Zoning Hearing Board - Special Meeting

Do you realize water? before he makes his dough. Try it next time.

I don't make them anymore. this again for Christmas. I should just go and she just posted on Facebook. about three times a month.

I usually make the pot like this and then freeze it. I mean, if you're making it freeze and it doesn't take up a lot of room

out. I'd like usually dry out there. It's not quite used to go in October watch. I even added new items tonight to our bag. I know I stayed up last night watch football game

till the end because that's I kept thinking oh it's gonna be over then they went to

happy ender council. [snorts]

You have a witness and I I thought you were done with your case, but didn't you rest? Oh, so you have a rebuttal witness. Okay. [laughter]

[snorts]

This is the one you can use.

And then I Are they call

attorney Kaplan, it's my understanding that attorney Shaunie has a witness to testify. Why don't we take him first? In case there's anything so that your witness can do everything at once. Okay. I was going to ask him when he comes back.

Well, after we get through these two witnesses tonight, we'll open it up to the public. Attorney Shaughnessy, are you going to have any other witnesses or do you know if any of your colleagues

you don't know about your colleagues? Oh, okay. Right. As far as you're concerned, this is your final witness. Okay.

So, you're going to talk The little green light has to be on your mic. He's here. ask.

No, after yours. Is that okay? Yeah. You're right. We did. So that's all good. It didn't get posted. Okay. Property was posted.

Okay. Get everything set up for seven. Okay. I know. Well, we don't have There you Okay.

You ready? Yes. I'm going to mic. I'm gonna reopen the hearing. Mr. Niski, um, first and foremost, for those folks who are here in the audience, there are and and if there are any in in the lobby outside, I presume you can hear me really loud.

That's good. There are two tablets on the corners of the table up here. If you have not been here yet and have not signed one, this is your opportunity to do so. If you want to participate at all in this proceeding and receive a copy of the board's decision, if you've been to prior meetings and have already signed, you're already good. Is there anyone who was not at any of the prior hearings? Okay. Um, yes, that one is for individuals. This is for individuals who are represented by an attorney. So, if you would folks, please legibly put your name and address on there. And council, while they are doing that, I believe we all know why we're here by now. Do we have your permission to dispose with the reading of the purpose of the meeting?

Please. [laughter] Thank you. Of course. I will ask um Well, I'll have to wait and ask because you haven't been sworn yet. Okay, Mr. Chairman, do you want to Well, I was going to ask um about swearing in. I don't know who's who was sworn in or if we might just swear everybody back in. Yeah. Um, so the people in the audience, do you want to if you want to speak? I'm going to ask you now to stand up and be sworn in. The people, if you're out in the hallway, can't see you, but I would ask you to stand and be sworn in. Thank you so much. You want my witness at this time also?

Yes. Anybody who even thinks they might want to ask questions, make a statement, make a comment, make an observation, please stand now and be sworn. If you are not sworn now, you will not be allowed to participate in the hearing. To the people sitting, you're not you don't want to speak tonight. Okay. swear. I do.

And Attorney Shaughnessy, I guess we're going to start off with you. Okay. Uh before you do though, uh Mr. Tilman, was the property po posted? Yes. Thank you.

Uh we would call uh Professor Drew Germinoski. [clears throat] So, and I believe that has his uh curriculum vi. Professor Germinoski, could you please just state your name and your present uh profession? Yes, my name is Drew Germanowski. I'm a Van Artsdale and professor of geology and environmental geoscience Lafayette College. And could you give us just a brief overview? And first of all, the curriculum vi that we have in front of you, is that an accurate present copy of your curriculum vi? Yes, it is.

And could you just give us a brief overview of your educational background? And I'm sorry to interrupt again, but uh since we have all the board members have a copy of your CV. Um Mr. Tone, do you remember where we're at with the O exhibits? Council, do you happen to recall? I know we have 01, 02. I really don't know. We have 03 as well. Okay. So, we will mark this exhibit 04. Thank you. I'm sorry for the the interruption.

Okay. Uh, Professor Germinosi, could you just give us a brief overview of your educational background? Sure. Yeah. All of my degrees are in geology or earth science with geology focus. Uh, so I have a bachelor's degree from Penn State, um, master's degree from Southern Illinois, PhD from Colorado State, and the graduate degrees focus on earth surface processes, uh, in particular, rivers, groundwater surface, water interaction, sediment transport, uh, things of that nature. And you you received your uh, bachelor's from Penn State in 1982. Yes, that's correct. And your master's from Southern Illinois in 1984. Yes. And that was in geology. Yes.

And in 1989, you received your PhD uh in earth resources from Colorado State. Yes, that's correct. And uh when you finished your education at Colorado State, what did you do at that point?

I I've I've spent my professional career here in East uh based at Lafayette College. So I came right from Colorado State to Lafayette College where um I teach do research publish papers on the basis that research um and I'm a registered professional geologist in Pennsylvania done a fair amount of consulting. I'm a I'm on the um board of directors and staff geologists at local environmental analysis out of Banger Pennsylvania. So I have a a career that um involves academic research and result publications as well as um what people might consider more practical application as a professional geologist. But I would say the academic research is every bit as practical.

And so at Lafayette, what courses do you actually teach at Lafayette? Now the courses I teach most frequently um are earth surface processes also known as geomorphology which of course focuses on things operating on their surface rivers glaciers uh carst processes and carbonate terrains I teach hydrogeeology and I teach environmental geology those are my regular courses but I've taught river form and function I teach several off-campus courses in the January session in New Zealand uh carbonates in the Bahamas some years in the past and uh the geology of the Hawaiian islands with advanced environmental geology a few other courses happening infrequently here at the college but the main stays are hydro geology or surface processes and environmental geology

and I note from your curriculum vai that you've received numerous awards over the years uh yes I've been fortunate in that regard to have my work recognized and your research search interests uh you know I I can see your curriculum you ties some 30 or 26 pages what are the the major areas of interest for you and your research

I mean if I try to boil it down basically it's I'm called a a fluial geomorphologist fluial meaning rivers geomorphology meaning our surface processes so uh my research focuses on river behavior river form and function um I've done a lot to work on groundwater surface water interactions both in the Lehigh Valley as well as a relatively long career of something like 15 consecutive summers uh working in the the mountains in central Nevada studying wetlands and groundwater surface water interactions whether groundwater is being fed uh feeding the streams whether the streams are feeding groundwater and how these things change with time and space and the dynamics associated with that that's that would be the main focus Earlier in my career, I spent a lot of time studying braided rivers in Alaska, which are multi-channel high energy rivers, and then also in the early 2000s, contaminant transport in the Rio Pilamo River in Bolivia, probably four years of work down there.

And when we talk about hydrogeeology and groundwater surface interactions, is that exactly what you were just speaking of?

Yes, by and large. Um and again the reality is in a humid climate like this we normally expect streams to be fed by groundwater. So in periods when there's no precipitation um the streams are still flowing. Uh but that can change based on geology. It can change based on seasonality. The drought we've been experiencing lately has caused a number of the streams that I have been working on to actually uh be losing pretty progressively losing surface water. they collect in say the Martinsburg shale and slate and then in the carbonate rocks that a lot of that water seeping into the subsurface that'll flip back uh seasonally and from time to time but so that's what I mean in terms of the relevance of this region of groundwater surface water interactions

and then it looks on your research says transport and storage of contaminated sediments and what does that mean? Yeah, that that work mostly involved our work in the Pilamayo in in Bolivia where uh what they've been mining uh tin and silver there since 1545 which is pretty hard to imagine that the the Spanish have and that's ongoing Sarah Rico in Potasy and their environmental regulations are slim to perhaps non-existent and so the mills that process that or material release um contaminated ated water into the Pilo River system. And so we did work studying how those contaminated sediments, mostly metals, how they move down through the river. Um, of course, any transport of anything but dissolved materials in a river uh will be stored in a river system periodically on bars and in point bars in the channel margins. So it's not a uniform flux of water directly downstream. In much the same way that say for example if you think of a sewage treatment plant treating sewage effluent say in in Delaware River and releasing it, you expect those dissolved constituents phosphates, nitrates to more or less wash straight down to Delaware Bay pretty much uninterrupted other than through uh say transformation chemically or biologically. Whereas if you have metals and contaminants coming out of a mill, they're not going to flow directly downstream. They're going to be stored periodically in a simple way of putting is on bars and then released almost like we could relate to say a time release uh of medicine or something. So that's what I mean by storage and transport of uh of metal contaminants.

Okay. And then you mentioned you've done some consulting experience. Um what kinds of consulting have you what types of consulting have you done for and for what kind of organizations?

Okay. um a lot of it has been for early on here in particular when frankly the the dynamics of society dictate that to some extent. So u those of us who've been here for a long time recall Interstate 78 being completed and then um in the late 80s early 90s as the Helertown interchange and Eastn interchange came into play there was a tremendous amount of of u residential development around those interchanges. So for example, Lower Sen Township has a carbonate ordinance. So to develop a a piece of real estate there on carbonate rocks required geological site assessment for sinkhole potential uh to identify areas that may be particularly susceptible to sink holes etc. So in the late 80s early 90s I did a fair amount of that consulting. I've done consulting associated with uh groundwater contamination mostly through MEA. Um, I provide an expert testimony. I'm sorry, I don't know what MEA is.

Oh, mobile environmental analysis. It's a local consulting firm. Um, and uh and and then relatively u unusual things perhaps uh in so far as geographically widespread. I done consulting work for a a prominent clay development uh mineral company in the uh Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota for Corners area uh looking at again that case uh seeps and and groundwater impacts from their mining activity. I did carbonate mineral assessment work in Jamaica for a Canadian um mining company. Those are just some examples. Okay. So you uh sometimes consult for developers on projects or roads or those kinds of projects.

Yes. For for developers, not uh other than roads within a development sites. Certainly in that regard. Yes. And uh you're a member of the Karst uh working group of Northampton County. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. What is that?

That that's a group of geologists and engineers that work mostly for government agencies. DP um the director of the Pennsylvania Geological Surveys on the group and given that the much of the Lehigh Valley is under lane by carbonate rocks and susceptible to dissolution and carst related processes with those rocks um we meet periodically several times a year to discuss how we could in fact help with respect to planning and uh landscape management u pulling data together from widespread existing sources so that we can compile information that could help uh decision making. And we recently revised a uh best practices storm water management in in cars terrain as an example.

I was just about to ask you about that. That's under on page four papers published. The the the top paper is titled what? Oh, I'd [clears throat] have to look at that yourself. Exactly. um storm water be best practices in Karst and that's a revised document. So this wasn't a this wasn't a a start from scratch document. It was a matter of bringing people together who have expertise with cars processes to look at best practices and see where uh additional knowledge might influence um our best practices uh regulations for that. And the organization that was for was for whom?

Um that was a Pennsylvania Geological Survey um publication. Okay. And uh you have lots of other um papers published and book excerpts that kind of thing or are those throughout uh your curriculum vias produced? Yes. Yes. that those represent uh the the standard research that faculty in an active research institution are supposed to participate in as part of their job responsibilities

and with the Bushkill Creek in particular. Have you had experience working with uh the geology and uh water resources of the Bushkill Creek? Yes, because of Bushkill Creek with Lafayette is basically in the Bushkill Creek watershed and it's right on our back door. It's a natural focus of our lab activities and classes stu directed student research on water quality in the stream over the years. And then most recently, um, Professor Brandis from civil engineering and professor Rothenberger from biology and environmental sciences have been working on the dam removal project in a lower bushkill uh where we've uh been involved in the removal of three lowhead dams and we've been studying the stream response to uh to that dam removal and impacts on the stream, how the streams adjusting to that. Um, we've also been involved in muscle reintroduction into Bushkill as recently as this summer and that research into how that's going will continue.

I would offer uh Professor Shermanoski as an expert in geology and water management. Don't any objection? Well, I have questions. There's been absolutely no qualification of his relationship to this project. We're getting to that. This is all just qualifications.

Well, you and I disagree on what the qualifications of an expert have to be in order to testify in a particular matter. Professor, how long have you been involved in this in consulting or being involved in any way with the project that we're here about tonight? This would just date back into October in terms of direct involvement. October of this year, 2025. When in October? Oh, I would roughly the second week. Um, so you're talking October 15th.

No. And In advance of that, I would have to check my record to see when we first met. And they uh asked me to um look at the situation and uh provide any expertise I have on concerns uh for the plans. So it's what December one now. So at a maximum you've been involved in this for six weeks. Well, directly, um, you could say that, but indirectly and importantly, because I've spent my professional career mostly in this area, um, I've been studying that area in the geology for 38 years. Please let him finish. That's not what I asked you. Well, and I'm going to interrupt. With all due respect, council, now you're you're asking him if he's an expert on this project.

No, I He's being offered as an expert in his field. I have a right to cross-examine as to what his knowledge is of this particular project. You can't. Well, you apparently we disagree, but the rules on the rule on expert testimony is yes, you have to have qualifications, but you also have to have some degree of involvement investigation of the project that you're going to testify about here. And I think I I agree with you, but let me cross after

Can I follow up on that? I can answer one at a time, please. I think that comes after he's qualified as an expert in his field. I think that's exactly the opposite of the law in Pennsylvania. Actually, that's an accurate statement of the law, Mr. We haven't even If you please, what we haven't even gotten to is what he has examined with regard to this project and what his opinions are. All he is qualifi all qualifications are is he a geologist? Does he have expertise in the field and issues that are before this board? And clearly he does. That that's not the full test of an expert.

We've got a whole series of I'm going to make this easy. I'm going to recommend the board accept him as an expert. I already did. I already did. [clears throat] Not my objection because I think your objection is duly noted. Well, then I ask for an offer of proof. But you can ask him questions about this particular project on your crossexamination. You know, [clears throat] I have I'm asking for an offer. We are moving on.

Thank you. Uh Mr. Professor Germinoski, at my request, did you examine uh portions of the the hydraology and geotechnical report with regard to the project? uh that we're here for tonight. Yes. Um and again, one of the things that I think is Can we have an identification of the report that Mr. Shaughnessy is talking about? We're entitled to know what it is that he looked at. I just said the hydraology report and the geotechnical report. Well, let's identify it. I just did. Whose report is it?

They're there. Scanel's hydrarology report the one that they presented. Correct. Right on the record. Let's see the document. I I don't know which document it is. An ECS Mid-Atlantic LLC geotechnical report uh number 185029-B dated April 5th, 2024. Do you have a copy of that for us? No, I have the copy that provided. Cheers. This is this is more of testimony by Ambush. I don't know what he's going to talk about. He doesn't want to give It's your report. So, so what? So what? You don't know what you presented to the board?

Oh, I don't know what the geology report looked like. I asked you before Mr. as he put experts on to get me a an expert report and we had an email exchange and in the end after I said there is no mechanism within the law that I'm aware of that requires that they produce expert reports to you in advance. Your response was I agree with you. I agree with that. But this is if if he's not even going to give us and in this case it's your report. It's not one they It's not one they

How did I know that this was what he was going to talk about tonight? How did I know? The the the record is huge. Go ahead. It go on. We want to get this done. So, go ahead. Run run run run run the show how you see fit.

Proceed. Thank you. Uh and so upon um reviewing the hydraology report, the geotechnical report and your own knowledge uh of the Bushkill Creek and uh the Springbrook, the tributaria that we're talking about here, have what experience have you have over the years with Springbrook? Yeah. So, um my experience here, uh extends through the entire area, uh in particular the rocks that crop out within this development site, including the Lville formation, the Allentown Formation, which are carbonates, as well as the pre-Cambrian metamorphic rocks of the uh uh Franklin Formation, and the various NICE units uh on the site. So there's basically um it's it's sensible to break this up into four uh different units and again 38 years of teaching working doing research in the Bushkill Creek and in this geology in this geological terrain that's uh where my expertise comes to bear. I will present observations um that I have made over literally 38 years um that are relevant to this.

