost there's been a lot of different people involved with this so we have samor uh sorn heed they did reports those reports went to you we had the um so we have the EPA we have the D that was Al that was involved we have IBM that is also a player in all of this we have uh Mohawk we have AO polymers we have the five fiveyear reports um that are completed we also have other reports that were generated that were given to the residents that we did not get and I have all of those here as well just from going down there walking the park talking to people that are living down in that area getting a very good history um I encourage anyone who is not familiar with exactly what was going on down there to really educate themselves because um truly there was a lot going on down there and at for that time you know back then I think there were obviously not the standards in place that we have now not even close to it but now we're faced with a situation where we need to look at right now this snapshot this moment in time so my first question is are all the wells tested are all of these Wells tested all the time some some wells were taken offline because they hadn't seen any any contamination in years so we focused on areas where we had been seeing U contamination up to an extent where it was no longer detected and that was where we concluded was our our barrier our our boundary for the because it looks like in many of these reports there's only certain Wells that are reported not all of them so given the amount of Wells I guess one would have to ask the question why aren't all the wells being tested because if I understand this correctly and if I'm wrong please you know tell me but when this whole thing happened obviously when we start talking about um chemicals getting into the water getting into the soil contamination we start talking about plumes whether it's in the air on the ground in the water whatever that might be when this whole thing was identified um the plume was was estimated to be going in a northwesterly direction correct uh I believe it was it was West to a little bit Southwest North no you're right Northwest Northwest northw Northwest Northeast okay so my question is the Wells that are being tested why are why are all of them not in that area all being tested why are only some of the wells tested that are you know that are not consistent with the amount of wells and the the estimation of where the plume was heading which in my understanding was coming out and going toward the high school going out and then sort of toward the high school so again my question is there's a huge amount of Wells here why are they not all tested originally when the investigation first started in the 1980s with the state of New Jersey they installed a number of monitoring Wells to determine the nature and extent how far out this plume was spreading at that time a lot of the wells were placed well outside the area of the plume they were sampled multiple times and they were no longer needed since those were non-detect Wells as David mentioned once you find a well that's repeatedly non-detect with contaminants generally you don't need to sample it on a frequent basis anymore you need to concentrate in on the wells that do have those levels that are constantly detected so a originally there was a network of monitoring Wells placed out there to find out where this plume went some wells were placed off center of the plume some wells were placed on Center some were placed downg gradient of the plume and very far down gradient of the plume just to see how far it was spread those initial set of monting Wells out of I think they were about 45 don't take me exactly on that it's been a long time since I've done that work but it's a large number of wells but once you get non detects of contaminants in a well there's no reason to resample it time and time again and get the same zeroed out number you really want to take those that monitoring Well Network that we have out there and concentrate on the wells that are repeatedly finding contamination in them and that's why today at the whole network I think we're we have monitoring data from approximately 10 Wells that give us the most exact information on what's going on in the plume today so originally that monitoring Well network was built for the 1980s and the 1990s when this plume was much larger and when we were also looking for the extent of the plume so it's basically like you throw a very wide net out there and you draw that in basically you're drawing in your network of Wells Tighter and Tighter as time goes by and a plume recedes you don't need to sample those outer Wells as much as you do the inner Wells that are bounding the concent the present concentration um extent so what is the distance between soil and groundwater my understanding is it's roughly about 2 feet correct aopc aop 9 uh we water at about between 8 and 9 fet so I'm not just talking about A9 I'm talking about the area which is roughly between AO polymers where the site was at Mohawk and if you go closer to where it is in Station Park my understanding is as you get closer out there's roughly 2 2 and 1/2 ft uh under which the soil you'll start to hit water that's correct you'll have a variation in the groundwater the depth from the surface of the land to the top of your water table as you travel as you're up on the hill where the border line between the park and AO polymer is that depth to groundwater is about 15 to 20 feet depending on the season it will vary by season as you go down that Hill towards the W Hill River the topographic High Drops and your groundwater level or stays steady or slightly up up Wells towards the the walkill river and you'll have shallower groundwater as you get closer to the river so it changes from where you are uh in the park CU I mean a plume by definition so there's a lot around there there's the Allentown aquifer in close proximity there's the walks walkill in very close proximity and there's not a lot of buffer between the soil and the water in different parts of the park so I guess again I'm going to go back to taking into consideration the way the plume was estimated to go and the very important things the aquifer The Walk Hill and all of that you have that all on one side of it then you have all the fields and whatever the very definition of a plume is something that spreads over time you have very small buff between for things to really be broken down before they're hitting water and they're going elsewhere correct so I mean again I'm going to ask I I understand what you're talking about with the wells um I I think it's when you look at all the different kinds of reports that we have you were putting up here uh before the slide before this one was uh Omega 2 but if you look for example at omega3 it shows you really a better landscape of where all of these things are and if you go to the Omega hold on I'll give you the number it shows um seven it shows you different Wells and it shows you a color coding of the wells that are in compliance and out of compliance and that is in the the latest of the 5ifth fiveyear reports that came out in addition in the latest report that came out and I'm reading a quote from this um it says the concentration in tce mw5 was stable through May of 2021 however the concentration of tce in mw5 increased from 95 parts per billion in May to 210 parts per billion in August and further increased to 270 parts per billion in February CIS dce increased from 190 parts per billion um in November to 290 in February um and then it goes on to say that pce increased from 20 and 4.7 parts per billion in November to 30 and 10 parts per billion in February of 2022 um it also talks about uh increased concentrations of TCA and vinyl chloride from November 21st to February 22nd and it says right here additional sampling is needed to assess the trend so these numbers to me paint a very different picture than the snapshot of one well that we're we're happy that this one well is in compliance apparently but there's a lot of Wells down there and it doesn't appear from any of these reports anyway that all of those Wells are compliant at all you're based on I'm looking at the fifth fiveyear review and it's on page eight right you're speaking about compliance to groundwater quality standards we're speaking about compliance or criteria to used to assess the threat of vapor intrusion to a building they're two different things I understand I'm not talking about the building now I'm talking about the site in general because whatever's going into the water whatever's going down or whatever's going in is either coming up okay which means it's going to come up through the soil and the grass or it's going down into the water and it's going out there's only two ways it can go it's either going up being absorbed and becoming part of what is feeding all the grass down there or it's going down and it's going out into the water systems there's only two ways right I mean I'm I again this is not my wheelhouse I I have done a lot of looking at these reports which is one of the reasons why person Al uh I came to the conclusion as well if you take a look at the of of all the different reports that are out there there just seemed to be some serious significant inconsistencies that lead me to think you know what we are better to air I mean we agree I I'm going to Echo everything you said that in this instance and again I encourage anyone to go out and do their research about the chemicals that were on site here um I spoke to a lot of people that have lived down there for a very long time and there are horror stories about what was going on in the 70s and the 80s before you guys got involved finally which my understanding is took over eight years of trips to Trenton to get attention and then resulted in potable water being brought in for the neighborhood it was so bad and then resulting in a connection to Township Water because the water was so contaminated and then ultimately um water being City water going to the high school a few years after that because those Wells were so bad bad they were so far out of compliance and again we cannot go back 30 years the reason I bring this up is just to Simply make people aware these are not uh chemicals that are just simply like you know oh some household type thing that's no big deal this was a huge problem and these chemicals are very dangerous when I looked at you know who's vulnerable children uh pregnant people uh older adults all the people that are hanging out down in Station Park all the people that are sitting in the grass playing in the grass down there fishing in the Walk Hill fishing in the pond that's down there that is in very close proximity to where all of these chemicals were dumped into the ground um so that leads me to have some serious concerns when the with these inconsistencies and I could go on and on through all some of these different reports that show that things aren't going down they're going up can I just say something on that that that's a good point so it appears and again you know I'd like to hear what you guys have to say about it that since the system that was taking chemicals out has been removed that there were spikes closer to the mic sorry that there were spikes after that um apparently showing that as that stuff moves down grading as you were talking you know you have a grade there a pretty steep grade that as it's moving down it's it's spiking now because that those systems aren't there to pull it out would that be consistent with what you guys have seen no the concentrations are I wouldn't characterize them as spiking up the cleanup goals that we established for the treatment systems were set at 300 parts per billion and they've achieved that goal in the areas that needed to be treated as uh Peter pointed out earlier the basis that we usually form for a decision to address a site like this is to treat the source areas so they no longer present a source to the groundwater contamination and that's just what happened here the source areas were eliminated they don't longer they no longer contribute to the ground what concentrations that we've seen in the past and what we have left is resid excuse me are residual concentrations of chemicals in the groundwater that will attenuate over time and you're correct you do see fluctuations in certain data points but in general overall you will see a general decline in the concentrations of the overall size of the plume the concentrations in general of the con uh volatile organic compound either in total concentration for the entire plume or if you want to look at them by individual concentrations on individual Wells you will see fluctuations as you're pointing out and that's very common in these scenarios that we set up you also mentioned it took eight years for to get attention to the site um you're you're talking about New Jersey D's response to the site we're not New Jersey DP where the United States Environmental Protection when we were called there we responded and we took the lead from the state of New Jersey y um so we responded very quickly to this you mentioned IBM uh aop polymer moh hook Industries EPA went out and one of the first things we do on a site like this is we do an enforcement action to find out who's responsible for this contamination we found parties that were responsible issued them a unilateral order they are doing the work that means IBM is doing the work with EPA oversight taxpayer funds do not pay for this work we go after the polluters and they pay for the cleanup the monitoring and all the work that goes into this site IBM has steep forward we could characterize them as a very responsible corporate citizen in the response to this most steps of the way on this project they never given us an argument on what needed to be done if they wanted to go eight steps and we said hey you need to take 10 steps to make this extra uh conservative they would say yes we'll do that we have no problem so we work with them very closely under an order that's enforcable uh through our system and they work very well with it and these results uh you know they're very encouraging as far as the long-term cleanup plan that's in place to get to groundwater quality standards these residual levels that you have here they will eventually drop down through attenuation of these chemicals in the ground primarily in the ground water you have a natural attenuation process that knocks the concentrations of these contaminants lower as they as time moves on as a as as far as some of the statements you made about people using the park and being exposed to these chemicals there is not a direct exposure route to the chemicals in the ground water they are volatile again whatever percentage volatilizes through the water water table into the soil in an open air environment the exposures are not there they're they're not measurable with the data or the data collection systems we have in an outdoor air environment you can find those in enclosed environments um in in conditions that you have here with these concentrations so okay so that's fine for buildings and the wells that we're talking about right the testing and the wells when was the soil tested the soil was tested in 1990 uh a number of soil borings were placed throughout the AO polymer facility and they were found to with the exception of the disposal lagoons and a few other smaller areas on the property uh those soils were found to meet residential standards um for soil the few areas that did not meet those standards were remediated EPA took an action either with we took an action directly or we had IBM take an action directly to remediate those soil areas soil testing was primarily done on the AO polymer facility since we had no information to indicate that soil was dumped or lagoons