Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Okay, the recording has begun. Good evening. I would like to call this hearing to order. I am Carol Thomas, principal planner of the Middle Sex County Division of Solid Waste Management. I will be presiding over this hearing. Notice of this public hearing pursuant to the open public meetings act NJSA section 10 col 10 has been complied with and shall be entered into the transcript of this hearing. The public hearing is called by order of the board of county commissioners of the county of Middle Sex as directed by New Jersey Laws 1975 chapter 326. Official public notice of this hearing was published in the Home News Tribune, New Jersey on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2026 and on Sunday, April 26th, 2026. Copies of the affidavit of publication will be on file in the office of the County Division of Solid Waste Management. notice is hereby given in accordance with public law 2025 chapter 72 that legal notices may be obtained reviewed by the public on the official Middle Sex County website at www.mmiddexcountenj.gov. The proposed plan amendment has been sent to each municipality in the county and is on the county's website at www.mmiddexcountyj.gov/public. GV/pubnotices. Resolution 26-493-R authorizing this public hearing was approved by the board of county commissioners at their meeting of April 16th, 2026. The purpose of this hearing is to hear persons interested in or who would be affected by the adoption of the proposed plan amendment to the Middle Sex County Solid Waste Management Plan. An official transcript of this hearing and a response to comments document will be

made available to each member of the board of county commissioners. Both will also be posted online at the county's website, middle sex countyj.gov/public notices. This is not a decision-making hearing, nor is it a hearing where points will be debated. The hearing is solely for the purpose of hearing comments on the proposed plan amendment. For those of you who would like to make a statement, I will first give an opportunity to anyone who has their hand raised in the chat. After that, I will ask anyone participating by phone and lastly, I will give a last call for anyone who did not get a chance to speak. Each speaker will be given five minutes to present their comments. Comments in writing will be included in the record of public hearing and the record will be held open for written comments until 4 p.m. on Monday, May 11th, 2026. The proposed plan amendment is as follows. Plan amendment 2026-2 amend the inclusion of the Middle Sex County landfill located at block 834, lots 3.03, 3.05, 3.07. 07 3.08 4.02 4.05 4.14.15 4.16 4.17 4.18 4.19 4.20 4.22 4.23 4.25 4.26 5.03 7.02 A portion of 8.02 9 through 17 18.01 19.01 1 20 21 22 23.01 a portion of 34.05 34.09 34.10 and a street address of 53 Edgeboroough Road, East Brunswick to allow for an

approximate 57 acre lateral expansion and a vertical increase of the facility up to an additional 25 ft. The Middle Sex County Landfill's current design elevation is 275 ft above mean sea level. This amendment approves an increase in height of up to 25 ft. The lateral expansion will be for the development of cell 10. This increase will provide for an approximate 20 million cubic yards of additional capacity. And the specific parcels that will be impacted by this expansion include block 834, lots 3.05, 3.08, 08, 4.20, and 4.26. There will be no changes to the landfill operations in terms of traffic volume, operating hours, which are Monday through Friday, 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and Saturday 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and waste types accepted 10, 13, 13 C, 23, 25, 27, 27, and treated regulated medical waste class 1 through 7. The landfill will continue to only accept Middle Sex County generated waste. So, I will now open the public hearing. Um, when I call your name or if there's anyone who's dialed in by phone, um, please state your name and address. And again, each person will have five minutes to make your statement. So, I see uh Charlie Kraville, you have your hand raised.

That's me. Can you hear me? All right, we can hear you fine. Can you state your name and address for the record, please? Sure.

Name's Charlie Kratavville. I'm a resident here in New Brunswick at 143 Sadam Street. And I'm here to raise concerns about this. uh you know I would like more information about for instance uh the timeline of when the current capacity will run out and how much more time this extra 20 million cubic feet might buy us as a county for the uh neverending problem of what to do with our waste. I recall speaking out last time this kind of a move was done and uh you know expressed concern at that time and I think if we keep kicking the can down the road we're going to end up regretting it one day. I speak as someone who cares deeply about the Ritan River and uh very aware of the landfill and their operations. I have taken a couple of tours of the facility thanks to the MCUA and I will give credit where credit's due. Some of the odor issues that were very um prominent and problematic at the time that this last expansion was granted are not as problematic right now. But I fear that if we put another 20 million gall or 20 million cubic feet of waste on top of this giant pile of waste that we could be risking that and we could start to smell it again here in New Brunswick and we could uh risk polluting our beloved Raritin River. So I really think that this process needs to be more public. I understand you're checking all the boxes you need to legally check to do this, but I get the sense that, you know, there's not going to be too many other people speaking at this hearing. And I may in fact be one of the only people aware that it's happening or or, you know, speaking out about this. And I think that uh, you