Okay. And so this site that we're talking about, uh, you've had experience with this site for 30 some years. Yes, that would be appropriate. Objection. I don't know that he said with this site, this specific site, what the geology of this site for the past 30ome years. Correct. That involves on the site. This involves the same geological terrain that are adjacent to this site. It's the same geology. But you haven't been on this. Hold on. Could I please ask my questions before he cross-examines? This is getting a little ridiculous. I'm so sorry.

I happen to agree, you know, and and just like last month, no, he has not been on your property. He doesn't have permission to go on your property. You're going to ask him, did you ask for permission to go on our property? No, he didn't. He hasn't been there. Move on, please. Thank you. So can we professor let's talk about the geology of this area which would include the area of the site of this proposed um million square foot warehouse. Okay. So with that we can go to the u the illustration here.

I I'm going to object. I'm sorry but we are here not about the million square foot warehouse. We are here about this little piece of the property where the creek is being re relocated that I agree with and so and I will address that is going to address the geology of the site.

Okay. So if I can draw your attention to the screen here this is a geologic map of the area. The red line shows the footprint of the site. The most important relevant rocks to be aware of are the pinks and greens, which I'll just refer to as nice pre-cambrian rocks. Um, that's G N E I SS, not N I C. Um, the blue rocks that crop out both at the site, but also to the northeast all the way to the Delaware River and AC cross are called the Franklin Formation. They're a metamorphic rock. They're separated by a thrust fault from the light spill formation. This cross-hatched brown rock unit that is a carbonate rock, a dolomite. And the sort of light tanned uh colored rock is the outcrop belt of the Allentown Formation. So these two rocks are widely acknowledged as being carbonate rocks and a key attribute and an influence that we have to consider is their susceptibility to dissolution over literally millennia and the potential interaction with the relocation of Spring Brook. Uh next slide please. So to help

I'm sorry to interrupt but just was that this site itself was that a geological within the red box was where the site is. Okay. So my experience to answer that earlier question my direct experience with these rocks extends well off of the site and all the way up to the Delaware River and down to the southwest as well. And then also just to the north you catch a little bit of blue up here. That's another um outcrop zone of the Franklin Formation which has some relevance to some of my previous observations that I'll bring to bear. Okay. Thank you.

And so uh let me just if we could go back just a second when you talk about the Franklin Formation. What is the Franklin Formation?

The Franklin Formation's often referred to as the Franklin Marble. Um it's a metamorphosed rock that was metamorphosed from dolomite carbonate rocks a billion years ago. Okay, these are very old rocks. Um and now the rocks consist largely of metamorphic minerals um that have various attributes that um are relevant to um site development here. And what is the importance uh or what is the issue with carbonate rocks uh on this site? Um main issue with carbonate rocks everywhere is the potential for sinkhole development and surface instability.

And what is surface instability? Uh formation of sink holes where you can get collapse of the surface into the subsurface would be the simplest way of describing it. There are more complicated dynamics, but in a nutshell, that's it. I would think most people living in the Lehigh Valley are at least generally familiar with sink holes. And if you could just go to your next slide then. Sure. And explain what are you when we talk about bedding and fractures in uh the geology of this area. What are we talking about?

So there are structural discontinuities in the rocks, carbonate rocks. In fact, globally, if you show that diagram of that brick-like pattern in the upper right to a geologist anywhere on the planet, they're going to know that you're showing a symbol for a carbonate rock. Carbonate rocks are characteristically bedded. Uh they're deposited layer by layer. They are normally fractured at some angle to that bedding. So, the brick-like pattern is is what's being depicted in that uh in that image. And then next uh slide, please. Now the important thing next to try to understand sinkholes is that these rocks are soluble. They're not so soluble that they dissolve over a period of days, months, weeks or years. This happens over centuries, millennia. So the lower photograph shows carbonate rocks where you can see what we call dissolution or solution enhancement of primary bedding planes and fractures. So in essence, you see those primary features enlarged by dissolution. And in the in the great case, uh this is where caves form. Next slide, please. Um so just another example of some of the local carbonates here. Instead of horizontal, these rocks have been compressed by tectonic forces. So they're often uh pretty much tortured. Um they're often the bedding is often at angles to the surface. Sometimes they're vertical, but again through time these rocks can be fractured and and the openings enhanced by dissolution. Next slide.

And let me stop you just for a second. It talks about carbonate rocks uh can be dissolved by weekly acidic water. Um could you explain what that is and how it happens?

Yeah. Um actually um natural rain tends to be acidic. Um it's it's acid rain is something of a whole other order of magnitude of acidity. Um so natural rain water tends to be acidic. Uh sometimes water moving in the groundwater real well realm through particular rocks uh particularly those that might be pyrite bearing uh are themselves acidified. I live in a a house that has a groundwater well in nice same age same rocks as the ones on this site frankly and uh my groundwater is acidic. Uh those rocks are often in fact generate waters that may be acidic. So um the passage of water through these rocks whether it be meteoric water that falls as rain or whether it's water flowing through the groundwater realm that may pick up some acidity and other rocks that it flows through um can can enhance the pre-existing fractures and bedding planes and enlarge in them.

And so when you talk about these voids that are caused by some of this dissolved rock uh and you say it's can be they are commonly filled with unconsolidated material. What does that mean?

Yeah. So when rocks weather they break down. I mean if you think about your life experience we rarely walk on rocks. We normally rock walk on soil or other unconsolid what we'd call unconsolidated material. Many people think of as sediment. In this landscape the rocks are typically covered by weathered material from the breakdown of the pre-existing rock. So that can fill in the voids. Uh this landscape's been glaciated several times. So there's glacial debris that's often deposited on these rocks that makes its way down into the surface. On sloping surfaces, gravity brings material down slope that fills in these rocks. So what you end up with is what we often refer to as a metastable landscape where at the surface we're walking on unconsolidated material that appears stable um but it's jamming in perhaps in solution enhanced openings or pores in the rock in the subsurface and is susceptible to being eroded down into those voids when they're present. And therefore we often say well the surface is metastable. It's kind of stable. Um but in cars terrains because of the propensity for large voids to exist there can be large holes in the rock full-blown caves that are filled with unconsolidated material which itself can be mobilized

and unconsolidated material would that also include uh soils on on the top was that

yes soils soils is a tricky word um soil scientists refer to it as something slightly different than what [laughter] engineers normally would. Engineers often would use the word soil for unconsolidated material. Geologists would parse out aluvium material deposited by streams which is unconsolidated coluvium which is material that moves down slope through gravity transport windblown material perhaps uh lake deposits anything that's not solid rock and earth's surface is generally mantled by these various materials. And so in your studies for instance with regard to the mining uh would those would that unconsolid unconsolidated material or soils include contaminated soils that come from man-made activities?

Um and they could be contaminated. Sure. Again I'm not including unconsolidated materials that are filled but certainly we as humans are geologic processes ourselves and we move materials around on the surface as well. And so if we go to the next slide.

So what I wanted to try to emphasize here is um when we look at the most common types of sink holes that form um because we geologists often say well carbonate rocks are soluble. It can convey the impression that when water from human activity gets directed into the subsurface it dissolves the rocks and creates these openings. uh that can happen but in reality the kinetics of dissolution are usually much slower and so you have processes going on literally for centuries and millennia that create these solution enhanced openings in the subsurface so often the sink holes that form aren't the collapse of bedrock necessarily although that does happen but in fact very commonly uh I'm calling these parenthetically are soil collapsing holes where the item up here shows a a classic example of solution enhanced fractures with soil and unconsolidated materials jamming in the voids holding the surface. But if uh and geologists all know this, engineers know this that often sink holes are associated with a concentration of water at the surface. That concentrated water doesn't dissolve the rock. Rather what it often does is it mobilizes the pre-existing unconsolidated material that was jamming in the solution enhanced pores. And in this sequence of events from a well-known example by Will White, a Carson expert from Penn State uh shows a soil arch forming. The idea being that water move that material down into the subsurface uh until the subs surface becomes unsupported and you get a collapse and the formation of sinkhole. Now this cartoon sort of suggests these things must be small. They can be one, two, three feet diameter. Next slide. Um but they can often be much larger. The sinkho on the left was of that sort.

That's on Bushkill Street East where the street collapsed instantaneously uh into the surface. Um, in the early 90s, the Allentown corporate plaza collapsed. That wasn't a big bedrock collapse. Uh, basically a building almost the size of a half a city block, quarter of a city block anyway, um, catastrophically failed. And that was into soil collapse type sink holes, not large bedrock collapse. So, these can be significant. Next slide. Um, so

let me just stop you for a second. If we could just go back for a second. Those are two examples where these types of uh sink holes have occurred uh in both Houston and Allentown. Is this something when you talk about car terrain at the Lehigh Valley in general, is this uh something that uh has occurred uh frequently in this type of geological terrain?

Yeah, actually um back in I think it was 1984, in fact, I'm sure of it. Um PB Meyers and Mike Parlo, geologists and engineers from Lehigh University um did a study looking at the distribution of sink holes in the Lehigh Valley, the various rock units, categorize them when possible into say natural sink holes, um utility based sink holes, meaning pipes and so forth uh that have led to sinkhole development uh development related sinkholes and uh the majority of the sink holes they evaluated were of this type soil collapse. It's what we normally expect to see because it happens with with a high frequency in these landscapes. Again, you have to think back to this meta stable landscape where there solution enhance voids in the subsurface that sometimes you get surface expression of them. I can look at air photos often and identify such things, but not always. Sometimes water finds them like the collapsed road on the left and the collapsing building on the right.

Okay, if we go to the next slide.

So again, just to illustrate this phenomenon, the photo on the left shows for example um solution enhanced voids. Sometimes the rock that projects up above those people called pinnacles. Um and again what normally is happening in the subsurface is debris fills them in the voids extend down into the into the subsurface following original bedding planes and fractures. Um next slide. And so to illustrate then how this collapse would happen if water starts to move that material deeper in the subsurface it leaves the surface unsupported and you get collapsed sink holes. This is why we so often see sink holes occur after intense rainfall sometimes where water gets concentrated at the surface even through something as small as a down spout. And then I think uh anybody who spent much time in this area also are familiar with the relationship where we seen a coincidence. There's a cause and effect to it of failed pipelines, water supply, sewage lines and then sink holes forming at the surface. So these and this is why geologists when developing a site try to manage water at the surface carefully as they can.

Next slide. [clears throat]

Uh another example of a local major sinkhole and very nicely illustrates or unfortunately illustrates how you can get significant movement of material to the subsurface where a site was engineered following best practices. Um, we might recall back in 1999, Concept Sciences was a major explosion in a in an industrial park over south of the airport, uh, the the All the High Valley Airport. And it so happened that that particular building was very close, right on the edge really of a flood water retention pond for that portion of the industrial park. And the combination of the plumbing from the failed building intense fire suppression water that was applied to the site drained into the flood water retention pond and and uncovered. There's a a ge an engineer here for scale. Um you can see the bedrock cavity in the subsurface. No one knew it was there. Um this retention pond was was built following standard engineering practice. Uh this I just showed this to illustrate how without detailed evaluation of the subsurface, you really don't know where the voids are in the subsurface, water will find them. In this case, um this cavity was exposed and opened up as a result of that influx of water moving the unconsolidated material down through the voids.

Can I interrupt at this point? And maybe I'm going to show my ignorance, but now I am starting to wonder how all of this ties in with what is being proposed. That is the relocation of an underground waterway to daylight it and the installation of a driveway, I believe, and some other So, we're heading right there. Almost there. We were going to get to that.

It's been a a background lesson on why moving this stream has can have such dangerous and significant then I to Mr. Sus test. I thought he wanted an offer of proof but that's okay. Um so the next uh so that's where we're going. Okay.

Okay. So, here is a [clears throat] paper that was published a few years ago uh regarding some sinkhole occurrences here in the Lehigh Valley. This is a recently retired p Pennsylvania geological survey geologist um published a paper uh in a car conference um noting that realignment of the Bushkill Creek um in in recent decades um seems to have correlates with dramatic service instability. This is hearsay. It's a published paper.

It doesn't matter. It is hearsay that that a report like that that you're offering for some conclusion without our ability to cross-examine is hearsay. There's a case right on point. The the Little Britain case from the Commonwealth Court. You can't take reports from here, there, and everywhere and and admit them into evidence in a zoning hearing board. So, I object to this. I don't know what he's even apparently he's submitting it for the truth of what's being said and I have nobody to cross examine. Yeah. This I have to agree with him on.

We can move on. I'd be more interested in his professional opinion than something written in

press. Yeah. And so I I'll ask him with regard to uh sinkhole occurrence and stream morphology and the when you realign uh uh waterways in this you know for instance in this area the Bushkill Creek or the Shonet Creek what are the what are the consequences of that? What can be the consequences of that? So what can be the consequences and I present this to show the dynamics of how of how surface water being realigned um can influence the the subsurface dynamics. And so once again these are data from uh Coachana working in this area in these same rocks showing a significant sinkhole swarm in the Bushkill Creek um as well as in the Shannet Creek. We can look at the next slide to see what that looks like. Um this is the Shannet Creek where those sink holes have been active. Uh these are photos from the Brookwood group who have been studying this regional significant sinkhole instability next.

Wait, I'm going to object. What is that? What is the relevance of creek to what we're talking about here? It's very close. It shows how surface water can pipe material into solution enhanced voids and destabilize the surface. But Mr. Solicitor, we are not here for a lesson in geology. We actually kind of are. Well, well, we actually kind of are. I I don't agree with that. I I I I do think we need to tie it in to And we are getting there. Well, that's what they keep saying.

Just because he doesn't like the geology and the history doesn't mean that it's not releg we don't need a response. Go ahead. And so uh for the for instance the Bushkill Creek and where is the Shona Creek?

The Sha Creek is a tributary to the Bushkill Creek. It flows up uh for for geographic markers under Hollow Road uh by the new Shrin interchange. It then drains down past the Nazare sewage treatment plant and discharges into the Bushkill Creek uh further downstream by um Stalker Mill. Um and then this is the Bushkill Creek itself. the way we're not used to seeing it with a dry bed because a number of sink holes have formed in the channel itself and the water is flowing into the subsurface here leading to this chronic instability. This started in the early 2000s and continues to be dynamic today. Um so this is this is a concern when you realign a surface water stream especially a perennial one such as spring brook in a carbonate terrain without without knowing what the subsurface looks like, without doing any geohysical investigations to evaluate are there solution enhanced fractures in the area where the stream is going to be moved. Um [clears throat] if there are um what what our experience shows in these surface water groundwater interactions in such cases is the water finds these openings and moves the material into the subsurface. This particular section of the stream has been um They there's been tremendous amount of effort trying to stabilize these sinkles and they stabilize them and they

objection. There's no evidence of what he just said that this part of the stream which I believe to be streambrook had there's some effort to stabilize it. There's no that's not evidence. Well, that's not the point that I I don't think that's the point he's making.

Well, I'm sorry. That's what I thought I heard. Let let me see if I if if I may uh understand your testimony. Are you saying I mean because obviously the zoning ordinance allows for the relocation of tributaries like is that which is being proposed is what you're saying and I'm sorry uh for my voice tonight but is what you're saying in this case they should have done a geological study of what's underneath before they move it to make sure that they're not going to run into these geological problems that you described in detail. Is that

exactly the potential for that is real? Um these you these rocks are susceptible to sink holes and dissolution and there there it's highly possible if not probable that there are solution enhanced voids in the subsurface that have unconsolidated material filling filling them in. And Spring Brook is a perennial stream. It's springfed. It's flowing right now. Whereas a lot of small streams of the same drainage area are dry this area with the drought conditions we've experienced.