were used on the a Station Park property through our investigation so the soil at Station Park was not tested the soil at aop polymers at the actual site was absolutely but the soil at Station Park was not now in the area of the disposal lagoons and immediately over that blue line MH some of that soil inst Station Park was tested where we'd expect to find soil con concentrations highest in the subsurface with that soil contamination migrated into groundwater and the groundwater table fluctuated up and provided or resulted in residual levels of soil contamination about 15t below the surface to stay in that soil and those soils that portion of soil was in Station Park immediately adjoining the AO polymer property line those soils were remediated through the soil Vapor extraction system that was put offline in about 2020 So based on then your and so thank you for the clarification and also thank you for stepping in to hold people accountable for this because I know um it took a long time again not from you guys but to to many trips to Trenton is when I'm told to be able to go down and get people's attention to this and then you guys did step in and from all the documentation that I've read um you guys really did a great job of then stepping in and and you know taking it over and holding people accountable so thank you for that um I guess some of the other questions I have is are with regard to for example the the basic structure of some of these Wells so in some of these reports this one that um we just got on Thursday that report uh seems to allude to the fact that some of the wells are not in good shape so they that they have deteriorated over time and some of them need to be looked at to be fortified um it's hard to tell through here where these are and which ones are important but are you guys in the process of of doing these inspections of the wells to make sure that they're still in functioning order so that when the test is done it's accurate coming out of the the wells that are falling apart yes that's that's part of the inspection process before we take a sample or before IBM takes a sample of well with our oversight they assess the quality of the well the condition of the well some of the wells overtime have oxidized or iron has built up on the well screens the tiny screens that let the water in and those have been jet cleaned through time uh when it's needed uh when we pull up water water sample from a well we use a method that's called the lowf flow method of water sampling that you don't produce a lot of water out of these monitoring Wells you produce a very small amount that's represented of the level of water uh in the Well Screen that you want to get so it's it's fairly precise and the quality or the condition of the wells are assessed to give you an accurate sample and accurate readings in your data just I'll follow up with that was there any well that was in a certain condition whereby due to the condition of that well uh you were not confident in the reading that you got meaning we need to fix this well first before we can take a test was any well in that type of shape no not no not that I and and if it were in in that type of shape where you didn't think you would get an accurate reading what would you do we'd back off that well and the lowf flow method is when you it it involves uh placing a tube down the well in the screened area of the well and measuring parameters not just taking a sample and pulling it out you're measuring parameters uh specific parameters that give you the water quality readings to make sure you're getting representative samples uh if any of those readings indicate there's a problem that we can't get those levels stabilized we won't take that sample or if we do take a sample it's qualified data it doesn't pass uh stringent you know we we take a look at at that data and say hey we're not we're not 100% certain behind that data our preference is to pull samples from the wells where we have those parameters stabilized that tell we have a very representative sample if a well is damaged or the condition is suspect uh we would not use that data and then uh with respect to the the fluctuations that we spoke about um were any of the fluctuations to the extent um that you believe that it was a threat to human exposure or to the environment that in in the oh goad you're referring to yeah I mean I think yeah I think councilwoman Quinn was reading from page 8 um and I think it may have to do with um on MW4 five and six correct where it showed you know there's fluctuation it went from N9 for tce it went from 95 parts per billion in May of 20 21 to 210 parts per billion in August um obviously that's an increase the question would be has it reach that that level of increase that it made or the level that it obtained is that level something that would trigger additional testing or something that would uh be a threat to safety or uh use of that area no it's it's within the range that's kind of expected uh it does of course require continued monitoring but it's an expected fluctuation and it's within a safe threshold for it's it's still shows a trend of doubling it does yeah very un unnerving sure yeah and it would seem like that I think it's the nature of groundw contamination that it moves a bit in an aquifer and you have to remember the initial concentrations were about 70,000 parts per million or higher than parts per billion or higher than that we're measuring levels that are multiple orders of magnitude below that level so these fluctuations I'd be very concerned if you had fluctuations from 100 to several thousand parts per billion that's something of concern these fluctuations down at the 100 parts per billion level are very low at residual levels uh and looking at the data in a general sense these levels of fluctuations are consistent with other situations similar to this that we find and that doesn't draw uh concern we will continue to monitor that we're looking at that we cite those levels in that report so we're constantly looking at we're not hiding them we're throwing it out there and say hey we have to look at this but are they of concern no the conclusion of that 5-year review report uh determines that the the remedy is function has functioned as it was designed and it's protective of human health and the environment when you look at all that data in the report that's the final conclusion that's left and that's made from that data so you can cite specific Wells that increase over short periods of time but the majority of the other Wells are decreasing in time the levels in the groundwater the remedy is protective today and we'll continue to assess that and test it to make sure it is we're not walking away from this we're not letting IBM walk away from it they're going to continue to do this testing and not to sound like a pop quiz but what would be the uh acceptable level of uh I'll rephrase it uh what would be a level of tce parts per billion uh that would be unsafe for human exposure and a real danger to the environment that's uh a we EPA has a range of for that value that we consider an unacceptable risk in groundwater or drinking water that you would be exposed to and for tce that is one part per billion as the the end of our threshold for for acceptable risk and uh 100 parts per billion on the other range of that acceptable so anywhere between one part per billion and 100 part per billion we look at that's our acceptable risk range anything greater than 100 parts per billion is an unacceptable risk for groundwater and we take an action this what we were involved with now the monitoring of this plume is our action present day we're monitoring this plume and keeping an eye on it if we were to meet groundwater quality standards that most extreme level of one part per million then we would conclude there's no more monitoring uh needed but every well has to hit that level every well has to hit that level for a period of eight monitoring rounds uh over a two-year period I think it is before we say we're we're done here we don't need to monitor we don't need to watch this anymore we're quite a ways away from that level so we're going to be here for quite a while monitoring this system to make sure that the remedy is protective and functioning as it's designed well okay so how if if the acceptable level is is one part per billion I think is that right is that what you said yes and that the level here is is listed as 210 parts per billion right so obviously that's 200 times what the acceptable level is how is it that you can still conclude that as you do and and in the report that you know the site itself is you know there's levels that are still allow for you know unlimited use and unrestricted exposure those levels that uh hang on let me get uh go ahead want take as Mr Hansen mentioned that there's a a certain level that treatment can be met certain concentration that this groundwater can be brought down to over which natural attenuation occurs that level is 300 parts per billion that was the threshold Set uh for the site so those numbers are below that threshold so it's still within that range that'll naturally attenuate there's not much more treatment option we can do at these specific locations where it it it migrated and uh it will naturally degrade over time and we're seeing that those decreases over time so and again you'll see those but even though that level and that so that particular area obviously has tce above the one parge per billion right and I think the the concern that someone reading this would have would be well this particular area of this particular site at this particular well is above the what would we consider safe for for groundwater contamination how is it then if that one area is technically unsafe how can you say the entire area is safe you know if one side you know I guess you know does One Bad Apple spoiled the bunch is sort of the the analogy I would use here yeah besides the uh direct treatment of the plume that was uh conducted for 20 years and the residual levels that we have remaining left over uh beside the active treatment and the monitoring there's another control that is put in place and that's called a classification exception well restriction area that is an area around the plume that is designated it's called an Institutional control that's placed on this area of uh groundwater contamination that says you cannot put a well here in this area that's restricted by the state of New Jersey if a well driller would to apply for a permit to place a well in this area they could not do that the state would say no Wells go in this area in these certain at these depths that you want to put them in so that's another final control to that ensures protectiveness of this area you do have concentrations that exceed that one part per billion that cleanup goal for TC the ultimate cleanup goal for TC so in the interim until we reach that cleanup goal through natural attenuation in this part of the plume that CA or classification exception area while restriction area will still apply thank you um I I have more questions sorry I know we want to turn it over the public too who may have who may follow on so well just a couple more follow-up things and again I'm I'm just trying to understand this is I thankfully have all this information and a lot of it again this is not my willhouse so I'm really trying to just get clarity so that we all can have a better understanding we are very worried or we I mean I could say about the safety of the park the water and everything over there because of what happened so I think it's just I want to thank you guys for being here and taking these questions because I think you know you guys do this every day but for us this is obviously new and we needed Clarity um the other thing I wanted to ask you was with regard to the pH levels and the nitrate levels so you have um GW 2 3 5 6 and seven and those if I'm reading the report rate um exceeded regulatory limits um and we're outside the acceptable range if I'm understanding the report correctly so the the issue is that the groundwater well gw4 and8 those are the ones that I asked you about that had structural Integrity issues according to the report so I guess you guys are already looking at those um the concern is in the contaminate Trends right so for the phosphates for the nitrates for the pH levels and all of that um those are areas that I see anyway from reading this of concern and the concern also is that those cause a specific threat to water and also possibly you know they're in very close proximity to water sources like the Allentown aquafer as well so the last questions that I'm going to ask before we can turn it over to the public and I'm I'm going to defer the right to maybe ask some more after people speak but has the aqua has the Allentown aquafer been tested recently just over an abundance of caution to make sure that nothing has reached it the allent town aaer was tested in the 1990s and to what I mentioned before to the first set of monitoring Wells the monitoring Well Network one established to determine the extent of the contamination in the groundwater the Allentown aquer was tested multiple times with breed Rock Wells that were installed into the Allentown aquifer and we found that there was no contamination in the aquafer okay and what about the walkill the W Hill the W Hill in the early 90s we found some levels of of volatile organic compounds in the Wallkill surface water But as time went by we didn't find those concentrations uh equal to what we did in the past also the Wallkill River and the nature of these compounds is they they volatilize off very quickly and they don't last on surface water very long uh minutes at these concentrations if that depending on exposure to sunlight the ripple effect and how fast the water is moving they just don't last in the environment these break down fairly quickly when they're exposed to air okay Josh no I was just going to ask um follow up on the aquafer you said it you know in the beginning and for as long as you tested it there was no contamination but you know with some of these tests um going up not necessarily spiking but going up it looks like you know the grade has caused it to move down is there any concern that over time stuff could move into that aquafer there there isn't uh what our studies showed over multiple years is this is a the Wallkill river is known as a gaining stream or gaining water body and that the groundwater flows uh has a slight flow element towards the surface in this area so we have an upwelling of groundwater instead of a downward Trend or downward flow of groundwater as it approaches the river so our tests and our our well samples at depth below the overburden um or the deepest part of the over burden show that uh this trend to have the groundwater flow up well towards the wco river prevents deeper contamination at this site it's the groundwater contamination is primarily or exclusively limited to the uh overburden aquafer okay and at any time the wells were already there I know that we see a lot of um the same Wells like a small concentration of these Wells being tested at any time can we request that all the Wells be tested absolutely just give us the rationale why you want those tested and we'll approach IBM to see if they would like to do it okay thank you but we would prefer to have a good basis or rationale to do that if we don't have it and we go to a responsible party and say hey sample these Wells because we were told to do that by somebody else they'll say well on what basis it's not a case where they do what we tell them they are Consultants like Peter's company to challenge us every step of the way so if we don't have a basis a rational basis to say sample these Wells because this data tells us it's need to be