I'm going to ask the dynamic flow and I'm going to ask that that answer be stricken because it was total speculation as to what will happen with this stream. He has said opinion. It wasn't speculation about what's going to happen with this dream. He was stating his opinion that in these circumstances it is possible if you did a geological study of what was underneath that you may find that possibility. Well, I heard something different, but okay. But there is a geological

One second. Hold on a second guys in the audience. You cannot just blur out words please. Then then let's not well there is let's not rely on our perception. Yes. Can you clarify

this study should in my opinion focus on the pathway along which that stream is planned to be realigned and there are geop geohysical techniques that are not invasive. ground penetrating radar, microg gravity um and electro resistivity. Most most geohysical consulting firms will apply two of those techniques to make sure they get corroboration to locate the existence of debris fil voids or maybe airfield voids. Um so what I would do if I were uh engineering or uh evaluating the stability or potential future stability or instability of the realigned stream is I would run I would have geohysical surveys run along that path where the water is going to be redirected and where if it is super adjacent or on top of solution uh voids that you would be aware and would be able to assess uh the actual likelihood with which this is going to generate instability in the form of sink holes. Um the only reason I point out the Bushkill Creek and Chennet Creek is they're in the region in the same rocks. This shows that this can happen. Um and furthermore, it shows how it can be a chronic problem. Not I mean a random sinkhole on fairy street you can repair it using standard repair techniques that'll perhaps and probably remain stable. Um what we learned in these streams is it's nowhere near that simple to follow standard grouting techniques to uh stabilize a sinkhole. Objection objection to the reference to other Greeks that we're not here about.

That's not that's not admissible evidence. I don't think that's what he's talking about. This demonstrates the dynamic and the mechanism that's relevant that's transferable to any similar situation.

Exactly. My point Excuse me. Excuse me. Next question. It's my objection. What he is saying is that because there's a problem in the shiki that he's demonstrated in in its worst possible light, you should be scared because it's going to happen here without any testimony, any investigation, anything to connect it to where we're just moving this little creek. With all due respect, I think what he's saying is that without you doing or your client doing any investigation, exactly.

You cannot rule out the possibility that this will occur because you don't know what's underneath it. But we did a study and it was every agency. My next question is did they with regard to the study that they did the geotechnical report that's some 300 pages did they do what you just suggested? No there mostly the focus was a lot of significant focus on the bedrock excavation area and doing bore holes to evaluate structural discontinuities that was all done quite well and they did kinematic analysis. Um there was a lot of energy and effort put into that. And when you talk about that, what part of the site are we talking about?

That's on the northwest side of the site where the precan rocks are. And is that where the building would be? The building would be correct. So they did that for the building. Did they do that kind of investigation for the area where this where uh Springbrook will be moved? There are some se semi-randomly distributed um augur holes and bore holes of limited extent um but not a detailed evaluation of the stream course and that's that's what should be evaluated and so that was not done by no the developer in this case.

No the geoysics that were done were up in the bedrock realm. They were we call bore hole geoysics uh that were directly down the bore holes to evaluate structural discontinuities and potential bedrock slope failures but not in the carbonates to evaluate the potential of solution enhanced voids in the subsurface. And again it's a randomized view doesn't give you the same view as a geohysical analysis along a proposed stream course. That's that's what I would have recommended and that is something that they did not do. Correct. No, apparently not not that I've seen in the they did not do it in anything I've seen in the site planning.

And so with regard to where you you talked about uh Springbrook being a perennial stream and you said that it was actually flowing today. Yes. Did you go out there today to Springbrook to to see what was going on today?

Yes, because it is a relatively small stream and streams um similar to it in the in other areas here are not flowing. Um the ones that are flowing are the ones that have significant spring uh delivery of water from the groundwater realm. So um it's flowing under 25th Street. It's flowing near the foot bridge of Hacken Park. Um so for a stream to be flowing steadily right now under the recent climatological uh situation that we find ourselves in uh pretty strong evidence of that that this is a perennial stream that water is going to be flowing through it and from what I understand um my colleague Dr. Brandis did some analysis of the water flow

objection to his quoting from Dr. is but that's sustained. Yeah, you heard what you heard. Sure. Um, okay. Can I go to the next slide? Um, so I just wanted to ask you why is that important that this is a perennial stream talking about Spring Brook because that's there's the water source that adds the dynamic day in day out that water is going to be flowing down that channel and can find its way into the subsurface voids. And then of course in every case the large flow events are are in particular problematic with respect to mobilized material to the subsurface.

And we're talking about where this would be relocated. In other words, uh where the stream would be relocated would have a steady source of water day in and day out. Yes. And that's that's the critical that's the critical location. That's where the dynamics are likely to happen. And that's why it should be investigated thoroughly in my Go to the next slide.

Next slide. So this geologic map we've seen before, but again I just wanted to share some additional data to remind us why we should not dismiss these carbonate rocks and the potential for them to have dissolution uh discontinuities in them. For example, Myers and Perllo looked at sinkhole distribution. All the carbonate rocks in the Lehigh Valley, the Allentown Formation had the second highest frequency of sinkholes, 8.6 sinkholes per square mile. That's based on 85 square miles of real estate that they looked at. And then the lights formation has a much lower sinkhole frequency. But it's intriguing to consider that four large caves I'm aware in this landscape. Lost River Cavern, Carpenter Cave between East and Robsville and Readington Cave in Readington, lower township are all in the licefield formation. These are caves that you can walk through. The Lost River Cavern is commercial caves. So these rocks are susceptible to dissolution.

Okay. So with regard to uh the sink holes, if you go to the next slide.

So this this is just a diagram of sinkholes. Um I'm not using this to imply that this is what the property underneath the proposed development site looks like. rather simply saying that without a detailed investigation, you don't know what's down there. You don't know if the fractures and bedding planes are heavily dissolution enhanced or not. Um, that requires more data. Uh, again, I'll just finish up by saying with respect to that, water will find it. If if the if there are solution enhanced openings plugged with unconsolidated material, the water will find it. and and I and just emphasize that if it were me, I would have directed significant geohysical assessment along the proposed trade wars.

And uh again, once these once a sinkhole would could form, you could have uh what is described as a series of sinkholes or once one forms. Aren't we getting into more speculation? No. Are we getting even more speculation when we've been talking about We've been talking about a channel that's been buried and we're going to open it up and we're going to create another channel out in the open. No buildings on it, no construction around it. That's exactly the point. There will be a sinkhole.

That's exactly the point. Well, we that we will agree that that's a possibility. But there's a whole other answer to that that this man is an expert in because he sits on the committee of in in in the Lehigh Valley as to how you deal with sinkholes. I've been studying sinkholes for 30ome years. So, yeah, I know sinkholes. I know you do. Question about the other thing I would say. Can I can I ask something? Yes.

If they did the geological study under Springbrook as you're suggesting and they found this condition exists. Is there something they could do to amilarate that to proceed with what they want to do anyway?

That would depend on how pervasive the um the dissolution of the rock is. The other thing that again I know I'm I can't predict what would happen at this site but what experience shows in similar settings is um for 20 years uh the Tatam stalker town area has been unstable and um sinkholes are continually popping up there. It's one reason why the t the car task force was formed was because of that situation. A bridge has been closed down for 20 years. New sink holes continue to form. They patch them. They form again. These are dynamics. Hold on. There is a quarry. The quarry is there.

Now you're testifying. Would he stop interrupting? Please, could you please direct him to not interrupt the testimony of the witness? I think you just did. Thank you. So that that uh another thing Ed that I think you have to also be concerned about is uh flood water retention on site as well. uh that that could also as we've seen in the concept sciences scenario that could be another consideration um moving and where and where where are the retention ponds in relation to where this stream would be relocated they're a little bit as I understand it just to the northwest but still in the carbon

just to the northwest in the same type of soils same rock soils objection they're lined and if you read the materials you would know they're lined that doesn't matter Again, it doesn't matter. All I'm all I'm asking him is where are the retention ponds in relation to where the stream is? And uh the the question is what happened what would happen if even in in a lined retention pond? Objection. Is there a question? I'm I'm I'm asking even in a lined retention pond if a I thought I was watch listening to a speech. Excuse me. Oh my god. That's all I've been doing with Mr. whatever his name is for the last how many meetings.

Thank you. Um, so even if you have a lined retention pond and a sinkhole forms below the retention pond in the area we're talking about where you have a where you would have a a rerouted creek, what is the possibility of happening with regard to a retention pond like that? Objection. There's no facts and evidence that when you do a lined retention basin that there's going to be a sinkhole under it. I was did not testify to that. If I if I can address that, if you look at a diagram, just standard diagram of a car terrain,

um the geometry of the subsurface conduits are sometimes quite surprising. So water flowing through this realigned stream that might start piping unconsolidated material through openings is going to follow those openings. So, um it could happen that that water can flow under the retention ponds and undermine the retention ponds even though the retention ponds are lined above them. These are dynamic situations and I'm just suggesting being careful with moving a stream in a carbonate terrain without detailed investigations of the geology. The geology will control what happens.

I I have one question. So, in its current state, if nothing changed, is all of what you're saying still possible? Can a sinkhole occur in the current spring book? Can it affect Bushkill Drive? Can it affect housing? How far does this water run? You know, this see I mean, you showed examples that current streams are are doing it. So, you know, I mean,

it could happen as a natural occurrence where I mean, this happens in carbonate terrains where um sink holes appear just through time as an evolution of flow into the subsurface. I said often it's the big rainfall runoff events that do it and we often see it in our time frames because of uh water being concentrated through development activities through increased runoff because of imperous surfaces. So that could change uh the stream flow beyond what what's occurring naturally. Um I go I can go on about other causes but I I'm not want to stretch into other realms.

Okay. So it is possible in its current state. It is sure a risk. It's always in carbonate terrains but due to the development it's possibly increased even though they're moving it and I you know for the record I'm not sure exactly how far. It doesn't seem very far. Yeah. Is it presumed that the rock underneath is the same as it is now going to be where they're putting it if there wasn't any sink holes? Is it possible that they're safe? I mean, you know, it seems like they're possible they're not. Is there a possibility it is safe?

Um, it could it could work out that way. Sure, you can do that. Um, I don't know. I sometimes my my way of thinking on this because of the um the instability in carbonate terrains that we see so often um moving a stream in a carbonate terrain shouldn't be done half-hazardly. I respect that. And to address also Mr. Lobac's question, how long has this stream how long has development go been going on near the fountain of this stream or the beginning of the stream? you're asking me that question. I mean, the development here's pretty pervasive certainly through the 1800s.

And everything we do though in the upstream direction is no matter what our best practices are, we're changing the hydraology in the landscape. Every time we pave, brick, uh everything we do on the surface that affect the hydraology is changing the natural discharge in stream. So, um, we could be creating instability apart from this. And in fact, uh, do you know of a tavern that was, uh, near the near the beginning of this of Spring Brook? Objection. I know you weren't there, but have you have you seen photographs of a tavern that is close to the Palmer County?

That is a long live spring up there based on um, all evidence. That's not the only one in that geology right there. In your in your expert opinion as far as you said you've been studying that part of the Bush Creek for 30 some years. Have you come to a conclusion without anything changing what could happen if anything in the future and if so how far in the future would that happen? Yeah, that's impossible to I think that's impossible to predict. Um, I I will just say this that in cars terrains, nothing surprises me. They're dynamic.

With the change in the in that land, can you predict anything that will happen quicker?

I can't predict what will happen. I'm saying it's highly possible that it could lead to moving the stream can lead to instability. There's not a stream in the other portion of the landscape and you know where it is now has been reasonably stable although as I understand it part of it is is run through culverts or pipes in the subsurface. Um but bringing it to the surface um can can certainly move material in the subsurface. And and if I may, just to sum this all up for my brain, you just said that moving the stream is potentially dangerous. I assume that the caveat to that is if they did a geological study and found underneath it the difficulties that you described to us underneath. So there is a possibility if they did a geological study, right,

they would find that it's okay for them to proceed with what they're doing. Yes. If if the geophysical is they didn't do one so nobody knows, right? A geohysical study could could demonstrate that there are solution enhance openings and then you would have a sense of what you're up against and how big of a problem that would be or maybe how less of a problem it might be or that the rock is tight and there there aren't big discontinuities. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Now, anybody have any questions with regard? I still have a couple areas of inquiry with Dr. Professor Germinoski, but okay,

I think we're at the conclusion of that particular inquiry. Okay. So with regard to the uh geology of this uh site and with regard to the relocation of water and the building of these retention ponds, are there other geological issues which you identified as a result of reviewing uh the materials and your own knowledge of the background geology of this uh development site? Objection. beyond the scope of this application. No,

we are here for a limited purpose of the application to move the stream. All right. Again, if you would rephrase the question to ask if there are any other geological issues which might affect Yes. might affect what the the relocation of the street. Yeah. Okay. Are there other geolog with regard to your uh review of the materials and your understanding of geology? Are there are there other geological issues with regard to relocating the stream and the building of these retention ponds? Objection that retention ponds are not part of this application. They are actually

well the road and the roadway the roads actually the the movement of the stream the building of the retention ponds and the roadway are all part of the application. necessarily given the statute. So with regard to the re relocation of the stream, the building of the retention ponds and the roadway, are there other geological issues which you identified?

So one concern that occurred to me is when you're regrading a landscape like this to move a stream to uh do all of the earth moving that is involved in this plant, you're moving materials around. I'm I would always be concerned about uh in addition to the car situation the Franklin marble. Uh next slide please. Um what you're looking at there is a bag of speest tremolite from the Franklin Formation that I collected right out of the outcrop of the weathered zone of the Franklin Formation just along what I would call upstrike a half quarter a mile away from the site. That is pure asbestous tremolite. Um, and that next slide please.

You're going to move material around this material. If we look now, the yellow part doesn't come in good, but here's a couple of [laughter] assessments of these quaries in that formation right in this area. In the chestnut hill quaries, there is very little marble remaining. Almost all of it has been converted to serpentine. Actinolyte, serpentine, willamite and asbestous are all associated with this stage in the geological history of this deposit. So those are observations in the Franklin formation which will potentially provide material for the regrading of the landscape and material that'll be disturbed. Next slide, please. Uh here's another uh review of the

I'm not going to object. This is again hearsay. This is this is somebody else saying what's here and the and the and it's dated 1939 or 1973. I mean that's not legitimate evidence.

That's when the quaries were active when people had access to these things. And geology is geology and that bag of asbestous I collected myself um just off of West Lafayette Street. I'll show you in a second where relative to the site. The talican serpent tonight quaries and chestnut hill show much asbestous. Both varieties when fresh are white, massive, brittle mineral scarcely showing any indication of its fibrous character. On weathering, however, the fibers separate readily and become soft and silky like you see in that bag. Next slide, please. And so the red dot up to the right is in the Franklin Formation off of West Lafayette and George Street. That's where I collected that sample of asbestous. Those last two geological reports describe seeing asbestous in every one of the quaries that were active uh in that in that region. So the potential for and and soils when they weather we call the rock that they weather from parent material. The soil inherits the attributes of the parents in much the same way that reproducing organisms pass on their genetics. So if there's tremolite in the Franklin Formation, which the available geological reports all emphasize and my own collection shows that there is moving that material around potentially has a fair amount of asbestous in it that can become airborne and a consideration when you're using that material for fill on the site.

And when we talk about the I'm going to object to that. It's pure speculation. We had Jeff Smith here who testified about exactly that about all the environmental testing that was done in order to get our act two report and it's obvious that professor has no idea about that report and Smith's testimony. Do you? I'm familiar with the fact that there's a speestous in that unit and that many other geologists have observed it including myself. And so my question for you at this point is the red dot that we see where you collected and this is part of the material that you collected. Is that correct?

Yes. And that red dot, where is that red dot?

So it's just off of West Lafayette Street um in the same outcrop belt as the Martins for as the Franklin formation. So everything in blue there is the same rock unit that the previous geological reports and every query that they were investigating where they recognized asus form tremolite present. Um and again I just it just was dumb luck that I happened to when that site was being developed to to look into a a backho trench and see this incredible exposure of asbestous. And being a geologist, I emptied the bag of my Lafayette sweatshirt out in the backseat of the car and filled it with asbestous.

And so, and that's again, that's at what development [snorts] site was this? This was at the YMCA or the This is near the YMCA. It would be basically um Chestnut Ridge Circle up by George Street just off of West Lafayette Street. So it's And could you tell why how how that was exposed at that construction site?

There was just a simple trench in the in the unconsolidated soil, the material weathered from the uh from the parent material from the uh Franklin formation. And so with regard to this site that we're talking about here today with regard to moving the stream the building the retention ponds in the roadway is there potential that raw asbestous is becomes airborne objection cause for total speculation that that I have to agree with.

What is the what are the dangers of with regard to this asbesus? Now I will tell you that Mr. Hos testified that there was no asbest asbesto for material located on that site. Would that testimony be correct?

It could be depending on how the sampling pattern was. Um and so yes, it would uh it would depend on how this was being evaluated. What's intriguing is the uh report suggests that until weathered um visibly you can't recognize it as a speestous at all. Looks like a white silicate mineral. So one would have to do thin what we call thin sections have thin sections made of the samples and looked at under a petrographic microscope to see if there's actinolyte or tremolite present that serves as a precursor for this fibrous silky material.

Okay. Now um were there any other geological issues which you identified at this site with regard to the relocation of the waterway, the building of the retention ponds and the roadway itself.

The one thing I would always be concerned about with Franklin formation is my observations in 30 years of being in this area. Next slide. that many of the teaching slides I use to show hills slope instability um are these which are showing slope failures all in the outcrop belt of the Franklin formation. So this on Bushkill Drive by the city there's a city of Easton school building up on top of this. This is um off of West Lafayette are back on George Street. Objection this is not with regard to our site admissible. So I would be concerned about the material on the site that is derived from the same parent material and bedrock as this unconsolidated material what we call regalith sometimes um having some clear evidence of natural inherent instability. So reutilizing material from there. Do you know that what you're describing to us now that we're looking at is the same or similar material to what is on this site?

It's well, it must be because it's the same rock material that this is derived from directly on top of the uh the Franklin formation. And the Franklin Formation, if you go back a slide, um it again, that whole blue outcrop area is the same rock. So this rock underlies the central portion of the site and uh therefore we would normally expect the soils to be similar uh everywhere along the outcrop belt of that rock but he doesn't know it to be a fact. [clears throat]

That would be true. I did not sample on this site and evaluate for asbestous on this site. But you do I understand is your opinion that that type of rock creates what you showed us in the last slide that that's what not just my observation in one spot but several different geological reports uh done when people had direct access and were mining this rock and having good access to the material and able to see it. Of course, all these quaries are abandoned now and other material has covered over, so you don't get the same few.

And I just want to be clear so that we're not dealing with speculation.

Are you saying that if it's the same type of rock, it's possible? Or are you saying if it's the same type of rock, it's a fact, it will happen? I I I would not say much about anything being a fact and it will happen but I would say it's highly likely that if you have a speest form tremolite present where this rocks outcropping in the same climate the same material and several other geological reports claim that they see this in every in all of the quaries or many of the quaries um I would I would be looking very carefully at the Franklin formation on this site.

Okay. Yeah, thank you. Okay. Um, so Dr. Germanski, if you go to the next slide, what what are the conclusions that after reviewing the materials, the geological geotechnical report, the hydraology report, uh your own knowledge of the geology of this site? What are the conclusions that you uh came to uh in your professional opinion to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty? I think he's already testified that in a number of instances. You asked him that question a couple of minutes ago.

I'm asking him to give his conclusions in a succinct summary form.

Next slide. So I would say the danger of moving Spring Brook in a car's terrain is that the surface instability can be significant and long lived especially where the stream flow is increased as the development plan envisions. The Franklin Formation runs through the site and has a speestate in it in the immediate vicinity likely on the site. Um there's danger that moving large volumes of soil derived from the Franklin formation will or can cause as trebite to become airborne. Um we note that when they remove asbestous from buildings, they wrap them to keep things from being airborne. And then developing steep slopes using material from the Franklin Formation soils which are inherently unstable requires further geotechnical assessment. [laughter]

And with the with uh those conclusions have those all been given to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty. Yes. again with it being impossible to say there's a guarantee but rather looking at likelihoods based on observations and characteristics of this rock in this vicinity and these rocks I should say that's all the question I have any questions from the board you have anybody else counselor no I I have Ross. Ross, go ahead. [clears throat and cough]

Professor, tell me when you were first contacted to get involved in this matter. I believe it was in very late September, early October. I'd have to look at my notes. [clears throat]

Oh, I do not. So, and what were you asked to do? What was your job? My job was to evaluate to to to share knowledge I would have of this site that would be of geological concern based on my long experience working in this landscape and in this geology. So your primary concern and I think you expressed it pretty straight out. The entire Lehi Valley is a carton area. We know that right? Most of it is. Most of it is. Some townships are totally and completely underllaying by right

now. This site is not underllaying by car geology. Is it? No. It's underllayed by these carbonate rocks that are susceptible to carst Mr. Apple. Just pull the mic towards you a little bit. Thank you, sir. It's rock that is subject to becoming cars, right? It's susceptible to that. Yes, but it's not cursed at this time, is it? Well, there's no there's no evidence that it is or it isn't. The site's been Excuse me. Excuse me. No, let him know. You asked the question. Let him answer it.

Go ahead. This site has been developed and utilized for many years. So, if there were closed depressions on the site that are cars features, undoubtedly they would be filled in. I can show you I can show you many air photos of sink holes in fields with subsequent photos. Sink holes are invisible because they've been filled in. Agreed. And this site has been used as an industrial site since 1860 or 1865, hasn't it? For to my knowledge. Yes. And it's had big buildings on it. All kinds of buildings on it. Yes. And and do you have any evidence that there have been uh sink holes created and and and buildings collapsed?

No, I have no evidence of that. Okay. Now, but they haven't relocated streams on there either lately. You you know that this stream has been is a buried stream. This is not naturally occurring underground the way it is. You know that? I know at the moment it is it is cofferized or piped through part of the site. A and what is being done here is to open that out what we would call daylighting that creek. Right.

Right. and and the geologists and uh all you people, all you professionals in the earth sciences would say that's a good thing because we're going to uh expose it to the air and it will be it will be possibly used by fish and uh other creatures that objection to the form of the question. you talk about all geologists and all earth science people that if we're going to talk about hearsay the the question itself is hearsay I object to the form of the question can can we hone in a little bit more on

yeah it's a good thing doctor to open up a a stream like this and daylight it and have it exposed and have the the the water source exposed to the atmosphere, isn't it? Provided that it doesn't destabilize the surface by uncovering dissolution openings in the subsurface. Okay. So, let's talk about Well, let me let me ask you this. We know that a building in 1999 collapsed in the middle of Allentown because of some cars condition, right?

Yes. Now, there has been an enormous amount of development in downtown Allentown in the same area off of Hamilton Street with multiplestory buildings bigger than that building that fell down. Isn't that correct? Yes, that is correct. With significant site amelioration and geotechnical engineering. Exactly. Yeah.

Exactly. and in in so you can have you can have um sink holes come to be on a construction site that you've done every test imaginable. Can you? Yes, that does happen and can happen. And then there is acknowledged procedures for filling those sink holes, aren't there?

When they're in I would make an important distinction. That's not a yes or no question, but the answer can't be yes or no. Uh like often is the case. The answer is it depends. Um if you have a sinkhole in a place where it's just in a terrestrial site, standard sinkhole remediation repairs are often sufficient. When you have sink holes in the dynamic situation where we have stream flow interacting with that material that that instability can remain dynamic for decades and we see this in several places and I gave you examples the shown to show that this can happen

the shik disappears doesn't it when when the quarry does not pump water. Well, there's a little bit more to that story, too. There is a lot more to that story. However, the shonik is dry some of the time, isn't it? Sure. Now, if in in this situation where there's going to be this open area where this creek is going to be relocated, there will be excavation, will there not? in the area where the creek will be located before the creek is lo is relocated.

Sure. That would be a necessary step

and that's what uh Jeff Smith testified to. So when that excavation is done, it would be normal to go in there and to test and to see and make sure that there will be a solid base for the creek. Won't Wouldn't that be the right thing to do? However, you're the the depth of excavation is going to be limited by the elevation of the Bushkill Creek to be able to grade the stream so it flows down slope and the degree to which you're going to dig is going to be limited by that. And so there is a world of geology underneath that that you still don't know the nature of. And to be safe, you could do that subsurface geology testing underneath while that creek while that proposed bed is a good

that that can that could be done. It could be done before that bed has been excavated, but it hasn't. So it remains a it remains unknown. So you were engaged September 15th or something like that, September 30. And what did you then do? What tasks did you perform to prepare to prepare for being here tonight and to testify? Well, mainly I relied on my long experience in this area and observations I've been making over the past several decades uh to bring that to bear to try to assess whether there are real considerations, what they might be um other things that perhaps don't come into play in a site like this. I relied on my experience in this region

and that's all you did and read reviewed the reports. What reports did you review? So, uh, in particular, the one I alluded to earlier, um, which is the ECS Mid-Atlantic report of April 5th, 2024. Can I see it, please? That's where this is this is part of it without all the appendices. But that is the that's the text component of that report. So, that's the sum of what you did. And then you created all the slides. Yes.

And based again very importantly on my experience and many years of observations that are relevant to how this terrain operates. Now, um, did you happen to read or listen to our geologist Jeff Smith's testimony about what how the materials were going to be handled during the time that all this excavation is is going to be done?

No, I was not involved in that. So, you didn't hear him say that as part of the act to approve plans, there's a materials handling plan and a plan for what happens if there is exposure to toxic substances. You didn't hear, you didn't read that, did

I'm familiar with the site assessment and toxic materials and soils on the site, their evaluation of man-made toxins. That's not what I asked you. I asked you whether you were familiar with the materials handling procedure that is part of the um act 2 program that we we submitted to the the details of that here. No. So you don't know whether there's provisions for what happens if there's a speestous do you?

Um I did not see any reference to that in the report. But you didn't what report did you you didn't I I got to understand did you read the act two remediation remediation report the to be frank there were a number of other reports I read through on the on that were made available to me but to exactly nail down the one you're referring to from my memory I can't. So you in May in giving your testimony about the possibility of being there being a speestous, you didn't take into consideration Jeff Smith's testimony about the materials handling report, did you?

Not the details of that. No. Thank you. just to to dwell on for a minute. Um, you put up our drawing of the two I I'm sorry, three detention bases, right? No, I didn't put that up. You referred to three detention basins, correct? I referred to detention basins. at large on our site. Yes.

And do you know that those site that those detention bases are to be lined? Yes. And isn't that a normal uh um protection uh that's used in construction in a car area?

Yes. In a situation where you're dealing with you're dealing with potential infiltration from the retention pond itself. The thing that's important to understand in a car ter is you can get lateral movement of material through conduits in the subsurface that are going to be dictated by the structural discontinuities in the bedrock. The orientation, the intersections and so forth. So material doesn't only move vertically in these situations, it can move laterally as well and could undermine something of that sort. My main concern to be candid though is not concerned that the retention ponds are going to leak and lead to mobilization material on the subsurface. But the real focus is spring brook and that water movement through the landscape and its potential interaction with unconsolidated materials in the subsurface. And what you're suggesting is that we have if our hydrogeeologists have not done it already [clears throat] to do an in more indepth study of where the area where we're going to relocate the stream.

Yes. Okay. That's that's a missing piece. Isn't that what this all boils down to? [laughter] talked about here tonight. Yes. In a big way. Okay. And you know, determining what the subsurface consists of and what the potential is for uh car feature dis or development. I have no further questions. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Yeah. Go ahead. You you you you referred to Jeff Smith and his report and the and the act wherever it is. Act two. Act two. Uh, [snorts] can you tell us if anything in that report um refutes what he said?

Refuts. You were just asking him about I is there anything in that report that you can tell us that refutes what he said? I believe that what is in that report I'm not swearing to it, but my recollection of Jeff Smith talking about the possibility. So then you're engaging in conjecture, are [snorts] you not? I'm answering the gentleman's question. Please allow me. I would object that to let me The attorney's answer is engaging in conjecture. My rec testified and hasn't been sworn in. I have been sworn in um

in this proceeding. Yeah. Um, what I remember is that Jeff Smith talked about the possibility of asbestous coming being exposed when all of this rock there's a lot of rock to be blasted and moved around. and he talked about what's a usual requirement of that kind of plan and it's a materials handling operation something like that what happens and my understanding is it's a plan what happens if you're out there and all of a sudden there's some toxic material what do we do and there's and that I believe that that plan that kind of materials handling plan is part of the approved act two remediation claim

and I recall that Mr. Hos testified that there actually is no asbesttoform material on this site because there is no asbesttoform material in the Franklin formation. He didn't even know that and this is the person that was involved with the complete development of this site on behalf of the Boa Engineering. I have no further questions. Any other questions from the board? [snorts] Yes, sir. Okay. You want to grab a microphone?

Attorney Cody Harding. I represent Tim Hos and the Stopwood Avenue Warehouse Coalition. Is that on? Sorry, I can bring it a little closer. I think it's Oh, okay. There you go. Oh, there we go. I got height. Um I also uh before we lose the topic just discussed on I certainly don't want to testify but I would encourage the board to review that crossexamination of uh Mr. Smith on asbestous

as he discussed the recra report. He said that he was not retained to look into that. So I would encourage you to look at the transcript. Um Professor Germinoski I just want to ask you a few questions to clarify. Uh you've been speaking about uh Chestnut Hill. Uh where is Chestnut Hill?

Um the Chestnut Hill in question, the local Chestnut Hill, I laugh because there's I think 2,000 of them in Pennsylvania. Um but in in this case when we refer to Chestnut Hill we're talking about the ridge that extends from the Delaware River um onto this site which follows the outcrop belt of the precamrian rocks. So in this case the green the orange and the blue rocks um they're more resistant to chemical and physical weathering. That's why it's a ridge.

Is that on the west side of Bushkill Creek or on the east side? The majority of what's labeled Chestnut Ridge is on the northeast side of the Bushkill, what we often call Bushkill Gap where the Bushkill crate runs through there. The reason I ask, but it's the same land form and same rock on either side of the Bushkill gap. There's a fault that that is offset that ridge a little bit, a cross fault at that point. So, uh, attorney Kaplan had, uh, asked you about if you had examined the site, and I think it was you testified that you did not examine this specific site.

Not within the boundaries of the red property lines, but uh, the geology of Chestnut Ridge I'm very well familiar with. But I I know you testified about some reports that you've studied in in your career that did examine the site. Isn't that correct? Well, well, I mean, there's the site, there's the structural analysis that was presented here. Um, and then uh but other than that, no, everything is I'm intrigued by the by the uh the the pick and the cross picks shown on the site indicating that there was a quarry on that side of the creek, but I've never been in there and I'd be curious to know uh more about it and I intend to look in the literature just to continue to build my own knowledge base on this.