done they won't do it and we get into a a a you know a little bit of a a Kur fluffle on that issue so it's just we could do the same with um if we requested soil correct out of abundance of caution based on some of the inconsistencies that we see the request could be made to IBM to maybe do some testing down there yeah you can make that request directly with IBM or you can come to us and request it again okay we want to see we expect some rationale the the public expects rationale that why we're doing something has a reason behind it we can't be arbitrary and capricious because of someone's fears we have to have it well grounded in the science so we we'll consider it but we'll also give feedback to the reasons why it can or should be done or why it should not be done it's not in the best interest to pursue an Avenue that's fair thank you okay at this point I think we can U and let's I'm sorry councilman tiell if had an opportunity to ask questions um yeah the only one thing I want to say is thank you for taking your time and spending us and taking care of our community you're welcome and um yeah just members of the public if you can you know form what you have to say in the form of a question um I know sometimes we have speeches here but I mean we have the experts here who have studied this so I would encourage people to Avail themselves by trying to um ask a question directly um if you have to give prefatory comments that's fine but I think uh more direct uh questions uh or probably we'll get better answers so with that caveat um just state your name and address for the record uh Robert AO 41 Northshore Trail I wanted to acknowledge uh council person Quinn because I read some words uh that she wrote um a couple days ago regarding AO polymers and I liked what I read and it was quote knowing there's kner close by that could potentially be at risk and knowing that thousands of our residents and visitors use the facilities it is our responsibility to do everything within our power to be sure Beyond any doubt that it's safe whatever the cost to have the testing done it's far less than the cost to any member of our community that becomes ill or God forbid loses their life so I want to commend her on that and then kind of use that to jump off on not a question but a little bit of a I don't know prefatory what whatever NE just I if you want to have a comment to them or a question to them I think you know you can also it it relates to what we're talking about here which is you know we're looking at a half century of I wish we' done stuff differently right and if we knew what we know what we knew in the 80s what we know today maybe we wouldn't be Harang IBM to clean up these mistakes of the past so I just I see this leadership from current Town Council and uh I think they would remember that I reached that several years ago uh with guidelines uh about building a mega Warehouse over an aquafer a shallow rapid recharge aquafer um I provided these draft guidelines and I don't think anything was done those are prated by the state uh recently you guys would be in receipt of uh former State scientific experts at the njde giving guidelines on artificial Synthetic Turf um the short-term dermal and inhalation exposure May currently be acceptable but as Josh has pointed out thresholds change with the science um and that's from the EPA the long-term effects are currently unknown and uh we're establishing now guidelines for different compounds from this case but relevant all the same because we live in a community with adjacent aquafers rapid recharge shallow aquafers waterways that are interconnected so like for instance for council with an Nest uh it's my understanding Township is seeking uh remuneration for past producers in order to filter these out of our water of our drinking water but simultaneously we're approving the installation of artificial turf which is strongly correlated with high levels of pasas um and uh again adjacent shallow aquafers nearby waterways uh products going to be susceptible to weathering from heavy use by our most atrisk population kids uh and it's also impervious and uh heat weathering is going to be a problem and we haven't even got into microplastics and and nanoplastics now so just as we I would just ask that as we and it's short as we uh continue the process of developing our community as we discuss things like building a mega Warehouse on top of our aquafer as we choose to install these impervious plastic turfs on the fields that our kids use um develop adjacent water developing along adjacent waterways and Prime recharge areas serving our drinking water isn't it in the words of council person Quinn quote our responsibility to do everything within our power to be sure Beyond any doubt that it's safe I urge Town Council to keep keep close the lessons of AO polymer and Mohawk Industries that are obviously plaguing this town over a half century later P are forever chemicals we just heard that unlike the the main contributors with Mohawk Industries and um sorry uh mwk Industries and aop polymers uh they don't volatize they don't volatilize so we can't rely on that um so once they're in there uh they're in there um they bioaccumulate in human tissue and in food webs and now we also have microplastics and nanoplastics which are cause for concerns so if we don't learn from this history that we're here talking about we're doomed to repeat it uh I don't want to be bringing pable water I don't want to be going to Trenton to hold the njd not the EPA accountable for you know going out after the responsible party to do a cleanup action that you know my kids are going to be affected by um it's it's going to be you know castore is I know going to come up here and talk about uh his generation that was affected by AO polymers let's not repeat that so I just would urge you guys to use the same criteria that you're talking about now use this as a lesson and apply it to Future development thank you thank you if I can make a follow-up comment on that um i' also recommend that you look at Rutter's report from a couple of years ago that looked at the air quality the air sampling from about head level on U plastic grass fields because as people stomp around and and and the chemicals and the plastic breaks down um and the heat bubble that's over there um right little kids yeah but uh they're significantly um significant uh concentrations of of those chemicals hi my name is Ellen Maloney I live at 64 Station Road right next to it my water was polluted my husband would take a shower walk out of that shower have to sit down on the side to catch his breath from the vapors so I'm affected he was affected he just passed away this year give me a moment you said something about residential everything here is commercial I'm residential it's did affect my house what do I do who do I talk to to make sure that it's not on my property anymore you tested Wells that were on my property the property is not mine anymore it's the Township's but I have an acre and a half there what do I do as a resident who was affected by this who do I talk to I get the reports I read the reports I'm the one who handed those reports in the one thing you said with the commercial building there's a vapor barrier what does a resident do for that that's the question I'm asking you I think um back in the early 2000s we reached hbic oh sorry yeah back in the early 2000s IBM's consultant Omega environmental reached out to Mr Maloney and requested access to put a sampling well or a uh temporary well point on the property and they were denied access because we already had them across the street on our property right well this is for the vapor intrusion issue they're talking two different things here groundwater quality and Vapor intrusion uh potential so for that reason IBM's Consultants stepped forward and requested access to your property to put a temporary well there to determine if there was volatile organic compounds near your dwelling or near Mr mone's dwelling at that time Mr Maloney yeah Mr Maloney refused access to IBM and their consultant EPA followed up and wrote a letter to Mr Maloney requesting or clarifying that IBM and their consultant stepped forward and requested access to sample your well or sample your the groundwater beneath your property Mr Maloney refused that and that we would ask Mr money is our understanding is that's what happened and you know if you would like to have your property sampled he was supposed to respond to us at that time and he received a letter you have a certain amount of time to respond to this if you would like us to do that we'll tell them to do it the response was uh we did not receive a response excuse me we not receive receive a response from Mr Maloney to do that work so the case was closed okay so how do I go about he's not here anymore so I can't ask him about that but we'll look at the data the data points if a well hasn't been sampled near your property that we have in one of those moning Well locations uh that we could sample to determine hey is it nearby um we would have to look into that I have one that's 100 ft away and I have the two across the street that are closest to us we can we can take a look at that and see if they are viable well as to sample for a potential VI in a vapor intrusion issue so and this is contrary to what we were told in 2000 in epa's letter we said talk to us now because this is the time to do it and then you're done now you're coming back to us and saying something different things change you get more information and that's fine and so we'll we'll take a look at it okay yeah so who do I reach do I reach out to you you'll give me a David has a card he can hand over to you okay thank you sure that alone makes it worth it that alone makes this meeting worth Jim castore Sparta U I really enjoyed your A9 very interesting let me I'm not going to pick on you guys I just want to tell you a little story this is how this started I going a 50th class reunion picture of five girls three were dead number four and number five very sick kidney cancers this kind of cancer that kind of cancer well back in the day Sparta was a small town so if you lived down to pacon burrow you came to Sparta if you lived in baram Township you came to Sparta well went to a 50th year reunion looked at this picture where's this girl oh she cost 20 where's the come to find out all kidney cancer this that and everything else well I got digging and looking you know me and this is not you guys this is way back at D days it's part of high school well from Malahide on Fe May the 23rd 1979 that wasn't good enough they figured we're not going to tell anybody may the 29th 1979 from alah hiide all sorts of stuff and well Maloney Wells included nobody said a word that Will was originally drilled 1958 Mohawk industry well was drilled 1965 November of 1979 United States Environmental Protection Edison New Jersey Steven jensis Jenis probably in your day no probably before your day uh and he goes on to say that F Malahide was not detected in any of the samples that's what started me looking nobody wanted to admit to this two different analytical Laboratories 6 days apart 3 months later four months later up US EPA on near letterhead doesn't exist then you start looking well the picture you had up A9 really looked great till you look at MW4 5 and six there're the three Wells that when you come out of the building you make a right hand turn ball fields are back there four five and six are here when the Environmental Protection Agency first started here they said the plume was moving in a northeasterly direction which is that way okay towards the walkill river you all went in and did your cleanup up on Mohawk industry site I call it Mohawk Industries my grandfather built the buildings and it was always said at the time that the plume is going to move and we know that it's going to move in time and right now it's moving we all know that right so your well is A9 looks great but you go to MW4 5 and six which are the three Wells that are down at the very bottom when you come down the slope if you take hang on a second I can show you hang on this is an old map they old polymers is up here the buildings down here four five and six are right in here okay that's where you walk to the Back Field if anybody wants to see it it's a elevation map showing you uh where where I'm talking about the problem is groundwater is only two foot below you maybe if you dig a hole down there tonight we could and go swimming tomorrow morning you guys said oh it's this level problem is MW4 uh TC level it's not bad it's it's dropping we and nobody and it took a rise if you look at the the little diat it took a rise and now it's dropping again but let's get down to M MW uh mw5 170 Parts it's rising your cleanup goal was one right you're 170 you're 170 times your cleanup goal so the only thing I'm saying is guys you got to go back and open this thing up again and say look we got to go back and have a look see and I know the EPA doesn't want to do that D does well it's been turned over to D anyway but these numbers are rising you're little your little DD thing here shows all the numbers are rising can you explain why they're Rising is the plume moving that fast so Mr cmore uh any plume's going to have an area where there's going to be higher concentration now as I mentioned before we treat to 300 parts per billion after which natural attenuation occurs so we're still well below that 300 parts per billion threshold so why was your cleanup goal one that's the groundwater correct correct uh our our treatment standard was 300 parts per billion after which we can't treat it anymore natural attenuation has to occur so the natural processes in the aquifer degrade the residual contamination but the water level down in Station Park okay if you're down on some if you're on some of the fields towards the high school after a hard rainstorm you can't walk on them they're floating in water they don't drink it's there if you're up by the garage where the men are working every day five days a week they inhabit that building it's not a storage building like somebody says it is it's not there's men that sleep in that building during snowstorms they're in that building 5 days a week there if you dug down hell about that far you're in water I mean you're you're you're well test data when they come um the sandorn company came out of Bedford New Hampshire they're showing depth to up at the top where where Mohawk industry's building was like 25 ft when you get down into the park there's some down there less than 2 feet so it it's you know water Finds Its Own level if you will and it does we all know that so that's why it's above the ground here and it's blow you know it's up there but it's not really up there it's over there and these these numbers are just you know maybe I'm wrong I've been looking at this for five years that it's something's not right and we know the plume is moving and the only reason we know the plume is moving Mohawk Industries is over there park building is over there and the plume's almost to the building you said it was all clean over here well how's this PL moving along I'm not picking I'm just trying to you know make a point that you guys need to come up and do more testing and I think you would agree with me say yeah we got to come up here have a look see we're going to continue to test until we reach your groundwater standards well but the problem is there's kids down there walking on it water level is that far below the surface you know I'm 70 going on 74 years old I've lived in this town all my life I've lived my life and I've had a lot of good times in this town but I don't want to see some kid down there playing in the field getting sick that's that's the only reason I kept looking at this so okay well thank you all and Christine and Josh thanks for your time and everybody but uh thanks for your help I really appreciate it and didn't have to arrest me tonight or anything thank you Jim my dad was a Police Service here in town for 35 years I never got arrested I'm lucky Jim thank you thank you for all of the work that you did in bringing all of this forward thank you to the residents that shared also reports that we had never seen that never came to light because they only went there um thank you to you guys for coming here and trying to help us make sense of all of this and I and thank you for I I know that it kind of it put you in a interesting position because you were testing you were reviewing data that was already done so you did not have the opportunity to go down there on your own pull your own samples do your own stuff you were sort of looking at this compilation of thousands and thousands of pages of data so thank you for doing that and and Jim for arranging all of that yes I just want to show about one thing I forgot to show you all and this is from Omega this is what EPA published this is what really got me going is see all a red that's what it looks like down there I know green means good and go and red means stop something's wrong well there it is that was published by the United States government matter of fact it was on one of those pages in that in that 40 page report the last one this is the the um help me 25 year report is what where this was the fifth five year thanks the fifth fiveyear report which I call 25 thank you just a question though is that accurate that the you know to paraphrase red means sto green means go meaning there's certain areas in here that are above your goal correct your goal was one parts per billion some wells have that so I guess I I go back back to that question is if you have a monitoring well where the level is above the goal level above the level of one parts per billion how can you make the conclusion that the EPA does uh that the area is safe for human exposure and U for unrestricted use that's what I think people are struggling with because they see these kind of certain areas that may be above a threshold and then you extrapolate from that well if this one little area here is unsafe how come the whole entire area is INS could you explain that well there's no exposure route yeah yeah EPA looks at the exposure route when we look at uh groundwater contaminant uh we primarily look at the drinking water exposure route if someone were to drink water in this area of the plume and if they would drink the water for an extended period of time over a lifetime they it have an unacceptable risk in that risk range that I told you about before between 100 parts per billion and one part per billion that's our unacceptable level of risk for drinking the water becoming directly exposed to it for concentrations greater than 100 parts per billion that's our unacceptable risk and uh we would we take an action to protect people's health either by directly treating it or putting institutional controls in place that prevent people from becoming exposed to it by drinking the water so that's how we protect against these levels that you have today that are greater than the ultimate cleanup goal and exceeding our acceptable risk range well where the exposure can come through a r other than drinking so I think Mr cmore refer to children playing for example um so if you look at MW4 5 and six which is above for tce it's in the 200 parts per billion it's trending upwards why is it that you can have that level being above one and it's still safe for children to play 200 feet 300 feet away from an area that obviously exceeds the uh acceptable level in the area of MW five and six four five and six you have a a level of the water table that's well below the surface of the ground that exposure to that groundwater is not likely by children walking on the ground the are is as you move down gradient in the plume the concentrations decrease uh the concentrations of the volatile chemicals decrease as you approach the Wallkill River and those areas for exposure are you have a lower u a lower concentration if you have concentrations at all um that do not present an unacceptable risk to the most sensitive receptors such as children again that range that I've described to you that is an acceptable risk or unacceptable risk range between one and 100 parts per billion for tce those levels are built in to be protective of the most sensitive uh receptors in our population which is children and they're very conservative again we're been criticized for being overly protected by using these these numbers but As you move down plume towards the shallower groundwater as you approach the W kill River we don't see those same concentrations that you see up in MW4 5 and six which are about 10 or 15 feet below the surface of the ground yeah just you know so for illustration purposes so if this is on nw45 and six and it's at a you know 200 parts spru that doesn't necessarily follow that down gradient from that you're going to have the same level of tce is that right that's absolutely is that because of natural attenuation yes and so the fact that you have a higher level here doesn't mean you can extrapolate to the entire site that it's going to have those high levels of tce that you're seeing or high above your gold threshold is am I right about that that's correct and that's supported by the data that we have in those reports okay we know the plum is moving and you guys is moving So eventually Mr Mayor that plume that we're talking about eventually he going to work its way across Station Park it came from Mohawk Industries is where it started we know that the plume is moving in a northeasterly direction that was stated in 1980 by the Environmental Protection Agency in one of their writeups that said they knew the plum was moving towards the walkill river so as Time Marches On it's going to slowly get its way over to the Walk Hill River it's going to right underneath Station Park right it'sing know the plume the plume hang on let me clarify the plume or movement of the plume when we look at a groundwater plume uh that one image on the poster board that you showed folks that was a that was the boundary of a plume in 1990 I believe right when we look at a plume and determine if it's moving or not we're looking to see if the boundaries of that plume are extending and growing outward that's what a moving plume is you're talking about something different you're talking about concentration gradients within the plume you're you're getting transport within that plume for the down grading at a decreasing rate or a decreasing level of contamination as the plume ground water moves go ahead I'm a geologist by training um um plumes do two things they grow and they shrink shrink okay they don't move horizontally away from a source area you have to have a source area to continue to feed the plume for that plume to be growing what the EPA did years ago through soil removal thermal treatment which is um the essentially the gold standard of remediation soil Vapor extraction lots of treatment things they took care of the source area when you take the source out you can't keep feeding the plume so what happens is the plume will shrink over time and the concentrations go down and yes as they they get to a point where the a soil Vapor extraction system can't extract any more Vapors the concentration is too low for it to extract at 300 parts per billion again 300 drops in a 10,000 right you can't get that out by doing further treatment um it it just doesn't work and it's unfortunately your site's not a your site's not an anomaly in New Jersey this is a common site okay you drive around lots of strip malls throughout New Jersey are a lot worse than this site today because this is the same stuff that dry cleaners use so when you take your your clothes to the dry cleaner you can one of the things that you remove or you you when we go into do a vapor investigation in somebody's build in somebody's house you ask them do you get your your clothes dry cleaned because if you have dry clean clothes in your house you will have Vapor levels many times the standards uh air standards so just the the plume shrinking I just want to make sure you understand this it's not when they take the source out that plume is not going to move and and and go beyond its limits you get what's called a sentinel well which they have and that Sentinel well stays clean and they they they've got the end point of that plume so that your plume is shrinking over time then why is the level of four five and six Rising if it's shrinking because the levels are so low that over time you have fluctuations to it it is there is I don't have a site and I have hundreds of them in our company I personally oversee over 100 have overseen over 100 cleanups many of them we've gotten to them to uh case closure with classification exception areas where monitoring goes on for a long time because again you can't can't treat it to one you it's just it's has to happen over time so what happens is you get some spikes and the and and you you still are in the monitoring phase even have though you have those spikes if those spikes go up in the thousands yeah they probably got to go look and see if there's a source they miss somewhere spikes at this level you know I I I hope you and you have levels in the low hundreds right it it's if you don't work with this every day you think to yourself how can it go from 10 to 100 that's that's a big change right that's what I'm thinking but it's 10 think of 10 drops in a 10,000 gon swimming pool to 100 right you just it's it's very common you they talked about the exposure um Pathways there's only two exposure Pathways to be concerned about here um drinking the water which has been solved right with connection to the municipal Supply and Vapors um and they're going to continue to look at that Vapor issue in the building monitor the ground water near it and there's times that you you look at it for a while and and maybe that you know they get a couple spikes of a of a of a 37 near that well I'm sure that they would go to IBM and say you know what let's take a couple sub slap samples and just be sure right but but that hasn't happened the last time a soil sample was done in Station Park was in the 90s correct corre okay thanks soil when you clean that soil Source up you clean it up we're talking down in the park now the last time they did soil samples down in the park was in 1992 three it was some's back in there Mr mon would know better than me but it's back there in one of those files would it be PR to go back there now and retest that soil down through there just for because of all these vapored gases coming up through W they get caught up in the dirt so keep in mind your your soil your your groundwater standard is one part per billion and we're dealing with 170 200 call call 200 the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protections direct contact soil standard is 15 MGR per kilogram that's 15,000 parts per billion that's the soil standard okay so it it's the groundwater is not going to contaminate the soil at these kind of levels yeah all right enough thank you you got it thank you any else any other member of the public wanting to ask a question Jenny DK tap into Sparta um Mr Hanson pretty much just answered my question but I just I guess bluntly wanted to ask is it safe to play at Station Park well let me try safe is a a word we don't normally use it's safe means different things to different people an older gentleman smoking a cigar his whole life will consider something safe that a mother of three would never consider safe so we don't use that term but we do have our levels of uh acceptable or unacceptable risk um from an exposure standpoint that Peter just mentioned uh we don't have that exposure to folks who use Station Park uh at unacceptable levels that just the data just supports that so I can say that we have uh um levels of acceptable uh risk for people who use a Station Park I can't say it's it's safe it means totally different things to different people do we expect at these levels to find high levels of cancer or increased levels of cancer for people for especially children who play there or people who work in that Maintenance building not at these levels or not at this exposure routes that don't exist okay thank you Josh you had mentioned that you there were a number of uh there were huge numbers of cancers can you can you expound on that because that's pretty scary and I just wanted to clarify where you get that information and I didn't say huge but um large some of the cases I was talking about were the ones that Jim had mentioned and then there were some that you said that you knew of that were in the local area there so it's anecdotal from Mr castore and it's not anecdotal at all actually they were drinking the water that I'm not looking for a fight I just it's pretty scary what you said so it's not antidotal at all and the would I don't think but I mean there's no state report that says we have a cancer cluster here something like that we don't have a state report at you know I mean I'm sure somebody could look at one and we never said it was directly tied to this okay but we what has been talked about several times here tonight is an alarming number and if you and again we're not saying it's right now what we're saying is over time because and they will agree I'm sure because you did before when this whole thing started the wells that were feeding uh the residents look for I just explain how we got here and what we were talking about cuz I really want to make sure that this is not taken out of asking the question right which is why I want to answer it so the wells were found to be contaminated that that not only fed the residents on Station Park but also that were over by the high school and so both one it started with the Station Road is my understanding correct me if I'm wrong but the mitigation was done potable order was brought in for those residents because it was so bad right then they ended up getting a grant I believe they secured a grant for 500,000 something like that dollars to be able to run the the pipes down and connect them to the city water and then subsequently I believe three to four years after that or three years after that I believe that the pipe was then uh dug and run to the high school they were taken off that well as well because it was coming from the same source and the water was contaminated so what we were talking about and what different ones of us had mentioned was yes there were um some numbers of people that we know that live in close proximity there and um Mr cmore brought up about the people that he had gone to school with so that was the reference to it being alarming there were people that lived very close to Station Park three of which that I know of were ill now does that mean it was from Station Park no I'm not saying that and I'm not drawing that conclusion but what I'm saying is it pays to be mindful of these different things and when you start looking at the bigger picture doing all the homework talking to the residents down there it's a lot more than just statistics on paper which they by themselves are can be alarming when you start seeing what's happening well when you hear those stories you look at these reports you see tests rising and you know that kids are there every single day there's no question that we should run this down that we should be having these conversations that we should be asking these questions that we should be looking at we didn't get excuse me it's helpful to have the information yeah and it's helpful but unfortunately we had to get some of these test from a resident because we didn't