Thank you. I I want to talk about the stream now. the um I think it's it's in a pipe. This spring brook, right? It's it's in a culvert. I think it's been mentioned. So, the section that's in a culvert, is that getting into the ground or is that is there my my knowledge of of this terminology is not sharp enough, but uh the part of the creek that is artificially channeled in a pipe,

is that seeping into the ground? there's no way of knowing what the in structural integrity is of that pipe. Um so I'm not sure uh whether it's a terracotta pipe, whether it's galvanized metal. Um what the exact nature of it is. So I can't comment on whether or not that pipe maintains complete watertight structural integrity. I do not know. So, if I told you that the channel the the relocated channel that's actually I'd like to make this a little easier. I'd like to refer to what the I guess this is the applicants exhibit A6. I have a Is this going to go beyond the the scope of this examination.

I think we'll find out. You will be permitted to Sure. You'll object either way. [laughter] And uh is could you explain what the pink section is on that map? I I believe that's part of the re relocated portion, but I'm not sure.

And so by relocating that, aren't we going to be taking a stream that's running its natural course or its altered relocated course to a new area that has never experienced uh ground uh stream water.

Yeah, that Okay, so several important things here. Um one, I'm I'm not sure how this stream may have been manipulated in the past either. So, this would this would fall into the dark parts of history where industrial sites in the past were manipulated however they were without hearing boards and so forth evaluating site plans. So, so I can't answer that. I I'd like to ask another question, but I want to use what's uh been submitted as uh applicants exhibit A-07. Do would do you recognize this map?

I mean, not to the not to the point where I feel like I know exactly the location. Okay. Could could you identify where where the creek is being relocated on this map? Objection. It just said he doesn't have a good memory of this drawing. Let me I'll ask the question. And I think before you testified that the pink section is where it's currently run in a pipe partially. I'm not exactly sure the length of that pipe, [clears throat] etc.

Do you have any concerns about relocating a stream or or essentially creating a new course for a stream? Does that That's what I believe. I testified to already is the concern that you're moving the dynamic of stream flow into a a place where that wasn't happening. And and thank you. Um when development occurs and you convert wooded or uh covered terrain to permeable surface, does that contribute to artificially channeling water? Do you mean permeable or impermeable?

I'm sorry if I said imp permeable. No, impermeable. Imperable. Okay. So, converting say forested real estate to imperman. Does that increase the likelihood? Objection. There's no facts where this there's forested area here that's being converted. If I understand correctly,

I I I almost don't know how to respond to that because this is for a land development proposal. So certainly some land will be developed into imp permeable surface. But we're only here about the relocation of No, we are here. 370,000 square ft of retention ponds. There are actually four retention ponds, not three on this site and for the building of a roadway in a flood plane and the relocation of a stream. So stop saying we're here for the relocation of a stream. Boia Engineering's letter to this board clearly states otherwise. absolutely acknowledged.

So yes, anytime you increase impermeable surfaces, you're going to generate runoff and how that runoff's managed is crucial. Um even in the KC or I'm sorry the ECS report they acknowledge every geologist that I know of that's uh versed in carsted terrains carbonate terrains are going to uh recognize and acknowledge the importance of managing water that u in order to maintain surface stability and avoid seals the management of surface waters crucially important I think so just to clarify is it your testimony that turning permeable surface into impermeable surface can increase the likelihood of sink holes [clears throat]

depending on how that water is managed at the surface. No further questions. Any questions for the board? I have I have a quick question for you. You mentioned four retention ponds. I I see three. Am I might miss that one? The fourth one's not in Easton. It's in Wilson. It's on the western edge. It's much smaller, but uh I just think the should be knowledgeable about their own. Thank you.

Um, you ask for public comment relative to his or do you want to take the break first? I don't That's why I asked you if you can do public comment first so we get rid of done with [laughter] No offense. Take Did you say get Did you say get rid? We're going to take some public comments for the people that were sworn in. Anyone? Were you sworn in? Okay.

Yes. And just just to be clear, we're asking for questions or comments relative to his testimony. Correct. Okay. Can you give your name and address for the record, please? Kimberly Wagner. Can you pull that microphone to please?

Kimberly Wagner, 721 Catel Street, Eastston. I just want to make a mention that the the cover page of the ES plan say geologic formation soils conditions. There are no known geologic soil morphological condition on the site that may have the potential to cause pollution. Is that a question? Are you are you just stating the comment to us? I'm just stating a comment and I did the geotechnical. I think we're just taking questions for the testimony that was given.

Well, Mr. Kaplan said that that that there is none, but they put it on their plans. Okay. Protect themselves. I just wanted to make sure that everybody knew that. Thank you. Because the the geotechnical report says they plan to blast all of this. So, and I also just wanted to comment too microphone, please.

Anyone else? All right. All right. Are we [clears throat] done with I have no further questions of Mr. Professor Terminoski. So I think we would be concluding. We've concluded with this test. Okay. Council, anything further? Uh profession.

All right. Take a break and move on to next witness who is a rebuttal witness. Okay, take take a five minute break.

All right, we're back on the record now.

We're back on the record, folks. Please excuse me. Hello. We're back on. Thank you. All right. Go ahead.

PowerPoint. They're still talking. We're We're We're back on. You guys want to talk? You can go outside. Thank you. [clears throat] Mr. Schleser, I would just like to make a part of the record the copy of the uh PowerPoint presentation, right? And the hard copy was handed to me. Do you happen to have an additional copy?

Sure. so that I can take one and we can leave one with the secretary.

And if my memory serves, this is five.

Thank you. A or an O. No. What? Attorney Sha just

No. No. No. No. Um although council do you or do you know where we left off with the answer? I'm going to ask you some of the beginning stuff and then [snorts] let you describe as much as you can. Council, do you happen to know what exhibit number this is of yours? That's a redo of the exhibit list. And then 21 and 22. Okay. 2 and

21 and 22, I think. Yep, I see that now. Thank you. [snorts]

I'd like to introduce you to Dr. FX Brown, Frank Brown. Um, could you were you sworn Dr. Brown?

Yes, I may I inquire what this We were informed at the last hearing that they were finished with all their testimony. In fact, the last witness they had was I thought we were actually going to be coming back for But I'm wondering who this witness is. We have notified that there witness. Unfortunately, I will have to give you the same answer I gave to attorney Kaplan when he requested that you produce expert reports in advance of the hearing. And I told him that I was not aware of any mechanism within the ordinance or the MPC which requires your people to produce expert reports in advance. I think he is also entitled to a rebuttal witness without prior notification.

Well, I think that if he is going to claim unfairness, so shall we. In other words, I actually had Dr. Brandice in the audience tonight. I did not know there was going to be a rebuttal testimony. And just like last time when we had a witness come and talk about Dr. Brandis's testimony, had already left and now we have a witness where he's going to talk about Dr. Brandis testimony and I was notified that I might want to have Dr. Brand here to assist me in cross examination.

I didn't even know that you were going to have an expert witness, let alone who it was. That's not true. That's absolutely true. Mr. Shaughnessy, can you just come sit down and talk into the mic just so everybody can hear you? Thank you. I I absolutely knew at the end of the last hearing that we would have another witness. In fact, he that Professor Germinoski was ready to go at the last hearing. He even knew that um Dr. Germanski was going to be testifying by Zoom. We got that. Um I did not. You did. You were on the emails where I asked if it was possible prevent that present that witness by Zoom.

Well, I never saw. So, um, that is not true that they did not know that we would have a witness tonight, right? We absolutely did. Look, what is unfair is that they're now presenting a rebuttal witness, which we did not know was not notified to us until I walked in there today and there were questions about who's going to go first. And so I would object to this much testimony because we were not notified that there would be a rebuttal testimony and I could have my expert witness here uh to assist me in cross examination and that is not not possible. Well, then again, I will in the spirit of fairness, as I did with attorney Kaplan in our email exchange, uh I had indicated to him that if there was anything within your expert's testimony that his expert needed time to address, that I would advise the board to schedule another time for the presentation of his expert witness. So, you know, I I think it only fair then that we play that street both ways. And if you feel that you need to bring your expert witness back to address Dr. Brown's testimony, I would advise the board to entertain that.

Okay. Okay. And I would also suggest that I not be required to cross-examine him today because I would have liked to have my own expert assist me in that endeavor. And now I'm prevented from doing that.

I had the same problem. I didn't know who your witness was. I couldn't have an expert. You refused to give me a report and I had to do what I could do at the last hearing. And I and after we saw what he testified to, I took advantage of exactly what the solicitor says. If your experts feel that they need more, in all fairness, what I would say is that if your experts feel that more time to digest and respond to anything that is offered by any expert at the hearing, I would advise the board and then goes on to say have another hearing. So, you ought to listen to what Dr. Brown's going to say and then you decide whether or not you want more testimony.

That's exactly what I'm suggesting to the board is if I listen to Dr. Brown's testimony and feel the need to cross-examine, I would like to do that on another date when I have Dr. Brandis's input. Okay. So, you will be able to bring Dr. Brown back for a supplemental if if necessary. Okay. If necessary. [clears throat] So So I I I know. I can tell by the smile on his face. He's He's dying to come back again. I'm looking forward to it actually.

Don't Don't play games with it. Be good, Frank. Please. Please. So maybe the best thing would be if I'm going to I'm going to ask Dr. Brown. I'm going to let him try and I'm going to try and let him testify himself as much as possible. Um it's very important that you get a good handle on his credentials. I'm going to I'm going to uh ask him about his credentials. And exhibit 21 in my exhibit is Dr. Brown's CV. So, you're sworn in. [clears throat] Please state your name. You got to talk into the microphone.

Frank Brown. It's B R O W N E. And And what is your business address? My business address is 11:01 Southport Street, Lansdale, Pennsylvania. And the document that I've marked as exhibit A21 is your CV. Is it not correct? Does this document accurately state your educational and professional qualifications?

Yes, it does. So with that um I would like you to educate this board about your education, your experience, your licensing and all the areas of expertise in storm water that you've spent the last I'll be kind 40 years um working on.

Okay. I I have my bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Manhattan College in New York. Uh I got my master's degree in environment engineering also from Manhattan College in New York City. And then I got my PhD in environmental engineering and science from the University of Florida. Uh I'm a licensed professional engineer in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. Um over the years I've worked and with some um like Mcgra Hill I wrote two chapters. One in the uh let me see if I note here we I did the stormwater management chapter in Mcgro Hill environmental engineering handbook and I also did the stormwater management chapter in the McGroill Encyclopedia of Environmental Science and Engineering. um years ago, I guess back in around 200 two 2003 when the DP was uh coming up with the storm water manual for Pennsylvania. I was one of 25 people on the advisory committee for the D. We would meet once a month in Harrisburg and we would provide technical and other advisory input to the uh D manual.

What D manual? The storm water management manual and that was at the birth of storm water management in Pennsylvania wasn't done.

Yeah. Prior to around 2000 give or take uh storm water management was basically controlling the peak rate basically and we didn't care too much about erosion or we didn't care about water quality. Uh so right about that time uh the EP started to come up with criteria and regulation saying we can't just put detention based in there. We have to look at water quality slow release things that will stop erosion [clears throat] and will keep basically the water body. Good. So that's why they came up with a manual. The manual had things on grass, swale, things like that, infiltration basin. So when we were finished doing the um the manual, and the manual completed [snorts] DP asked me if I would go uh around Pennsylvania and give workshops on the manual. Uh so I would I went around to maybe about six or seven uh workshops where I would actually explain how to use the manual to other DP staff and conservation staff and one workshop was to other civil engineers. The manual [clears throat] really wasn't that complicated but it was something new and they weren't used to doing that. Now it's kind of worked for D but I did it for free. That's how much they were going to pay me anyway. idea for what they gave me there. U so basically it was interesting going around because at that time engineers really didn't understand storm water management except putting a hole in the ground. So but basically I've had the best of what I consider both worlds. I hear the professor talk and he does profess workers on part of engineering. I was an adjun professor at Vonova University in the graduate school of engineering for about 40 years and [snorts] over the years I I taught course in stormwater

management and I taught a course in lake stream and wetland ecology which is kind of neat to put the quality and the storm water management together. Um I also have 40 years of uh basically consulting engineering where we did comprehensive storm water management plans and then we did actual design of storm water control for whom?

Basically we did it for a variety of clients. I would say initially before the storm water manual come out and uh municipalities and developers had to do much more water cloning. I would say for the first 20 years most of my watershed management stormwind management projects they were for counties they were for municipalities uh we did work for the lake wallpack wershed management district we did work I can give you city of Philadelphia lake knockston Montgomery county Pennsylvania county

do me a favor slow down and give a little bit more Well, you ask me what I want. I'm gonna do that. Okay. Go ahead. He's tough with me, too.

Okay. So, anyway, give an example. Over 20 some odd years ago, we were hired by the city of independence in Missouri to come up with their first ever storm water management plan. And the one thing we found out, they were doing things wrong. They were encouraging people to put basically all the roads and all the houses on the good soils and then they were basing all the bad soils is where you wanted to treat your storm water. And we had explained to them no when you have a bad soil what they call D soil it already is very similar to pay it might have only a small percent of you know of infiltration. arrest is basically runs off. So we tried to explain to them that you were doing it wrong for years and that's what the even now in this manual for Pennsylvania what they try to do is say look at a site evaluate it look at the soils look at the soil but look at the soils first and try to put your roads under bad soil now sometimes like in this site they're all d soil not good site but when you have a choice of an a good soil you want that over the management. Okay, you give the d soils to the roadways and the people in their backyard. They might have a diesel not like it. But in general, that's what we did for years. We went around and we did comprehensive plans in Virginia for instance. Um in Albert County, we actually did gauging station monitoring as you probably heard a couple weeks ago about gauging station. We were the first in the country to actually do gauging station. I think we did five gauging stations of major streams down there and then based on the data we created the watershed mansion plan but Alar County wanted an ordinance and so we said you

need an ordinance and this is 20 years before the Pennsylvania ordinances before the Pennsylvania storm water manual we came up with the first ordinance in the country to control quantity and water quality. So it was the first one ever to do that and it really was helpful because it preserved water quality in the stream and in the lakes. Um in Lake WAC we actually created the waterershed management district and then to find out what the pollutants were and the kind of storm water coming into the lake we again put in five gauging station which we monitored for like two years. Okay. So basically this is the kind of work we did for like 20 years. We did lodge storms and then we we would actually do storm water management controls 20 years before it was required for development. So when development came in the uh the 2005 manual stormwater man stormwater manual came out we were really kind of ahead of it. So what we found is for at least 10 or 15 years we were called on by even other consultants to come in and help them because they didn't understand a lot of it. So we come in and say you didn't test properly. I think we hear testing is very important. So we tell people to test for infiltration. We test for different condition. So for years we've been brought in in a sense to help other consultants be able to design something properly and cost effectively. So I think we can point out one project I liked interesting from today. One of the projects we worked on many years ago and I worked on it with Mark was down in the King of Prussia area. We did stonewood and management on a major cost area. And it's interesting here the northern part

of the site and the southern part of the site. The northern part of site the whole site had cost but there's cost in what they call Epcot which has these big holes in it. So in the bottom of the site working with a geologist because I'm a civil engineer, not a geologist, we came up with this novel idea of taking the storm water down into the big voids that we saw some pictures of today. So the detention basins where the voids underneath throughout Pennsylvania a lot of stormwood management is actually in the car area. It goes down there. So what we found is we said we in this southern area we really couldn't develop infiltration because if you infiltrated to sell would fall into some of these areas. So basically we pump the water down into it. Now the northern area had cars but some of these cars had these things we were talking about sometimes they're this big. Okay. And and they were created 20,000 years ago a half a million years ago. So they're not going to erode from the acidic rain at this point. What the rain does if it's a big void in your soil on it. It makes the the soil get wet and falls down. The sinko is not formed by the card or the carbonate dissolving. That takes thousands and thousands and thousands of years. It's formed by having big holes underground. It's like vertical so erosion in a sense. So what we found on the top site is we were able to when D accepted it, we had like eight or nine foot of good soil. So we could actually infiltrate there because we protected and underneath there it was a safe car. So there's all types of cars. There's a lot of cars in this area, but you you

notice there aren't codes everywhere we go. And D even made me give a workshop on cars. trying to explain to other engineers, don't be afraid, just be careful and and make sure you don't have a big thing hole. And once we got into the manual, that's when my firm started to look into doing uh storm water management for developers uh and people like that. We work for Little Guy and Big Guy. About [clears throat] it. Now, yeah. H how about all your publications? How about

you got I [snorts] think you've got a list in here. Yeah, there's a whole bunch. Okay.