even have access to them so that's why we're in this room no I agree thank you and for with regard to access to information EPA publishes its fiveyear review reports if you go online and or you Google aop polymer Superfund Site you'll see all the data that we've gathered from the 1990s through today present day from the REM investigation report to the last 5-year review report that was done it's available for the public to to go over we want these conversations to happen we want to talk to you about them and ours is a public facing program where we go out to the the public and share this information with you because uh that's not on you guys at all and to your point what what you guys who understand the science and do this every day and you look at a test and you consider this safe is way different like you said to a parent to a mother those three kids are there playing every day because none of that seems safe right but the explanations are are very helpful to getting to that point well I think though the you know the EPA is going to be somewhat you know baffled at least I'm baffled that um we've had a series of of projects on this site am I right we built a shed we allowed um tur Fields um do you recall a time at which you were brought in to Township Council and asked to explain the status of the remediation before Sparta Township engaged in those things yes back in the 1990s we had a public meeting with regard to a proposal to that the township of Sparta had to build a a school I don't know if it was a high school in Station Park and we responded to that request to meet with the public and discussed the sample results and presented the data to the public and it was a Township's decision whether to proceed without or not based on that data not epa's recommendation but based on the data that you were supplied and the knowledge we provided you but that was with respect to a school I'm asking with respect to uh the building of the storage shed the the turf fields any of that at any time that anyone from Sparta uh ask you to come in as you've done today and present the status of the remediation as it existed at the time that they were deciding on whether to build the storage set or any of the other improvements that they've made no they no no one from Sparta came and requested us to present information but we're always available to do that and any other future projects you have in mind we'd be happy to come in and talk to concerned residents and and present information to the public and so were the level say for example I think it's 2016 of of when we we may have done I think a field there um would the levels of say tce at that time probably likely be higher than they are today because of the natural attenuation and the ex uh remediation that you've done yeah that's correct they probably would be higher in 2016 in fact there's probably data that would we could look into and look at that to answer that question but the the point that Peter made earlier these levels that were probably that were higher in 2016 still don't translate to an exposure uh to folks using the ball fields so my question also is in the beginning of this so we we had some organizational ships also in Sparta Township and and this might explain a little bit of it so in the beginning of this if you go back all the way to the beginning it was the sparta Health Department that was working with you guys um you guys obviously were taking the lead but it was the SP of Health Department that sort of served as the anchor for all the data and the communications and all of that stuff subsequent to that initiative starting we outsourced if you will our health department which then became Sussex County so I'm almost putting I mean I I am of the opinion that the information that was being garnered was going to our health department which probably by that point halfway through this if I look at the Timeline was the county and not actually physically located here at the time I I Comm I was a project manager back in the early 1990s when you did have a health department I communicated with the health officer Ralph dearies on a a frequent basis to Pro provide him the information about the site right and he went to the county well thank you very much he at the county right he went to the county he did so yes he went to the county so I I would just say thank you but I honestly I I'm intrigued by what you said I'm I'm inspired by the fact that you speak highly of IBM who is now you know who you're working with here I think based on what we've heard here tonight it's prudent for us to maybe put together you know different qualified spot testing down there based on the data that we have and maybe come back through jym to you to ask ask IBM if they would be willing for these reasons um because the the public has expressed some concern just to make absolutely positively 100% sure that we can go back with new data from soil not from 1990 but from 2024 that says we tested this and this is this is I don't want to use safe I don't want to use that word but we know 24 years into this thing we note that our our numbers are where they should be we have tested something that we haven't tested in 24 years and also in looking at one or two of the wells that are not closed that have not been tested in a very long period of time um to be able to come up with reasons why we would Pere we would like them to do some spot testing not every well not all of you know station par I think we can come up with maybe a listing of those that could come through the manager maybe with echal Sciences as well to be able to come to you bring to you and have you vet it and work with us to maybe get some additional spot testing done just so we can beyond the shadow of a doubt be sure I know that these chemicals are tricky things I'm appreciative of the explanations that you gave um I think I from my perspective anyway I know we have felt strongly about this I think it it never hurts especially when we know that there are areas down there that have not been tested in quite some time to move forward with spot testing and some of the ones that wasn't just to be sure that those areas that have not been tested are also in line with where they need to be that's my opinion but I want to thank you for coming we've learned again a tremendous amount and thank you for your patience because OB obviously as I we said before this is not something that we do every day and thank you for understanding and acknowledging the fact that to us these numbers are terrifying because they're huge jumps that are alarming so thanks for explaining it to us in the way that we can understand it yeah and I will just say I haven't you know I I appreciate the time and effort that you put into it um and again I'm usually not in a position uh given my background to agree with either the United States government or uh corporate Mal actors you know like Mohawk Industries you know as I mentioned to you uh my prior firm I worked with lawyers who did the Exxon vald case they did The Rock um Rocky Flats contamination and they did Three Mile Island you know some of the biggest um environmental disasters that ever happened so I'm never really in a position to be that credulous about when someone tells me an area of safe but um from what I've heard and you can correct me if I'm wrong um you don't see necessarily A a rational scientific basis at this point to take on the additional testing that uh we're considering that seems to be my takeaway or at least we haven't we're going to have to come up with a pretty darn good reason for why additional testing is required um and have a kind of scientific basis and I haven't heard tonight what that scient ific basis would be well that's because we're not scientists but if we were they are and I I think are you are you advocating tonight that you think the science based on the testing that you've and the results that you have that additional testing soil samples Vapor intrusion testing is necessitated by the results that you're seeing no I don't based on the data that we have and what it explains we're we're as we go through this site the all the monitor the data that we collect we are looking at those situations that you're describing here what should we test that we didn't test before and that's basically focused on the groundwater because as Peter said before these levels residual levels in groundwater concentrations do not translate to a soil concern that's just the science it just doesn't work that way these concentrations are so low you will not get a concentration built up in soils with these types of container minutes at levels that are concern it just the concentrations are are too low so the answer is no thank you all right we've been going almost two hours just on this topic alone I appreciate all the time and effort I know you traveled from New York to to be here tonight you've really done a real service to our community and thank you thank you um Mr hon for coming uh appreciate your all the work that you've done we're going to take a you know five minute break and then reconvene with the regular parts of the meeting you're welcome to stay I'm sure it will be very fascinating to you but you probably want to get back to New York um and again M Hansen thanks again thank you e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e your e e a polymer we are able to get the manager report. prior to that the minute's approved we're now at the uh public comment period That's listed uh for items that are not on the agenda so if you see the item on the agenda that's not what you can talk about at this moment this is for items that are not on the agenda so again uh please state your name for the record and then also please be mindful of our five minute limit hi Celeste Luciano um excuse me hiel Luciano 9 o Trail I'm actually here tonight as a member of the planning board and uh the master plan subcommittee given that Deputy Mayor blue medy is not here tonight for um an update I wanted to mention that the master plan subcommittee has launched its um Community engagement Hub the URL for that website is www.s Sparta Master plan.com we hope that everyone from the community will familiarize themselves with the website and um stay tuned for a survey that's going to come out um for Community engagement on October 1st that's the intended launch date thank you will that survey be made on the website yes that survey will be made public on the website and so if people want to fill it out they can fill it out via the website they don't have to print it out and then deliver it correct it will be an online survey absolutely got you thank you thank you yes lest I want to say also um thank please extend our thanks to the members of the subcommittee I was out looking around on the Hub the other day and one of the things I think is so great is that in addition to a lot of information you know I think people often think of the master plan is like one document that just kind of like lays it all out there they don't realize everything that that goes into it all the different updates that have been made to it over the years and all the different reviews that have happened to it over the years and I thought it was a very comprehensive um website that really contained a lot so for residents I encourage you to go out there check out what the master plan actually is um take a look at the updates that have been made to it through the years and also the reviews that have been done so I think you guys are doing great I can't wait to see the survey I'm excited about that yeah the survey is actually it's going to be a high level survey um you know nothing nothing to in the weeds but we really need that Community engagement because without this data um without this input we can't put together our goals objectives for for the new document I think a lot of people don't understand that this literally takes a village we need as much input as we can possibly get from the community in order to be able to have a document that is all-encompassing that pulls all those moving Parts together and you're very correct there's been a lot of work that's gone into it the subcommittee has been um working pretty vigilantly um our professionals have been working pretty vigilantly we're actually moving at a at a pretty good Pace um so far we've been sticking to the schedule that uh reasonably so that that was put out um and we're hoping to to maintain that momentum um at the very least through the end of the year so um so yeah please stay tuned and like I said our launch date is anticipated to be October 1st for the survey thank you no thank you any other member of the public wishing to be heard about an item that's not on the agenda tonight okay uh see no one we'll move on to expenditures uh councilman Chella would you please read the expenditures um for September 24th 2024 yes thank you I will make a motion to approve the expenditures for the most recent period in the amount of 6, 377,000 the expenditures for September 24th 2024 uh have been approved uh we're now at the introduction stage of of an ordinance uh Madam clerk could you please read ordinance the title of ordinance 2414 I'm sorry we're we're introducing ordinance 2415 right yeah an ordinance by the township mayor and and Council amending the township of Sparta code of ordinances to repeal chapter 28 flood damage prevention to adopt a new chapter 28 flood damage prevention to adopt flood Hazard maps to designate a floor plan floor plane administrator and a providing for separability and an effective date okay may I have a motion to introduce ordinance 2414 I move that we introduce ordinance 2415 as read uh may I have a second please I will uh second it um before we go to roll call vote if I just a question about the Genesis of this ordinance um could someone explain what the basis of having this ordinance is is there are there new statutory guidelines with respect to yes I I I mean what we're really looking at is a uh combination of FEMA working with the New Jersey state legislature and uh the statutory changes that have come out of that collaboration between the federal and and state government and the guidelines that uh they are requiring of uh municipalities thank you um and mayor if I may interject on this because it was initiated by the DP to update these ordinances as as Tom said and these are mandated now and that if the township didn't adopt this ordinance we would uh possibly not be eligible for FEMA funding uh because the ordinances are also based on the national flood insurance program regulations as I understand and uh we updated our ordinance to reflect uh the mandated changes that are required by DP and we also updated uh the flood plane administrator uh on our old ordinance was a construction official it is now our Township engineer um and that's why we're doing this so I have a question what is the or is there maybe that's a better way to ask it is there any impact to homeowners or business owners as a result of this designation and this update well there could be in terms of uh homes that are located in flood planes um so yes the the uh stricter regulations are uh are applicable to homes in certain designated areas so what's the process for I for alerting property owners that are in the flood that are that are there how do we make them aware that this is now changed and that there could be an effect on them so that they can take appropriate action to safeguard their property once the the ordinance is adopted we can post it and not and put a notification out on it I almost I think what you're going to find are the regulations are are really applicable to uh improvements or um Construction uh moving forward as opposed to any retroactivity it would be on for example though if they come in with seeking a permit to do certain work um you know it could be impacted by the tighten standards within this this new ordinance but there are there is qualifying language in here that it does not change anything with regard to what they call ordinary maintenance and upgrades such as new windows or something along those limited uh so there's nothing in here that's going to say a certain part of town is now a flood plane correct you now live in a flood plane plan accordingly it's only about maintenance and new construction yeah for houses that are in those areas yeah or you know if you were going to um renovate a house or you were I mean substantially renovate a house you know that's why they they now have the um the township engineer as the flood plane uh management official as opposed to the construction official uh because uh you know the township engineer would evaluate larger projects such as that all right thank you Chris if I may um from OEM standpoint we had just updated our hazardous mitigation plan with the county and that was also a part of it and so what they'll do is they'll go out and look for for areas within town that may be uh an area that could be uh flooded with with heavy rains and hurricane so um that stuff needs to be addressed if there is an issue and then we report to the county on what we're going to do to mitigate that okay thank you yeah and I can tell you that these uh guidelines have already started to affect um you know uh land use applications uh I can tell you that with respect to like the lake moh H tennis club was you know considering uh adding pickle ball courts and there are various plans that were used one of the plans that was rejected was uh by the the board at the tennis club was was exactly for this reason that it could affect some of the flood flood plane areas and and I think storm water as well but they had to say listen these regulations are coming down the pike we can't choose this plan because that plan will impact uh blood water mitigation Etc so that got rejected so they're already I think it primarily affects people who say they want to develop on a flood plane they're going to have to meet these new standards and I think it might be helpful for the hearing um you know because it now vests in our Township engineer a significant amount of authority um and probably a significant amount of extra work if it looks like it if you read the statute and all the duties that the flood plan administrator does including inter intereting the regulations um I think that I would be interested in in hearing from our engineer at the hearing um what you know sort of an overview what he sees as the impact on his job and then probably you know going forward with respect to Applications Etc I think that would be helpful at least for me to hear before we actually have to vote on yay or nay on the on this although I understand we don't have much of a choice um but I think it's helpful to be as informed as we can so if we could have Mr Stoner available um for the hearing I think that would help everyone so with that um we've had a first and a second so may I have a roll call vote on the introduction of ordinance 2414 Madam clerk thank you councilman Herzberg yes councilman Quinn yes councilman chello yes mayor Clark yes so ordinance 2414 has been 24 2415 uh has been introduced um we are now at the hearing of an ordinance uh Madame clerk can you please read or title of ordinance 2414 an ordinance amending chapter 7 traffic of the revised General ordinances of the township of Sparta amending section 7-3 parking prohibited at all times on certain streets okay and now that it's been read it's now open for public comment is anyone from the public wishing to be heard on ordinance 24:14 okay seeing no one I'll take it back to council anyone from Council wishing to be heard on T ordinance 2414 hearing no one uh may I have a motion to adopt ordinance 2414 I move that we adopt ordinance 2414 as read uh may I have a second please second uh Madame clerk may I have a roll call vote councilman Herzberg yes councilwoman Quinn yes councilman shello yes mayor Clark yes so ordinance 2414 has been approved next up is our second public comment period And this is limited to the the resolutions um so take a look at the resolutions if you have any questions about those or want to make a comment about the resolutions uh please approach the microphone state your name and please be mindful of the five minute limit thank you Jennifer Derek's tap into Sparta um regarding 95 uh appears to have just been added um does I guess this means Sam Rome is no longer or he's re retiring or resigning is that he's on leave he's on leave okay and given that is this a so it says interim and is there an expectation that uh Miss Crum for will stay on or is there an expectation of doing a search to fill the roles or you can't speak about that right now yeah we really cannot the council cannot it's a Personnel matter but uh you know this individual the resolution provides for an individual to step into that role as an interim uh during the the leave of absence of the uh the current CFO to be determined there's no end date and you don't need an end date at the moment okay thank you any other member of the public wishing to be heard on the resolutions okay with that um seeing no one um I will make a motion to approve resolutions 91 through 95 so moved uh may I have a second please second all those in favor say I I so resolutions 91 through 95 have been approved uh we are now up to the council liaison updates and I will welcome back uh from Sparta Greece uh councilman cherell uh to go first on Council liaison update um thank you um couple of updates um I guess I'll lead with our I did um I have an interesting and enjoyable visit to our sister city in Greece um where um I had a formal meeting with the mayor um we did I did uh get to speak at the 2024 um fourth annual um archaeological academic conference there um and I was AFF for today uh slot to have the the opening welcoming speech for everybody um it was a wonderful uh experience and um oh you want to do that I can do that uh do I click or do you want somebody else click I mean you'll have to sit over there okay Dan just be sure to turn on the the mouse and keyboard um so I did uh prepare uh a very brief presentation about the uh about my experience there and I thought that was uh helpful for posterity because it was a formal visit um you're not going to see me pictures of lying on the beach or anything like that this is just a formal um walk through what our sister city looks like um so why did we even uh do this uh in 1969 uh we declared uh ourselves to be sister cities with our friends in Sparta and Laconia lonia is the state in which they are governed uh and then the last year we began uh we took steps to sort of rekindle that relationship uh this is the original resolution from 1969 um which and which I shared a copy with the with the mayor when I was there a couple weeks ago um and uh in forming that relationship with the with our friends in Sparta Greece uh they extended the offer to speak at the conference which I was happy to accept um so what does Sport a gree look like that's kind of what it looks like it has a beautiful Park a beautiful Central Square uh it's got a population close to the size of our town except where our town is kind of spread out with big long big neighborhoods and single family homes and uh and long and Lawns uh picture taking take Sparta and scrunch it all up together uh in a series of four five 3 four five story apartments um and a road grid um so it's it's looks very different than in our town uh and recently they merged the municipality with six neighboring municipalities to create an overall population of Sparta uh Sparty of about 20 33,000 but the actual city is about uh 18,000 um and again you'll find uh throughout town a lot of Apartments uh a lot of a lot of restaurants and shops um so that's what kind of what it looks like it's this is the Old Town Hall by the way they have a new town administration building which is around the corner they use this for weekly Council meetings um this is Mayor um melis vialus um I practiced that a little of bit um so he is the uh uh mayor uh there are and he also acts as the administrator in the town uh there are nine paid Deputy Mayors and three additional non-paid Mayors they act as sort of um the way their Town structure is they act as sort of um department heads they call them Deputy Mayors there uh there are 35 council members and they meet weekly so it's almost like a parliamentary system that they have um so one mayor nine or 12 M Deputy Mayors and 35 council members um the local police force consists of three people um now that might be deceiving because um the the state uh the government the the federal government runs the state the police there so most of the police officers there are are federal uh officers uh their state their local Sparta police officers are primarily traffic um parking and whatnot um they are uh getting three more to move it to six um but otherwise um they have a very small police force um so what do what do people do in Sparta uh tour tourism is one of the primary economic drivers I did ask the mayor you what's the one thing that keeps you up at night and the mayor what then the first thing that the mayor responded with uh is that um uh they we have a very rich history of course but the the um the archaeological sites aren't as developed as they should be uh to take advantage of that so um that that's something that they're trying to work on um what else people do they have a very big Olive and orange industry and there olive trees everywhere everywhere um and the Olive Tree is a very beloved symbol and they've adopted that as their symbol of the town I'm wearing their lapel pin with the olive symbol on it that they gave me um it's also a University Town there are three universities in Sparta um and they do have several ancient sites the old ancient Greek sites are not very well developed this is one um this is the Temple of Apollo's mother what was Apollo's mother I can't remember Apollo's mother um it's in the back there but a lot of the stuff is not very well excavated or or or presented um one of the things they need to take advantage of um there is a Roman Agora um that is um in better presentable shape that is has become their main archaeological attraction um Sparta most people go to Sparta to visit mistas mistras is just about five miles away it's an old Byzantine City that's been abandoned and uh it's a beautiful place to walk through and you can see Sparta in the distance here um and again the other big attraction is the statue of King Leia I thought the statue was very old it's not it it dates back to the late 60s when it was erected which coincides with the time of the uh of the government change that they had there briefly um so this is the uh they have an academic an annual academic conference uh and I was happy to speak to there they had about 75 people attend another 200 people watched on Laconia TV online um there were people speaking from uh several us professors some in Great Britain and Italy some of them were from Greek uh universities um they had real-time translation so was almost like you in the United Nations you had that you were listening to somebody translate as you were talking um was kind of interesting um this is on Monday after the meeting this is Mayor VI vialus and Anastasia kapulu she is the president of the um of the sparta Institute um I'm happy for everybody who can should be did uh we had a whole suitcase full of gifts many of them from the from the chief here um he particularly loved the cap although he said you know we had all these things from the police department from the the badges and the and the patches he's and he's only only have three of them so I think he kept no ST to himself because he really liked those he also loved the football we had a customized football jersey one for each of the people here uh with their name on the back that was uh Steve Stoner donated and um and mat Beck they both love those as well um so uh we also had gifts from the historical society and the spart the Sterling mineral mine U as well as our own municipality I need some water just all right where's the mouse all right so the there's um one of the things that was of great interest is the 2026 conference they want to held in Sparta New Jersey um it was funny that somebody remarked that um most of the people after the conference were already asking about the conference in America forgetting that there's a 2025 conference coming up and I think that's going to be in Rome um but um because the Roman University Sapienza does is a major sponsor of this um they we're still looking at the conference theme we're trying to make this a really nice event for everybody The Institute really wants uh all the towns around the world named Sparta to come together here um there are 25ish towns in in the United States that are named after Sparta uh there's there's two or three in Central America there's one in Turkey we're going to try to reach out to all of them see if we can get people to attend um uh one of the uh things that they were so we're trying to come up with a theme um although everybody Associates Sparta with King Leones because of the the movie um and that's certainly a nice figure there they're they're they uh seem to be uh more attuned to um the uh who they call the lawgivers lurus as their main um historical figure um and um I won't go into too much detail but um a lot of very Progressive ideas were pres were adopted in Sparta uh you know 400 or so BC um and a lot of uh the laws from lugos did impact um um future democracies uh after 400 BC um and so the last this is the last slide so you have to I'm hope it's not boring um so with the sister city relationship um you know first and foremost we're going to plan our 2026 event but I think there's also a lot of other um um relationships and other opportunities we can take advantage of as sister cities um there are businesses there that um maybe we can have some cross um relationships with businesses again they have a very big Olive um population U cultivation there um there are educational begin there's three universities there student exchanges might be interesting um they also again they have a big need for people um working on their archaeological sites if there might be opportunities there of course tourism um these are things that I hope to explore in our in our sister city committee over the next couple of months and um thanks for offering for letting me uh show you that thank you Dan I appreciate it and um I can't help think about uh the famous philosopher uh Henry Rollins of the ban Black Flag that said the best way to learn about your country is to leave it um and so by leaving Sparta I think you're going to bring a lot of knowledge back to Sparta New Jersey and and I think the last slide that you saw about certain opportunities that uh people in Sparta could probably Avail themselves of and also that um so I I appreciate the collaboration that you've done and and the significant amount of work um it's really appreciate it thank you thank you um you know we are named sparo I think as our community takes a lot of pride in that and and I think it's time to explore that and um and so that's what I hope to do over the next couple of months or years um I will offer a couple of other community upd uh committee updates um there's environmental commission meeting this uh this Thursday um and um you know some I think I talked enough so I think we're good thanks Dan thanks a lot for representing us there and for traveling over with the whole suitcase full of gifts it was a heavy suitcase yeah I I can share a copy of the presentation if you're interested too the um so