[snorts]

I mean some of the I've done a lot of work in the storm water and also in length and streams and and ecology. So some of my publications are like low impact development getting it right and getting it out of the pipe. Innovative stormwood infiltration approach for cost areas that was presented at Villanova University in 2007. Low impact development to protect lakes. Flow impact development is just development where you try to do the the minimum to the site trying to make the hydraology similar to the pre-development hydrarology. Okay. And you try to do that at least for the two-year storm for the volume and the 20 the 50 and 100 year for the peak rate of flow.

So explain that for just one second. what um peak rate of flow versus water quality or or what you

well peak rate I think you heard it from Dr. Brandon's peak rate is how fast the water is and coming through. That's cubic feet per second or million gallons per day like a waste treatment plant. Okay. The volume is the actual cubic feet or million gallons of water. So one is the volume and one is how fast the water's coming through. So install a manual years ago said okay you got to do the peak rate control. But that's been done for like 50 years to be great control. Back in 2005, they said we have to we have to control the volume too. Studies showed that roughly the twoear storm which happens obviously roughly once every two years causes stream bank. If this is your stream and the water's up to here, that's a maximum velocity and that is when you get stream bank erosion. Okay. Once it overflows the velocity slows down. Okay. So D and other states throughout the country said in their in their regulation control the peak rate for the up to the 100year storm but for volume you have to control the twoear storm. The other storms don't cause any kind of erosion of the stream. It's just a twoyear flow. And then they ask that you have to do water quality. If you if you're picking up dirty water in your storm water, you have to sle it or you have to have it infiltrated or something like that.

Okay. So, [snorts] let me just ask this formally. Do you regularly design storm water management systems? Yes. and you've told us you've done work for D and you work for on the board for D. I think you've already described the other types of projects that you're involved in

and obviously in your field you're called upon all the time to read zoning ordinances, environmental regulations, DP uh regulations, uh act 167 regulations and federal regulations with regard to storm water management. That's correct. Um, obviously he's testified, but have you testified often between before municipal boards and um um state and federal boards for EPA, for D for the Army Corps of Engineers?

Yes. And have you been recognized as an expert? Yes. And I would offer Dr. Brown is an expert in civil engineering with an expertise in storm water management and I would ask that he be accepted as an expert and Mr. Sha who wants to cross examination to cross examine please do I would even nice to meet you Dr. Brown Dr. Um, how long have you been involved in this project?

Oh, probably about six months, but not in the design, in overview, seeing what's going on and and watching it. A lot of the work was done out of the plant office where I work. And are you aware of Boja Engineering? Yes, Boj Engineering bought my company seven years ago. So it's my understanding that your company is a division of Boja Engineering. Let me explain. Please do.

Sometimes they'll advertise FX Brown of Moer. But I actually am have my own firm wedding consultant which is independent corporation and I work for Bure as a consultant. Okay. I thank you for clarifying. Um it is true on your website header that it says FX Brown a division of BA Engineering though. Isn't that true? Yes. Okay. Thank you. And have you ever done any sampling in the Bushkill Creek? Not that I can be at all. No. So, I'm sorry I didn't hear that. No. No. No.

Um, had you ever heard of Spring Brook prior to your involvement in this project? No.

And I I have no further questions for the witness. I would uh concede that he is an expert in storm water. Oh, I actually have do have one more question I just want to clarify. So, is this like an updated copy of your resume that you've provided and ha have you published anything more recently than 2008? Yes, I just haven't updated that. I didn't update the paper. Okay, thank you. I think I thought somebody would ask that question.

Um, so I I would concede that he's an expert in storm water management, but simply want to limit that he's not an expert in the Bushkill Creek or the immediate area of the site. uh as Dr. Brandis uh sort of testified that he was Thank you. [clears throat] Okay. [snorts] Somebody's got to accept them. Okay. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yes. Thank you. Yes. I'm sorry. I thought I thought I heard you. That's why I [snorts] was still writing.

Dr. Brown, what were you asked to do in connection with um your testimony here tonight? I would asked to basically u well first of review the whole project and review the permanent application, but I also reviewed the testimony of Dr. Brandon and I actually watched him on TV. I have a cold. You a bad boy. My Sorry about the coffee.

Um, you prepared a PowerPoint presentation to help in your testimony tonight. Yes.

And and we've marked that as exhibit A22. And that's this PowerPoint presentation in front of you. Now, I I would like um I would I would like you to address multiple aspects of the testimony profered by uh Dr. Brandis at his October 27th hearing. And you're prepared to do that, are you not? Yes. In my presentation,

now Dr. Brandis stated his opinion that after the relocation of Springbrook, there will be a substantial increase in runoff volume that will impact whether we call it the unnamed tributary or Springbrook. that that volume that it increase in volume will impact the unnamed tributary and downstream of Bushko Creek and that such condition will negatively affect the health, safety and welfare of the city of Easton and his residents. Do you remember that opinion?

Yes, I do. Do you agree with that opinion? No, I do not. I I understand that your opinion results from your disagreement with not one aspect but multiple aspects of Dr. Brandis's testimony. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct.

Now, I would like you to go through your presentation and review each of them. But first first I would like you to express your reaction to Dr. Well, let's do this. Let's talk. Let's look at uh exhibit number one or slide number one. It's up on the board and briefly [clears throat] expressed your understanding of the scope of what we're here about tonight.

Okay. Well, you have it in front of you and I hope maybe we can see it. But over there what we're showing basically the proposed warehouse. But the three major detention basins are the green detention basins and the big blue area is where the existing stream goes and goes underground. The existing stream which is kind of the the blue area going towards the top a little bit. Um that is an okay channel except it go through a toxic area of soil. and and in discussions with DP they were concerned about it continuing okay because they they like the idea of relocating it from and where it's being located there is no toxic soil so one of the things is just toxic soils where it is now okay the area there in the pink is the new channel which I'll refer to constantly as the new channel okay and basically that channel is basically as they point here. The existing channel goes through the area of toxic material. The new channel avoids the toxic area. Okay. There are three large detents and basins that contain peak flow. I told you about the peak flow being contained. And it also controls the two-year runoff volume. It does that by holding the the volume back and releasing it as if it has been infiltration. When when water infiltrates into ground, it doesn't go to China like we used to be taught as kids. Okay? Water goes in down so many feet and it starts to migrate towards the stream. So what happens with infiltration is it delays the water the the volume of water from getting to the stream and causing erosion. So, what we're doing here, since we can't

infiltrate on the site because it's deep soil and there's some toxic areas, we basically are holding it in lined areas and we're releasing at a basically a metered rate so that it kind of acts like it's going it's like it's infiltration. This is something that is relatively new, maybe six, six, seven, eight years old. It allows for release of the water where you can't infiltrate the the stormwood run off. It's very creative method. So the one thing we point out here, Dr. Brand just said that the runoff from the site goes through the new channel and the professor earlier today said the same thing. It does not. Okay. All the storm water, I would say I shouldn't say all about 98% of the storm water goes into these two big green detention basins. They flow into the larger detention basin and it discharges at the very bottom of the new channel. It doesn't go through 99% December channel. It goes into the very bottom. See if you can reach it. right where the purple and the yellow or orange come together.

Correct. Is where there is a a level spreader. Level spreader.

So basically um where Dr. Brandon was wrong and he should have known better and and and the other professor it doesn't go through it. So one thing you should remember and this is important as I go through the evening. um the old channel and the new channel are going to have the same flow. There's no new flow being added. One of the things that we heard earlier today was the additional flow in the new channel could make it unstable, but there's not going to be any additional flow. It's the same flow that been there for years and years and years. It went from this area to this area. Okay?

And Dr. Brandice agreed to that ultimately, didn't he, in his testimony?

Yes. So, since the side runoff does not discharge in that channel, it's going to be the same discharge and and I'll show you as we go through the new channel that's there. It's going to be bigger than the existing channel. So, we'll go through all the mathematics and the flows and all that, but think about it. One of the arguments Dr. Ander said the new channel is going to flood. If the same water is going through it and one is this big and one is this big, how can the new channel flood if the old channel is not flooding? It's a symbol that we're putting in a new channel that's bigger than the old channel. It's better laid out. Actually, I'll show you later how it's better laid out. And it can't flood because it gets the same amount above three water coming through it. But we'll go into that in more detail later.

Okay. Now, your your second your your second slide is a list of all of the permits that we have gotten.

Oh, slide over here. So, one of one of the things that I heard Dr. Brandice say was that he gave no weight or credence to the fact that all of these agencies had reviewed applications and presentations and he gave no credence credibility. In fact, I believe he said that because there were so many pages in some of the reports that they probably didn't see the things that he saw. I that was part of the basis of his that was part of

I'm sorry for Okay, the rules of evidence don't apply here. I asked the question. I made my statement and and I'd like to ask my question. You can ask a question, but I think what he's objecting to is your characterization of what Dr. Brandise's testimony was. And obviously that's from memory. No, that's not only from memory. You don't have a transcript here. I do. I I went through the transcript. Can you show us then?

You want to read it from the transcript? No, I don't want to go tracesing through the transcript now at this hour, but it was very clear that Dr. Brandis gave no credence to the approvals that were obtained from all of the local state and um county agencies and he said that they must have missed what he was talking about. Did you read that, Dr. Brown? Yes.

And I would I would like to ask you your reaction to Dr. Brandice's um dismissal of the importance or the weight to be given to the permits and approvals that you've listed in slide number two.

Well, I I've been working with the D um for at least 25 years and they're thorough. thing. People like to put down government work and they work hard and they come back with too many damn questions at times. Um sometimes going through DB is like going to a dentist hope there's no dentist around here without a nova canane they come up with questions sometime they have good suggestion but they don't miss a trick that and at least in my 25 years experience okay they they come up um the permitting process is a very difficult process because you go back and forth with D they'll read something and they'll ask you questions you know I had a lot of D uh people as students in my classes have gone over. So they knew storm water I have to give credit they knew storm water management very well they used it when they were viewing my permit application. So I I don't agree with whether Dr. Bren how Dr. Brandon says it or not. The idea is that all these agencies looked at all the applications and all the calculations. They do look at the calculation. There's many pages, but there's only certain pages that are really important. They looked at it state and federal and county and they agreed that it told you the whole development, but especially the new channel. So I just think it's the

and I understand what you're saying, but council, do you not acknowledge, you know, and and and you can characterize his testimony as having disregarded the importance of the permits that you secured? I'm not sure that was the case, but do you not acknowledge that the ordinance, our ordinance says that even if you have all of the permits, you still have to comply with our zoning ordinance.

I wouldn't characterize it as that. I would I would say, do you not agree with my observation? Do you do not Well, I I you've said it before. I've expressed my um disagreement with it, but let me let me let let me make You want me to read you the language from our ordinance? Do you do you mind if I finish my sentence? You go ahead and finish your sentence. The the the ordinance, your ordinance requires all of the permits and approvals of all of these agencies.

Absolutely. and is in fact in my view constructed around those requirements. Now what you hooked on to is a statement that says that storm water management will not be injurious to health, safety and welfare.

Now what is the additional requirement [snorts] that is in the ordinance? I I I looked at his testimony before, but maybe I can find it. [snorts] What my point to you is to the extent that you are saying that somebody can come in here and say yes he complied with all of these things every permit but in my opinion in my opinion [snorts] this project is injurious to health safety and welfare and that this board could reject our application based on that. I don't I believe that's a violation of the law. You know the zoning law as well as I do. And we both know that in a special exception, the cases have said that once the municipality allows the particular use that if you demonstrate compliance with that use, it's assumed that it's been it's in accordance with the health, safety, and welfare of the community. And the only way that that can be overturned is with overwhelming actual evidence none of which Dr. brand escape

and I think council where you know you just opined as to where I got hung up now I'm going to tell you where I think you got hung up okay section 298-10 I don't have it in front of me but go ahead okay subsection B lists all of the permits that are needed that's why I said I agree with you 100% [clears throat]

Subsection C goes on to state a separate requirement. Any new construction development uses or activities allowed within any identified flood hazard area shall be undertaken in strict compliance with the provisions contained in this chapter and any other applicable codes, ordinances, and regulations. Would you not agree that that is different and in addition to securing all of the permits? And if you say no, I didn't Then I will direct your attention. Let me let me answer it. Go ahead.

It it it's only different if there is some other requirement that's different from all of those permits that are and and the requirements of those permits. So tell me what the additional requirement is.

Well, they are set forth in Well, for example, 29810F, and I'm just covering this to answer your question, just for example, within the floodway area, no encroachments, including fill, new construction, substantial improvements through other development shall be permitted unless it has been demonstrated through hydraologic and hyd hydraulic analysis performed in accordance with standard engineering practice that the proposed encroachment would not result in any increase in flood levels within the community during the occurrence of the base flood discharge that is a requirement

and there was a hydraological study and there was a difference of opinion with respect to that no your engineer well you and I can argue that until the cows come home. But what was the difference of opinion? Council, I'm not going to get into an argument here with you. Well, you asked we can argue to a judge someday. That I I All right. So, I'd like to I'd like to go on with Dr. Brown's testimony. Yep. That's fine. Yeah. But and I I just wanted to address that, you know, the ordinance, yes, it does specifically state that you have to have permits, but it also said you have to comply with the ordinance.

You just said that Dr. Brand said there will be a larger storm and he pulled and he he came up with some numbers. Will you address that? and and you've got your um slide three in front of you.

Okay. So, he did mention in his testimony that he accepted the two-year storm being controlled. Okay. But he said, well, he felt that larger storms, okay, and he mentioned the 10 year and 100year storm, they would cause downstream erosion in the bushkill, okay? And and maybe as he point out, he's not a professional engineer and he doesn't do design, but we do. And basically if D as I told you earlier all over the country they only control the twoyear storm. The other storms do not cause downstream erosion. So he's incorrect. So anyway they said studies show that the two-year storm may cause stream erosion. Not always but may cause it. And why that is the bank full flow. Usually one and a half.

It's the what? I'm sorry. a bank full. So when bank you've got to explain this I here. Okay, this is the better. This is a stream. If I had a third hand here, it' be great. Bank is the top and you have a high velocity. Okay, thank you.