thank you for that and uh also maybe something to think of for 2026 too is the you know you have things like the Michigan Spartans in addition to all of that yep and then maybe uh maybe something fun like it takes a little more to be a Spartan regardless of where you're a Spartan but I think it's great and I think it's going to be really interesting to host it here and to be able to have everybody come you know come to Spartan New Jersey which I think is really something that we should be proud of that they're going to allow us to host it here so they're very excited about it and so am I I actually have spoken with the mayor of Sparta Wisconsin and um he's all in I told him to bring us football team um and we'll have a a good time thanks and we'll just work our way down um Council EA is on updates um I don't have uh really many I know I'll leave the rec committee to I think we're not having a meeting in September I think we moved OCT October that's what I thought um and then um I'm happy to report that um uh Bruce young is now back as uh manager at like MW Country Club after um you know a sick leave and so I think well now that he's back we should probably get together with them we're we're working on coordinating a DAT okay great yeah because I know we need to do that um I with the film ready committee U there are uh no updates beyond what I said last time that our application is in and that I expect a decision from the New Jersey film commission probably sometime and November um so we hope to join you know of the 12 towns in in New Jersey that have been uh designated film ready hopefully we will become number 13 and with that I don't have any other updates the business development committee met um talked about a lot of things but I think um the important ones to bring up are that we once again found inconsistencies with with the minor subcommittee waiver um found some things that are required that are not shown in there so again businesses are having to come bring it to the to the township to be rejected to have to come back and do it again so the the members of the planning board who sit on the committee have taken those notes back the other thing that was recommended was that contact information for the business development committee be put on that application so when there are issues or problems they have someone to come to because businesses keep saying that they feel like they have no one to go to because they can't complain to the people about what they're doing so they have feel like they don't have anyone to go to so we want to be the resource for people for businesses to come and ask advice especially when there are businesses who have gone through that process many times represented there and again we you know at our Council connect meeting heard from businesses who were struggling to get through the processes and asking for help so keep hearing this over and over and over again and we want to try and help these businesses because again the reputation of us being a very unfriendly business town is is getting out there and we want to try and be part of fixing that and the other thing that they asked I brought it up at the last meeting I don't know that it went anywhere but I'll I'll submit it in writing so it's it's very official is that the business the development committee has requested that the planning board consider Planning and Zoning consider putting time limits because one of the things many businesses have complained about is that people get up and basically take over the entire meeting and that businesses get pushed and don't get to finish their presentations and it's costing them tens of thousands of dollars just to show up to that meeting and everybody is requesting the time limits be put on the speakers for those meetings so that's an official request from the business development committee to the planning board that's all I have so um first first update would be from the health committee so I just want to let you know that again the Health Corner has been updated to reflect some information but probably most important for people to know and understand is there has been in the month of August there's a pretty high rate of rabies so please make sure that if you have already done so you make sure that your pets are properly vaccinated and have their rabies vaccines um the county has seen almost 200 cases and Sparta I believe the number was about 29 in August along so please make sure that you're getting your your pets properly vaccinated um so I just wanted to share that there the municipal Alliance uh met today so we had a really great meeting today and this was our our really our first meeting coming back from the summertime so uh I think it was nice to see everybody back we didn't unfortunately get every single person but we got a majority so some of the things we talked about today were the opportunity for the schools to be able to book their inspirational speakers from a selection of two or three um the moving forward with schools that are interested we left it up to them in screenagers initiative you remember a lot of the schools were coming uh the schools have voiced a lot of concern around the effects of social media and cell phones on Mental Health that sometimes leads to sance use and and misuse we also got the new copies of the center for prevention and counseling program updates so that was something else that the schools were asked to review and get back to us and let us know what programs they're looking uh if any that are newly listed in the 2425 catalog as always the center for prevention and counseling has done a great job of expanding their portfolio and their program so we want to make sure that we leverage that I just want to shout out to Marie Morrow and Lisa who Lisa is at the county she's our County rep they did a great job on the reporting and Lisa actually just was appointed as the county representative that's going to be handling all of the settlement funding so she was just told that she's going to be doing that I think yesterday so so that's going to be the new contact for handling at the county level um we also continue to search for information and programming for our veterans they've asked as well so we're we're really going out trying to find some programs for them as well there's a huge suicide rate with our veteran population as we all know and we really want to try to to support them so that's really what we spoke about today at the municipal Alliance um so that's that the senior advisory committee is meeting tomorrow the meeting in October will be a tour of schuma so that's very exciting I think there everyone's really looking forward to that the health Bingo was done through for our seniors and the wise program so the um the WC is called Wellness Initiative for senior education the wellness program is a series of programs is going to be offered to the seniors in Sparta at up at trap Paso Drive in the senior center and it's going to be Wednesdays from 2: to 4: and there are six sessions starting October 9th going till November 13 so if anybody is interested any of our seniors are interested in that God bless you information can be found on the website but totally recommend um that the other thing I want to mention with with regard to um the senior advis I mean kind of the senior advisory but over the weekends I had the opportunity to stop by um celebrate the birthday of a very special Spartan so we did a proclamation at the last meeting for Carolyn stroming and I had to tell you something what happened over the weekend was amazing the police the ambulance Squad um and all members of the community there was a huge turnout it was really very very very special um she was on when the cars drove by all the cars were decorated they had a police um was that Sunday through town was that Sunday like I got stopped with that I was wondering what that was that's what it was interesting so and then at this at the uh end point was uh almost like a float I would call it and it had balloon arches and all kinds of stuff like that and really she's a very very special lady she taught in school for many many years she was actually born and raised in Sparta and the thing that was so nice was so of her students came and she said they really keep in touch with her through the years so a very special birthday for a very special Spartan and those are my liaison oh one more uh the league of municipalities did release the I I've been telling everyone that you're going to the municipalities are going to be receiving uh questionnaires around shared services these are sessions that we're going to be facilitating with the municipalities in 2025 the final version of the survey went to the county we are awaiting County approval before that's going to be disseminated to all the municipalities in the county that's it for me thank you Council Quinn and if you wouldn't mind we could do unfinished new business and we'll start with you and move down unless you want to start somewhere else okay um so one of the things I wanted to just bring forward for consideration is I know we're doing a lot of historical markers in town and I know I think it would be really interesting if we did one for angman Fields so I've been trying to track down this urban legend and apparently it seems to be that it is true the um football field on at unerman that whole area down there was apparently one of a card game um it's a pretty interesting story of how it was kind of a pond and then a swamp and then a meadow and then uh apparently the deed was from the the way that I understand it and I've heard it from multip I think we just need to verify it but it appears that this may be true and if it is I think that's a pretty cool story and then uh Mr unan apparently won it in the card game and then turned it into a field and so I think the story is significant it's one of those things that we should capture because it's a big part of the community um and it's a really cool story so I think we if we could bet that one more time I've talked to many people who have lived for a long time and they all seem to think that is what in fact what happened if we can validate that story I think it's worth it to have a plaque put down there you should have asked Jim castore while he was he knows everything Jim castore told me I asked him of course I asked Jim castore he knows everything did he is he the one that lost it in the card game no he did not lose it in the card game but he and then there we should talk to him because there's a whole story about the the men that worked with Mr angan to actually fill it in and where they got The Fill dirt from it's a pretty cool story so Jim sorry to give you an action item but I think this is something that is worth capturing anyway with maybe one of our historic box good the other thing is we don't appear to have a fund balanc policy in town for our Surplus so some kind of ordinance that actually provides guidelines around how much of the Surplus we can use to balance the budget in any given year and I did some research and there are municipalities that do have this so you are limited to what you can pull out of your Surplus to fund your balance and that protects what's in your Surplus so I want to bring It Forward because I do think this is something that we should be learning more about and implementing to be able to protect and help us to better Budget moving forward so Jim sorry there's action item number two sorry about that can you send that up to the federal government too I will send it to the federal government I'm not sure it's going to get there but I will be happy uh the other piece of um new and unfinished business we had um we had a council connect session Josh and I attended it it was very well attended we had about 15 uh residents that came and it was great I we Josh and I followed up with every single person that came and we forwarded all of the concerns for next steps and review to the manager so I think it was a ve it was a really great session it was nice to be able to talk to so many people and to be able to hear what's going on and and some of the things that they want I will say um we we had some general comments with regard to um road maintenance sidewalk maintenance and whatnot I fored you to those many of those you're already looking at uh thank you for your responses Jim yeah thank you halfway there that's okay um the other thing is the former Exxon property you've heard us mentioned it here many many many times no one is more upset about that than we are we've brought it up I don't know how many times have we brought it up now overin the past 10 plus years um so Jim is on it um those are the general things other things that were brought up were were residents from specific neighborhoods that had really uh that brought forward valid concerns around Public Safety Aesthetics maintenance update um and ground keep and and the recommendation was made uh by us then to have a meeting with Jim to be able to really have them bring it to you firsthand rather than trying to get it second hand through us so we're available if you would like us to also participate in those just let us know but I wanted to thank you very much for the responses that you've already given us enlightening speed by the way and and also for your willingness to take the next steps and meet with everybody we appreciate it that'll do it for me now I'll just touch on the one thing and me and you talked about it a little bit earlier but you know several years ago I brought the residents concerns I had a meeting with one of the entire neighborhoods about the Sober Living homes we put a plan together um worked with Tom's office worked with the state the senator made sure we knew rules new the laws and then in the meantime what Trenton does is change laws so that it can make sure that people that make lots of donations to them get to do whatever they want so in the meantime they've changed the laws to allow these in our neighborhoods and in our residential areas and so um we're looking at that now and we're going to ask some questions and see if we can still apply the old rules to the existing houses and VI them on zoning but we'll see I just I don't think it's fair to these neighborhoods that are dealing with these problems I know the chief I I get lots of pictures of your officers there and the ambulance is there and there's a lot of concerns about Public Safety with the kids riding around and these Vans coming and dropping people off speeding through the neighborhoods I mean we heard it that night I've heard it over the last two years from other neighborhoods and um it's a shame that Trenton wants to to take any decision making out of our hands it from up from down there but that's what appear appears like is happening that's all I have okay um I'll go I have um quite a bit but I'll try to get through it first uh just an order of bus business um I was contacted by um the council for the zoning board and just as a procedural matter as as people recall last session we appointed um a new person person to alternate uh to and as a result of that uh the person who was an alternate to needs to get moved up to alternate one and so um I would make a motion that Landon taneri uh be moved to from alternate 2 to alternate one given that we've now replaced alternate 2 U with a new member so my motion is for Landon teneri to be moved from alt one alt two placement to alt one on the zoning board actually I don't believe that's a council appointment I think that's a mayoral identification of the alternate one and two okay so if we don't need Council approval and I hereby you know dictate that that's what we'll do at the instruction of you know if I can feel like a dictator for five minutes then I I'll do it um so yes I will appoint uh land and ten areas