You have a high velocity going through but when it goes over the velocity when it goes to a flood plane the whole stream velocity slows down a bit. So what basically all around the country people say let's control the 2year storm volume. We're talking volume now not peak flow. We do have the peak flows up to the 100year flow. So basically that's what D only requires that the runoff volume from the two-year storm be controlled. Okay. Dr. Brandis agrees with that. But then he said well he did some looking at the circulation and he said well the 10year storm will add six million gallons okay and a 100ear storm will add 10 million gallons I'm glad he put into million gallons that's easier to understand than kill you have to agree with that okay so I went and said okay let's look at the 10year you know volume passing by at that fifth charge point in the bushkill so there's six million gallons It's going into almost 1300 million gallons of water. It's 0.5%.

0. Oh, I'm sorry. No, that's just.5%. Right. Do you Does anyone really think that less than 1% water is going to cause erosion downstream? If you believe that, you got to be pretty unscientific. Okay. So, let's take the 100redyear storm. You say, "Well, that's 10 million gallon increase." That goes into almost 3,00 2,980 million gallon. That's even less. It's a 0.3% increase. That's why agencies all over the country only control the two-year storm the volume for two year but not the rate,

right? The rate is controlled up to the 100 and you have to do that and your ordinance requires that. So the increase is insignificant 5%.3%. And if there was a going to be a problem with largest storms. Does anybody in this room think the EPA would approve it? If they thought it was a problem, do you think they want you to have downstream erosion? Come on. They don't. They they go by science and the scientists control the two-year because the 10 year, the 50 year, the 100 year is insignificant. is less than 1%. Thank you.

Now, Dr. Brandise use some pretty strong language on uh how Bojan and you used prorating and I'm not going to go any further than that. You got to explain what prorating he was talking about. Explain it to to the board.

Yep. That's it. I don't know if you understood what proration was, but when you and and I've used it many times, it it's it's in it's in, you know, USGS publications as methodology. But when you don't have a stream gauge, there's lots of stream gauges, but not for every part in the stream in every stream in in America. So what happens is when you have an area that doesn't have a gauging station on it, what it is is you usually go into the same waterhed where there is a gauging station and say the waterershed was 100 and your water shed with the gauge one is 100 acres say and you have 10 acres you would say it's going to be onetenth of what you're measuring. I realize you're making some estimation there because there's some differences in land use and everything, but that's what people use all the time. Um, so prorating flows is basically normal engineering practice. It's listed in USGS and other publications. Our federal government actually says to use it at times. Okay. Now, Dr. Brand said there are significant differences in land use in the bushkill that would affect his calculation and underestimate stream flows

in the spring book. In spring book, yeah, he stated that the land use in the bushkill was only 7% developed and 37% forest. So let's look at the 2024 land use map. So identify what this next exhibit is and where you got it. Okay, this is a the Bushkill watershed land use 2024. I'd say that's pretty up to date and it's from a USGS map and what's the US Frank? What's the USGS?

United States Geological Survey, our federal government. They monitor everything, every flow we get. Okay. So, the white area around there, the white area is actually the Bushkill watershed. Okay. So you kind of look at that and say and the red by the way is the built or developed area. The yellow is crops. By the way crops what he was trying to say is the hydraology would be different because land use are different. Crops and developed area produce a lot of water. There's a lot of runoff most from developed and second highest is from crops. Anyway, he said the bushkill was 7% developed, but look at the red area there. Just does that look 7% to you? And then 37% forest, that little green area, that little green area in the very top of the batership. Does that look like 37% to you? Okay. So, let's look at the land use.

Oh, you want me to go back? No, go forward. No, go forward. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah.

So, what we did is we took that map and we basically used AutoCAD to I don't know if you years ago used to have a plenimeter. We used to plimeter the area and find out land use areas. But now [snorts] we're more sophisticated. We use a computer. We outline the areas and and then we look at the scale and we figure out the land use. So we actually used that previous map and we came up with the land use and I broke it down to just the three basic ones developed, crops and forest. So according to Dr. Brandes, okay, I don't know what year he's looking at, but he said developed is 7%. According to that USGS map, it's 39%. Crops, he did say there's a lot of crops. They did say that. There was no number. crop is 24%. So 65% or so is crops and de forest is 29%. In spring book we have developed is 65% and crops is 20%. So it's a bit higher down below to really confuse you guys when we talk about this site model the what we call TR55. Okay. It's it's basically so conservation model, curved number model throughout the country. That's what we use for the for looking at the actual runoff in the site and it's called the curved number. So there's curved numbers, CN it's called and they're not exactly a percent but they are related to the percent of runoff. For instance, developed land has a very high percent runoff. It might not be 98 because the equation takes in holes in the ground and and swale and things like that, but it's it's in the area. Crop land depending on whether an A, B, C or D soil, crop land is 61 to 91%.

So, in a sense, proration is not a bad problem. There is some difference in land use, but not as significant as Dr. Brandy said, but there are some differences. I don't think they're super significant, but I can see the points. But the main main thing here is that they're much closer in land use and therefore in hydraology. So basically that means I think it's still a good idea to take the large area the bush guilt and prorate it down to the spring.

Let me interrupt you there. So now I want to make it a a differentiation. So you did this proration But what did you use it for? Well, if you go to the next slide, thank you. He doesn't know that. Okay, [laughter] you lead very nicely. He's my straight man here. Okay. Interesting enough, the this prorated flows were not used to design the new channel. Say that again. They were not Say that a couple of times more.

They were not I capitalized it. That's enough. the prorated flow that would be he spent a lot of time about um are not that bad but they were not used to design the new channel. What were they used for?

They were used to what they used it for what we used it for is to estimate the deposition that's going to occur in a future stream. Whether you design a reservoir or a channel, you want to come up with deposition rate. That's the rate of solids, particular particles that come from rain water, whatnot, settling out. Some flushes through, but some settles out. And if it settles out, it's taking up capacity. So DP and everyone wants to make sure you have enough capacity so that over a hundred years it doesn't fill up. Okay? Like lakes need. So anyway, It's only used this proration was only used to come up with the amount of deposition. So even if the flows were underestimated like Dr. Brandon is saying and they could be slightly underestimated but not as much as he said but even if they were unestimated the calculated deposition rate would actually be higher. Okay. the channel depth would have been increased in our design and the channel design would even be more conservative which means no flooding will occur. So if anything it made it more conservative.

So let's go let's go well before we go to stream stats right you said that the prorated numbers were not used for the design of the channel. what was used for the design of the channel and where did you get the information? Yeah, the stream stats which we'll explain in a moment is a nationwide program. We can show Oh, you got it. Yeah, I've got it. Okay, he's ahead of me now.

Okay. Stream stats I show here from their website. It's USGS. It's not just something BJI use or somebody uses. It's a a national program. And what it is is based on hundreds of thousands of different data that they do and they they collect from their gauging station and they have different number of gauging stations in different states and different areas of the state and different size watershed some very small some very large. So what they've done is developed very good regression equations relating flow to the area of a watershed. So stream stats is what we use and what most people use when you're looking at a stream.

Frank, let me interrupt you. Am I right that you can go on USGS website and this is this stream stacks is an interactive program. Yes. And you put information about your exact location in finish explaining.

Yeah. What you do if if we went in and we go to the bottom of Spring Brook where we had that map right where it goes into Bushkill, you go in and on the computer on their their program, you click there and then it actually delineates the Springbook watershed and then it gives you the land use in in the watershed but but what it does it gives you the flows and CF and that you can convert to volume. So it gives you all these flows based on the regression analysis in Pennsylvania. Okay. Did you do that for this site? Yes. And do you have it with you of the actual calculation? Yeah.

No, they're in the they're in the application, the permanent application. And we can show it to you, but they're in the permanent application. I believe there there's so much. I believe that they're part of the applications that were made to all the agencies. Yeah, they're they're in the to the agencies, but we don't have them. No, I believe you do because we gave you copies of all the agency materials. We also gave you copies of what we well you have the storm water calculations the the township the township the city's [snorts] uh storm water [laughter] management engineer from Penoni.

I guess I'm just asking if you could point us to it so that we could I'm I'll I'll try and get I'll try and find it tomorrow. Don could it would be helpful. Yeah. If Don was here he he he could find it. It would be helpful. And and when you're done, I have a couple of questions.

Sure. Now, next slide. You probably a lot of people can't read where it says stream stats. Years of teaching realize if people can't read the slide, it's no good. So what I did is I blew up that section and it says stream stats provides access to spatial analytical tool basically watershed areas that are useful for water resources planning and management and for engineering and design purposes. Okay. So it's it's being used properly. At least we think we're using it properly. Okay. Who we got next? Next is thankful.

Okay. So now this is maybe this is redundant but go through it again. The bank the bank fill versus the whatever the higher than the bank fill and what all of this means.

Yeah. We went for the probation and all that, but this he got very annoyed because at one point in in the all the calculations there was um some calculations for bankful conditions and as he pointed out in his testimony if you remember there was like an error statement. It could be into outside the area of where there's data and then in the number which was like 12 something CFS was highlighted. Okay. So what he was saying was okay he said that the error message indicates one or more parameters is outside this suggested range. I totally agree with Dr. Brandis. It is okay. However, and this is the silly part, the flows for bankful condition which we talked about already were not used to design the new channel. They were not they were provided for information purposes only. Okay. The engineer that did the calculation the stream stats gives you all this data and he put in too much data. It wasn't used for any decision at all. So all that thing about bank and it being out of the off the graph and all that if you remember from he had a bunch of graph and we were down here. I agree with him but we didn't use it for anything. It wasn't used for any calculation whatsoever. The channel was designed using the 100 gear storm which is pretty conservative

and we're going to show you some graphs of that when we get to the end. It'll it'll help explain this. And there were no error messages at all in stream bank for the 100 year. What he was saying is in stream bank being like one and a half years there wasn't a lot of data for the stream stats and we agree it's just that it wasn't used for anything in it's in the calculation but it was never used in the design. Okay we used it for the 100 store storm and he had some questions about that. So, we're still on stream stats, I think. Frank, yeah, he questioned

I brought up the next slide.

Okay, Dr. Brand just said that the Pennsylvania streams was developed for very large watersheds. So, I researched it because you know when you use streams, you always go back into the the source. So, I disagree. The USGS publication development of regression equation which is stream for the estimation of flood flows at ungagaed streams in Pennsylvania dated 2020 and and was done in cooperation with FEMA and DP. It showed that region 4 is the souththeast Pennsylvania. That's where we use it. They have different regions. So, one of the things that was right in his publication is that region 4, southeast Pennsylvania, contained watersheds with increased percent of urbanization. That's kind of obvious. We're in the southeast of Pennsylvania. The range of watersheds studied in southeast Pennsylvania was 1.5 to 512 square miles. Spring Brookershed is 2.3 square miles. We're above the minimum. And then the USGS website says stream stat is accurate to 0.05 square miles. So I disagree with Dr. Branch. He's saying it should have been used as land use and all that stuff. We followed exactly what USGS said. So basically we didn't do any probation. We took to stream stats and we're definitely in the range of where USGS says you can use it.

Okay. You want to go on with the channel? You want to Yeah. You want to go on?

Okay. Oh, you're he's ahead of me now. Goodness. Okay. Let's go over and talk about the new versus existing channel. We heard some tonight. We heard from Dr. Brandes. Okay. The water flowing through the new channel as I said several times already sorry will be the same as the existing channel since sight storm water runoff will not go through the new channel. So we know that before and after the old channel the new channel get the same flow every year. The new channel will be 30 to 70% larger and basically have a much greater flow capacity than the existing channel. But it goes beyond that. The new channel was designed not to have any stream erosion during any flow condition. D wanted us to do that and we work closely with DP. Okay. It's designed for more than 100 years storm actually. It's 100 years storm basically and we had to make sure that the bottom and the sides had to be have a certain amount of rock on it and and and and things to protect it from any erosion. So not only that and I'll show you I think the next slide shows some of this uh but it was also designed design designed to support stream biota the biology of the stream. So it's going to support macro invertebrates. Anyone who's a fisherman know macro invertebrates they're the little critters on and underneath the rock in a stream. You know some people think they're squeamish but they taste good to the fish. So the mac inverters will live fish and other organisms. So, this is not going to be a ugly stream. It's going to have riff. It's going to have different areas and if it's a real natural stream. Uh, and by the way, these people at DB, they wanted it this way and they got it this way. I could show the perfection now.

So, okay. Um, is it possible for me to blow this up? Well, I don't I don't want Go ahead.

Go ahead. you you you explain what this is. Hopefully, it's obvious to you, but this is look at the stream if you were there in scuba looking at the stream. Okay, it's a cross-section of a stream. And what we did in the records for for DP for the whole stream that we showed you in that original truck, we actually do cross-sections every so many feet. We did it for the old one and for the new one. So on your left is a typical cross-section of the water for the existing channel and on the right is the new channel. So you can see they're both pretty good channel. Uh but the freeboard the amount over the 100 and this is by the way this blue area that is a 100year flood level. Okay. And you can see in the existing channel it's close. It has a free board of four to 10 feet depending on

explain freeboard.

The freeboard is the area from the blue to the top where when it fills up it's going to overflow and flood. So existing channel has four to 10 feet depending on the cross-section where if the water goes up four feet you get flooding. In some areas has to go up 10, but obviously because our forge is going to flood. The new channel, the freeboard goes from five to 30 feet. And if you look at the new channel, it's much more designed and much better we feel for the bioder moving the water and the freeboard is much greater. But the bottom line is the new channel is 30 to 70% bigger than the existing channel

in volume. volume in volume.

Yes. In in in the whole in the volume that it can handle. So the bottom line, Dr. Brand said there'll be flooding. If the channel's bigger than the old channel and it gets the same amount of water, how can it flood? It just doesn't make any sense. You know, it's like if you take a little box and replace with a big box and think it's gonna overflow with the big box when it didn't do the little box, something's wrong. So, but anyway, you can see the design was done. D did a lot of back and forth. They told us they wanted this stream to be for the hundredyear storm so it wouldn't have any kind of flooding. We wouldn't have any erosion. So, we have some really good stone at the bottom. um to go to the next thing. So, working together with DP who wanted a nice channel. So, they said it's 30 to 70% larger than existing channel.

I think this is a repeat of what you just

but it's designed to avoid extreme erosion. There's six inches to 12 inch type stones in the bottom and going up the sides. It's kind of like a very small rib wrap. But in between these soils, they have these stones. D wants us to take the uncontaminated soil from the old stream, the existing stream, and bring it in and use that so that it we're not taking soil from outside the area. So, it's going to have these rocks at the bottom and going up several feet and then there'll be soil from the old stream there. and they wanted us to design it to support fish and other aquatic life. So there are features they mentioned pools, riffle and even hiding places for the little fish and stuff. And what the D really liked about it is located away from the toxic soils. So So we have one more slide and it says what would Dr. Brandis do? We need a little context to that.

Yeah, Dr. Brand just clearly speculation. We haven't we haven't testified yet. I mean, he was here in the room. He left. He waited for it to be a witness. Yeah. In his testimony that I read, Dr. Bran just said, I don't know if you asked what somebody asked him, what would you do? He said what he would do in his testimony if you remember it. So this is not hearsay. This is directly we can show you Dr. Brand said as the witness be careful to not into speculation.

Thank you for the warning. All I can do is say I watched him on I watch him on screen. Frank one second. This was in the context of Dr. Brandis saying number one your prorating didn't work and number two you shouldn't use stream stats correct

and Dr. Brandis said Dr. What Brand what Brandis said he would do is he would do a stream gauging of of the creek. And he said that the thing would would only cost $2,000. It wouldn't be very expensive. And Frank's done this. So we put that we put that title on there. But go and explain why what Dr. Brandis said about doing stream gauging was off the wall.

Okay, it goes further than it. He he said first of all he would develop a runoff model similar to the site model. The model used for us modeling springbook. Okay. Um he wanted to use like a model like we use we actually look at the hundredyear storm. Okay. He said he would install a stream gauge to measure the stream flow over a one to twoyear period and calibrate the model by collecting data to write a model. And we've done this many times at least 20 25 times in the last 30 years. And then he said he would match the flows to stream to the model and then from the gauge station data he said he would put the 100year storm into the model. Okay. The next one, just to give you an example, since I've done this, I'm probably

Oh, wait a minute. I'm sorry. I think this is what you're looking for. Is this what you're looking for? Oh, okay. I'm sorry. One back. There it is. No, the one with the little picture in the top. Okay.

Okay. And I got a lot of detail because when you've done this many times, you get two. I want you to know that. First of all, you have to find an adequate crosssection of the stream. You want a nice cross-section. The perfect cross-section would be concrete like that. You don't find it too often natural streams. Okay? So, you want to find one with a pretty defined area because the relationship is going to between velocity and the area of the stream. So, there's some streams that are too flat that you just can't do this monitoring. Assuming then you could get a cross-section stream. You then have to go out and hire a survey crew to survey the crew. What the survey survey survey the stream what you want to know is for two for the water what the the actual water the the amount of water in the stream. Okay. So if you knew you you survey the bottom of the stream and you know for two foot of water you have so much water for three foot you have so much water. So that's what you do. You survey it to obtain a relationship between the water depth and the stream cross-sectional area. Then you install two different gauges. One is a staff gauge. You probably have seen them. They're just a gauge with numbers on it. One, two, three, four. That's a simple gauge. And you put it in there. And then you can when you go out there to look at it, you can see that the water is at 1.5 feet or 1.8T or something like that. But then in order to get continuous data, and this is where he's talking maybe $1,500, which is getting tight, more like $3,000, but you might get some at 15. We then put in a device that actually measures the water depth. Sometimes with bubbles, sometimes it's a pneumatic type of a device. You put it in the bottom of the stream and the pressure, it knows whether it has a foot or two foot of water and it's measuring continuously. So you can get 365 days of

data. You get two years of data. Okay. So that's what you install. It might cost 1500. Installing it could be another 1500 by the way, just so you know since I've done this. So then you manually measure stream velocities to a little handheld device about this big. And on the bottom, this is very high tech. It has a little propeller and you put in the water and the propeller turn. And the propeller turns slow when there's a small flow and fast when there's a big. So what you do is if you see that little picture in the top it shows one person. Usually you go out with two people but you can do it in a small stream with one person. You can put across there a tape and then every one to two feet you go up and down you measure the water velocity. You move two feet you measure the water velocity. Move two more feet. So what you end up getting is an average velocity that's in there and then you you basically let me see. So you need 20 to 30 measurements per year minimum to get the more the marrier because you're trying to get a regression equation. Okay. And you want it over a variety of flow. If you go out today, tomorrow, the next day, you're going to get the same flow. Okay? So the flow does the dry weather flow or the wet weather flow. The dry weather flow does go up and down a bit, usually every three or four weeks or month. It doesn't happen every day, but you still want to get the dry weather going up and down because it's part of your data, but you don't want to go out there and get two feet, two feet doesn't mean anything because it's only one point on your your graph. And you mainly want to get rain events because you're you're down at the bottom of the graph. You got to get something up here on top of the graph. So you want a fiveyear storm or 10 year storm. But if you're monitoring for two years, your chance of getting a

fiveyear storm is very low. Chance of getting a 50 years is much lower. And your chance of getting a 100redyear storm that Dr. Brandon's one is almost impossible. Okay. So, and by the way, you calculate your flow with flow is equal to the cross-sectional area which I showed you on the green the blue thing times your velocity. So you do that every time you go out there. Then you download download your water quality data and replace the battery probably every two weeks. Otherwise the batteries die and you lose data. You develop a stream rating curve. That is where you now have your flow that you measure with your L device and you you plot the flow versus the water depth. And then you look at your continuous readout of the flow on every day and you basically relate that and you calculate out a flow for every day of the year. Okay? And that cost probably over two years at least 80 to 100,000. I've done that enough and maybe more because I'm

So let me let me ask you a question. How do you get how do you get the volume or the flow In a fiveyear storm or a 10year storm, you have to go out there in that storm and get into the the creek. Yes. And measure it. You're getting to my next slide, but I'm sorry. It's hard to control.

Okay. So, what are the problem with gauging station? Okay. If you're just looking for water quality like we did for years and getting an idea of the transport, it's fine. But if you're trying to use it to get a 100 year storm, it's tough. So over a one to two year period, usually get a one to two year storm. You're not going to get a five or 10. You might you even could get a hundred if you're just lucky enough. Okay? But even if you got a hundred storm, you could not safely get into the stream to take velocity measurement. At least I wouldn't get it. We've [snorts] had storm that are 40 or 50 years storm and the water went from say two feet to five feet and it's moving fast. I had nobody in my company that was willing to get in that and measure that. Okay, there are ways to measure it. If you have your station where there's a bridge, you can have an extension and try to do it that way. But in general, it's when you're the 100year storm, you are not going to measure the velocity without somebody getting flushed downstream. Okay. So anyway, Dr. Brandis said he would use the gauging data to get the 100 years storm flow. So we're coming to an end here, guys. Okay. So look at the next plot. Here's what you're really doing scientifically or unscientifically. The little red spots if you're lucky is all the data you got in two years. So you're going to get it for one, two, maybe a threeear storm. You have to extrapolate that little little stuff up to a 100 years storm. You have to extrapolate 98 years. Okay, that's and I said this is totally unscientific. It's unacceptable engineering. Um, no one does this. I mean Dr. when we were talking about bank or Dr. Brandice was talking about he was

criticizing Bojer for being off the curve that [clears throat] much a little bit not 98 years he said here's the data and you're extrapolating flow here you can't do that so he wants to extrapolate data 98 years in the future nobody uses gauging to to get your 100year flow you can't get it you get it from using USGS data and streams. So, I want to ask you another question that you might have answered. Have you ever performed or orchestrated the performance of stream gauging?

Oh, yeah. About 20 times more. So, tell us some of the places where you've done it and for whom you've done it. Well, the first time I did it years ago when I was a lot younger, um was basically in Elmore County. Where is that?

By Charlottesville, Virginia. It's in Charlottesville University, Virginia. This a reservoir. So, we put in five caging stations. They were our first ones ever. And um it's we did this there and we monitored for about two years. Uh then we actually did it in St. Petersburg, Virginia. I think There were four gauging stations there. We did it in Lake Wal back for about three years with five gauging stations in Lake Wal back. Um we did it out in uh I think Springfield, Illinois. And there's a few other places, but we've done at least 20 25 of them over here.

What's the order of magnitude of the cost? As I mentioned, probably for a twoyear storm, and this is going back a few years, it's 80 to $100,000. If you're lucky, if everything goes right and when it comes to rain, things don't go right. And your testimony is that this is not a methodology that is generally accepted or generally used in your profession? Not at all. No, not at all. You can see it wouldn't work.

So, let's go to your I think your final slide. And um let's do a quick conclusion.

Yeah, a quick conclusion sounds good, doesn't it? Anyway, [snorts] storm water runoff in the site will not cause downstream erosion to bushkill. The erosive two-year storm as I mentioned over and over again will be controlled and Dr. Brand has agreed with that. The larger storms are insignificant but will not cause downstream erosion. The new channel is designed correctly and will not flood or erode. It receives the same flow as the existing channel. It's 30 to 70% larger. It has a better freeboard. Uh it's designed so stream erosion will not occur there or in the bushkill. It's designed to reduce the natural habitats of fish and aquatic life and it will eliminate the toxic chemical that the EP field might be entering the bushill from the existing channel. Amen.

Thank you.

Are there any questions from the board? [clears throat]

I just want to see if I understood some parts of your testimony so I have it clear in my mind. earlier on, if I understood correctly and if I'm remembering correctly, were you saying that, and I forget if you're talking about EPA, DP, only requires that you measure by a two-year storm. Not measure, control the two-year storm, control the volume, the volume of the two-year storm. Okay. So that arguably when you pull a permit from them, that is a permit that will only control a two-year storm.

Correct. For volume for the peak flow, it's it's from the two-year storm up to the 100year storm for the peak rate that comes out. Okay, that's really in fact the peak rate after development according to your audience will be smaller than what's there now. So the peak rate is controlled up to the 100 year storm, but the water volume that goes in is controlled for the twoear storm.

Okay. And I I guess I'm a layman when it comes to all of these terms that you're throwing around. I don't really understand the You're saying it's 30 to 70% bigger than what's there now. I I guess I don't understand why that wide gap. Why can't we say it's 45% bigger or it's 60% bigger? I I I don't understand that.

Yeah. If this is the channel, okay, there's different slopes and topography. So in in a steeper area, you're going to get a bigger area. You're going to get closer to 70 cent bigger because of the way the water is flowing. It just depends on where the crosssection was taken. Okay. This channel is long. Whatever number of feet it It's long. So Oh, so you're saying at spots in the length of it, right? I'm sorry. Okay, now I understand we're chopping up and this might be 30, this could be 40, this could be 70. Now I understand. Oh, sorry. That was my fault.

No, that's okay. Um, and and the final question I have currently, it's a pipe that's buried underground. Correct. For for part of the stream, the very bottom part of the stream. Yes. And so there's only so much water that can go through that pipe at one time. Correct. Correct. Or replacing it with instead of the whole donut, a half donut. Correct. What are you talking? I don't know. Well, the covert is not closed. It's you're daylighting the the whole thing. Yeah, we we would daylight the whole thing,

right? So, wait, let let him finish. I know I know where where he's going. Yeah. I mean, I'm just out of curiosity.

That there's what Don testified to is that there is a covert, an existing covert under the stream under the road the farthest up. And while that cover is being replaced, because DP wants it replaced, it will be just about the same size as the existing cover. So when you have water coming down a creek and it comes to a street and there's a pipe under the street the street and the pipe essentially acts as a dam and it is I'll use a technical it's a metering device. It allows only a certain amount of water. So if if the new covert is the exact same size as the existing cover and Dr. Brandis has agreed that the water coming down Springbrook is not going to change. Then no matter what we do to open it up, your your half of a donut or twothirds of a donut is still going to be the volume is still going to be controlled by the orifice by the culvert that's going to replace the existing culver. Does that help? No, I guess that's what I can't get through my head. If if you're presently channeling it through a pipe and now you're going to channel it through an open culbert,

correct? Okay. Well, it's not a cul. It's a natural stream we're going to make. But what we're doing is we're making Maybe I'm missing something. No, but we're making it very large. Yeah. It's our fault because we've got to be able to explain it to you. Yeah, we'll open it up, but it's going to be much bigger and it's gonna it's going to have this freeboard. So, and you still have the you still have the box cover or whatever. But he's talking about I think the existing title that goes under it. All right. We're getting rid of that and the whole area is getting rid of and we're trying to have everything open. So, but what's coming into that now open area,

right, is still what you're asking. I refer you to asking the downstream covert. There's only one covert right now that's underground and that's the part that underground. I'm sorry. Okay. And I have a couple of other questions but in view of the hour I'll save them for next time. You want me back? No. We'll see. We'll we'll see whether Mr. Shaughnessy wants you back. Whether whether he dares to bring Dr. back.

I'll make that decision after [clears throat] I don't think we're going to finish with public in 20 minutes tonight. [snorts] Anyway, no.

Now, the problem we're going to have is finding a date that is 45 days of today with Christmas and New Year's coming. Um, out tomorrow. No, I'm kidding. So, one day I probably could do it. Honestly, I would be looking at January 5, six, seven, 12, 13, or 14. I would prefer to stay away from seven.

I'm not good with six. You're not good with six. So, we have the 5th, the 12th, the 13th, and the 14th. I'm sorry. Say that again. the 5th, the 12th, the 13th, or the 14th.

Attorney Sean see any talk. What day is that? January 5th. That's the first first Monday of the year. I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Can you introduce yourself?

My name is Jeff Laker. I uh uh representing Charles PAS and objective. [clears throat] January 5th is the first Monday of the new year, which is a municipal reorganization date for most municipalities in the state of Pennsylvania, including one that I sit on. Therefore, I'm unavailable that day. The 12th, I also have a conflict as I'm before a different zoning board that day. Uh I we we're going to be [laughter] away, but I know my wife said she has to come back sometime early in January. Let me get you that date tomorrow. Well, [laughter] but if we don't set the date tonight, it's going to have to be revertised and the city doesn't want to pay to readvertise it. Don't [snorts] blame him for that. So, what's the avail what's the possible dates?

Um [snorts] 13th 14th 13. I think we're down to the 13th or 14th of January. I'm available. What is 13th and 14th? Council [snorts] on both the 13th and the 14th. So, now we're down to How about the 15th? [cough]

Okay. So, can we move them again if we have to? 15. January 15th. Then [snorts] this is Panto.

Why don't you schedule it so we have a date? And if I can't, I'll I'll let you know tomorrow. That way we can possibly save the app. [snorts] I'm sorry. All right. Is there a motion to continue this matter to Thursday, January 15, 2026, commencing at 6 o'lock p.m.

[snorts] Miss Fanta. Hi, Mr. Lozac. Hi, Mr. Civotella. Hi, Miss Thomas. Hi.

All right, with that, just so everyone is aware before we close the record, um, there will be no readvertising in the media. There will be no new notices sent out to any of the adjacent property owners. the property will be posted and if the date is not good for one of the attorneys um there will have to be an agreement to another date and the attorney for whom it is not good will have to pay the cost of revertising. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. What what the chairman is asking is is is a very good question. Um is my understanding that at this continued hearing, attorney Shaughnessy will have his expert back. Um well, in the first instance, you have you reserve the right to cross-examine Dr. Brown and then to put your witness back on for rebuttal. And I presume that will conclude the witness testimony and then we will open it up for public comment and hopefully come to an ending that evening.

Sir, I also have questions cross. Yes, absolutely. But okay, but I want to make sure from attorney Kaplan, attorney that that'll be it for witnesses. Yeah.

That's that's what we're trying to determine right now. Okay. Attorney Kaplan, you answer the question for me. He's going to put a witness on. I I Well, you brought it you brought him to to to rebut um Dr. Brandis and he's going to bring back that guy to rebut him. So, that's going to be I'm sorry. It will not be any more witness. [clears throat] I'll have Frank here. If I have questions for Brandice, I'll ask them that night and that that will end it. You're right. I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Motion to adjourn. [clears throat] [laughter] How do we get to your car? You have to call the guy. I'll call the guy. Interesting. You should inter. Stop being so formal, Mike. [laughter] Can we leave this here? I guess. Oh my gosh. Fall asleep. You want to fall asleep? I'm sorry. Were you talking to me, Matt? [laughter]

I hear it all over. I'll tell you [laughter] by the way, Chris. Yeah, I'm an engineer. My

I've learned traffic engineer. I never saw any every way. Sorry. Well, yeah, but we have Thank you.

Oakwell, New Jersey. I said I feel like it's

almost always a good thing. I got years ago. I had a broken office and really but anyway,

that's when all the As long as I don't have to shave my legs. [laughter] Oh man. But they'll do a traffic.

Anyway, I think I think I took it. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. Are you leaving? I was hoping you were

Yeah. Who wants to be Who wants to be reappointed to this? [laughter] I don't even think I don't even think I guess we see you.

[laughter]

You know what I was thinking of my niece?

That's correct. Nicole, thank you. Sorry to keep you so late. And they don't

see you guys.

I'll leave them for you. Good night, guys. Good night, Bob. Feel better. Feel better, Bob. Thank you.

Excuse this, Nicole. Anybody leave their glasses? We'll see. won't be there's a celebration.