alternate one for the zoning board per the instruction from Council for the zoning board and upon the recommendation of the zoning board um president uh also um I Got a notification from uh Mitch Morrison um who is says that they need drivers and meal assemblers for the 2024 love and action Thanksgiving prepared meal program um if they need to have uh you know delivery volunteers um by uh you know no obviously before they do this in November 26 but if you interested in doing this please contact me and I can put you in touch with Mitch Morrison who will then sign you up for being a driver but this is a huge uh Endeavor where they prepare over like 2100 uh meals uh for Thanksgiving uh for people that need them so if you are interested please contact me and I I'll get you in touch with with Mitch who who's organizing this and thank you to Mitch Mor um for this outstanding uh Public Service I like the title meal assembler I got to use that um as opposed to the meal cooker exactly the assembler uh next up is I was notified and I I've let Mr Lichfield know about it about a grant program uh for our veterans uh it's for veterans who are previously homeless who are now transitioning uh into a you know permanent housing and that they may require kind of additional case management support um when they transition to Community Living um I've let Mr Lichfield note about it um also I assume Jim you may have gotten the same flyer if not I I'll get it to you but if there if we have uh homeless veterans or formerly homeless veterans in Sparta who could benefit from that I I I hope that we can identify them and get them the support that they need it sounds like it's a great program for them so I've alerted Mr litfield and I'll I'll send it to you as well but I hope we can we can do that um finally um I have tomorrow I will be meeting with some investigators for the New Jersey automobile insurance company um they are sort of the insurance company of Last Resort uh for New Jersey and I I became aware of a insurance scam that has happened happened uh in Sussex County um it was publicized a few years ago about trucks that are doing most of their business outside of Sparta and outside of susex County that are registering their trucks in Sparta to get the benefit of our lower insurance rates um and so even though they don't do business in Sparta they want to take advantage of it and there was a scheme that the Sussex County and Warren County prosecut compers uh busted um I think it was close to a $20 million scheme because if you can register your truck in New in Sparta or susex County you'll save about $25,000 a year and so there were uh Kickbacks given to both a broker uh who would then say that the it is is registered in say suex County and then the property owner would also get a kickback and so um this uh and I asked the investigators cuz they're the ones for the Automobile Insurance Association who then go to Trenton and ask for rate increases and I said well does this type of scam can that have you ever had to advocate for a rate increase because you're losing money as a result of the scam and unfortunately that answer was yes uh I think a few years ago they had to ask for I think a 30% increase in um insurance rates for uh Sussex County and Warren County and other ones affected by this so this is an actual scan that is hitting the pocketbooks of law-abiding um trucking companies and so what I want to do is meet with them understand if there's anything we can do from a Township Council point of view um we're not getting involved in any of the investigation themselves it's more if we can pass any type of ordinance or something that we can help identify detect deter and eventually prosecute um offenders in this so I'll be meeting with them along with uh Chief mccarrick and and manager Zep to tomorrow and I can report more about that if there's anything that we can do on the township side uh or the Town Council side as far as ordinance are concerned to prevent this from happening and and save U you know insurance rates for law abiding uh in companies particularly where we have we have significant amount of you know uses uh land uses in Sussex County that involve trucks and so we also want to make sure that none of these uses are being used to further this scheme so with that uh that is all the new business that I have um as for me I don't have any new business but I do remember a piece of uh committee update that I wanted to share uh the next meeting of the Revolution NJ committee will be uh Monday October 7th uh I was contacted by the state Revolution NJ committee who asked uh if we if Sparta would be uh interested in doing a presentation at the next quarterly meeting of the state Revolution NJ committee uh that quarterly meeting uh is at 12:00 noon on October 8th the next day on I think it's a Tuesday um so um Sparta will give a presentation at that State uh meeting in uh may I think I extended to you if you wanted to um host that that U you're welcome to yeah I will and that's all I have okay we're now at the final uh public comment period uh which I call the grab bag of uh so uh feel free to come up state your name uh and address for the record and please be mindful of the five minute limit round three Jenny Derek tap into Sparta I also have a grab bag so um couple things to follow up with Jim how are we doing with the Brownfield project we're doing pretty well our our our environmental consultant has located two Parcels of property that the township owns that would uh look like will be very good candidates for uh mitigation and I understand that there is a hearing at the DP in uh October we're hoping to be uh placed on the agenda for consideration is that for the reapplication or the reconsideration okay yes so um we're it's moving forward and uh it's it's we're progressing and I'm hoping to have some good news to report soon great um thank you I appreciate that uh the also um they're starting to make some Headway on the minutes for Planning and Zoning I see yes we are and I appreciate that and it's going to get better um councilwoman Quinn has uh been helping uh with some Ai and some uh work with my staff um I think we're going to get on top of it and is the Environmental commission minutes going to be added to the mix there because they haven't had minutes all year they're also a statutory board I'm looking at Dan I can bring it up at the next meeting sure thank you um let's see uh there was a recently I said recently in August passed a new uh regulation uh signed by the governor that is relating to New Jersey design professional self certificate certification and I just wonder if there's any that the township needs to do to prepare for the possibility that we may be encountering such designations or some professionals what background if anything has to be done to prepare for that you were shaking your head do you have any information on that you just know about it that it's existing and that you know that Engineers are going to be able to be certified to do that right um I don't know from a Township perspective if any guidance has been given from the state on on what we need to do I'm I work really closely with the engineer and all and that we hasn't come up in discussion okay thank you and then um I had asked last at the last meeting and Josh you kind of brought it up about the um the inconsistencies and the difficulties that people are having um making their applications but I thought John Drake was doing that and I had asked at the last meeting only if the the township refers people to him okay so that's my point is that we I mean he's on the committee so by saying they reach out to the committee we can activate him then because that's what's not happening is people are being frustrated they don't know who to go to they don't know who to ask and so we're saying put it on the application so we can get him directly involved like I did we're paying him but they don't know that he's there well no no not every business knows he's there not every business I mean you're saying the plan the department we don't even businesses unless they come and tell somebody we don't even know that they're having problems or frustrations they came to our meeting to tell us you know another one did people in the room yeah so they're going to the planning department and they're encountering frustration and the planning department is not referring them to to John Drake I mean I I'm assuming that they are referring some people or he's helping other people because he comes to the meetings we talk about who he's working with who he's talking to but there are still people that don't know to do that or that they come they get the application they go complain to a friend or complain to somebody else on the committee or or it gets to us but they don't they're not going back to the township and saying this is confusing to me I need help so it seems like there could be a better way to manage the way that this program is working or not working that's what I just said okay that's what I'm that's I'm just putting it out there um I think that's all for me thank you yeah I think it might be helpful I mean I've heard a lot of these sort of anecdotal reports and also not so anecdotal um you know people have taken me aside and and told me about some of the issues that they've had but I think it might be helpful since um Mr Drake is you know we're we're paying him to do this I appreciate the work that Dan and and and Josh have done with this but it might be helpful at some future council meeting to for him to make some type of presentation to us about what are the complaints that he's hearing what are the recommendations that he's making what so you know we can figure out is there anything we need to do on the township Council side to improve this um I know there's some recommendations about uh a certain ordinance that has one area of a Zone uh you know they still have they they can't get site plan waiver if they're located in that zone and there's talk of changing that I think we have to understand what the legal rationale in the first place was for not allowing that that area to have a sight plan waiver but again I think it might be helpful uh for Mr Drake to come in and and and talk to us about that and I know it would help me I don't know if it would help anyone else but I keep hearing this you know from other people that I encounter from Josh from Chris from other people in town and I just want to get a better handle on it and he sounds like the best person to do that well that you know I'm glad you said that because that's actually one of the things that that we talked about was the entire committee coming because they feel like you know and and I've said that I've come to and I've reported some of this stuff but it doesn't seem like we get a lot of things a lot of action from it so the whole committee including Mr Drake would be happy to come to the meeting and express what they're hearing and what they are seeing and some of the things that they feel could be done to fix it okay so we'll we'll um try to put that on an upcoming agenda now that I think D Dean will be back and if we can do it as soon as two weeks from today let's do it um and so we can really get to the bottom of it and air it out anyone else wishing make public comment hi Mark Scott DP of L Parkway uh quick question about the township website um my wife who works at the food pantry was told that there would be a reference to the sparta food pantry for those with food insecurities and those that need help um you know where that some more information on the Sparta website about the availability of food on demerest road at the SP Sparta food pantry and we're uh she asked me to find out if that's going to be put on to the website I'm a pretty direct access to the website I we've been working on that a lot there's been a lot of activity this is the first I've heard of this so I would just have her email me and we can follow up on that and and we we'll do that um for the local nonprofit organizations like that we're we're very supportive of them and uh we try to get the uh um the publicity on the website for stuff like that so wouldn't be a problem great thanks we actually also have a self-help page on our portal so that information I believe is on the self-help portion of the portal itself and also just uh so that you're all aware that information also was disseminated to all of our seniors through our wck advisory or the through the senior advisory committee so a lot of information has been going out to our seniors about it and I do believe that if it's not now it was at one point it we have a um a page on the website that's dedicated to self help and where people can get connected we do so my understanding is that that's where it was I don't know if it's still there but that is where it was so we should look to put it back there probably we'll look into it thank you yep yeah and your comment about the food pantry triggered a memory that I had I was approached by someone uh from the food pantry who you know asked about if there's you know they incur they do all this as a volunteer basis and they uh they incur certain costs um that I think they have to make themselves and although they're they're providing what I would consider a public service if not almost a governmental one um uh if there's something that we can look into to help Fray some of the cost that they have to incur um I know they I mean they do things as as much as they clean the the place themselves um you know there's other things that they do and and costs that they incur um just to look into that if there's something that we can do to help offset that um and we're legally allowed to do it uh I think we should because that is a tremendous service that's provided uh to our community not just Sparta but I understand elsewhere well Neil actually it's funny you mentioned that because last year when I came here um this was the big push we had through to all the different municipalities as well but the um our Municipal Alliance pledged to the food pantry an amount of $3,000 each year for three years and that was approved last year so that's something that's going on as well so we do give that support it gets um because we were able to get that approved through the opioid settlement money from the county they said that we it was an approved use my understanding was we couldn't do anything from the township Council per se because it is a 501c3 but we did move it and we're successful in making our very first they got their first check in December of last year they'll get another check in December of this year for $3,000 so the commitment was made for a $9,000 total contribution from the municipal Alliance team in Sparta Township to provide offset for rent for a month I don't believe we can direct taxpayer dollars to contribute to a charity we cannot right right I understand it can come out op settlement because that's not taxpayer dollars that makes sense the op direct taxpayer dollars toward charity correct that's why we did it through the uh Municipal Alliance from the opioid settlement fund great thank you very much and I do this is secondhand information but um they did lose one of their major food sources and so the the pantry is having quite a bit of difficulty at this time and so any help would be appreciated uh they used to have a a vendor that that did uh food delivery out of his warehouse and he's since gone he's retired and and that that food source has has gone away and so that the pantry is in need of some support thank you thank you any other member of the the public wishing to be heard see no one uh may I have a motion to adjourn I move the we adjourn may I have a second please second all those in favor say I I I we are adjourned and thank you everyone for staying