know, the best thing we can do as a society is produce less waste. And if most people aren't even aware that these decisions are being made or these problems are persisting, they're way more likely to continue producing a lot of waste. So I think as a society, we need to really check ourselves and have more awareness and education about the situation at our landfill. Tell people where it is. Tell people that we've already piled up 250ome feet of garbage and that we have limited options for what to do next. We can continue to pile up to 300 or we can put it on a train and send it to another state, but there's not a lot of good options here. So, what I think we need is more awareness and we do need people to uh be more conscious that everything they throw out ends up somewhere. And if this is approved, that somewhere will be at top a giant pile of garbage on the Raritin River at the nexus of New Brunswick and East Brunswick. and I don't want to see uh it go so far and so bad that we regret it and that we smell it and that we pollute our water. So that's why I'm speaking up today. I'm very concerned about it, very interested in it, and I hope that the county can do more to raise awareness and look into other solutions before doing this. And I hope that somebody can get back to me with the answers to those questions that I let off with. But I think that's uh that's about all I've got for you tonight.

Okay. Thank you. Couple comments if we could. Yes.

All right, Charlie. Joe Cryan here from the MCUA and thank you for your comments. You asked a lot of questions, so we're not going to try to answer them all, but I do just want to first off understand that the folks that are speaking to you now also like less waste. And we thank you for joining our tours. We're there. Those tours are for the education of the public so they understand what we do and how much we advocate. And I'm sure we all know you're a community activist. We see you out there. You've seen us at multiple street fairs, East Brunswick Day, other places advocating for the proper disposal of waste and less waste overall as we continue to do so. So, we certainly share that same synergy with you. A couple things, Charlie, just on on just talking points as we go through this debate. Uh, one is is that the 20 million cubic yards are not going on top of the current landfill. We're asking for the expansion of cell 10 so that but just so we understand each other it's not going up on top. It is in fact some is but is in fact the vast majority of it going into the new sale which is what we're applying for. um about 1 million if you want to use some statistics about 1 million will go above so to speak from that 275 that was brought up earlier to 300 about 19 million or let's face it 95% is going into the new cell 10 just so that we speak apples to apples. Uh we appreciate your advocacy for it. The timeline by the way is 2031ish 2032 and the timeline that the extension would be to 2050. And let me say this, we agree with you that we would very much like a more effective, more costefficient disposal method for Middle Sex County trash than one we currently have. And we don't have one. And the reality of it is as the options that you were you were kind enough to bring up whether it's in train waste hall those sort of things the most efficient and

effective disposal method economically for the citizens for the businesses of Middle Sex County resides in the uh in in using the landfill at its current form and its expansion till we have a technology that works better and is more costefficient. This seems to us to be the most prudent move forward. So, if you have a Charlie, we'll review and answer any of the questions you have and give you that in writing. But I wanted to make sure you understood where we were coming from in both an agreement on philosophy that we'd all like less trash, we'd all like a a more effective techn technological method, and that we agree with you in the synergy of the overall. My last comment to you is this. One of the benefits we get here is we invest in the new cell where 95% of this is going literally from the ground up. So the effectiveness that we've used, you mentioned the fact that there are limited to no odor complaints and it's exceptionally limited anymore is because of the investments we've made in the system and will continue to do so. The ability to do it literally from the ground up with the new cell will only make us more effective in in that system and give us a higher degree of confidence that will continue to be great neighbors to our community in East Brunswick. We've noticed those folks. They've not they've noticed on these not only to the limit of the law, but we've extended it past that limit as our board wanted to make sure that all of our neighbors knew at least what we were trying to do here in our plans. And we've had limited feedback which we take to be as a positive to being a good neighbor. So, I hope that answers some of your questions. We'll certainly review what you said and try to answer all the rest.

Thanks for your response. Appreciate it.

Okay. Thank you. She stopped sharing my screen so we could see everybody a little bit better. Um, so is anyone else um on the call who would like to raise their hand to speak? Okay. And I only see one uh dialed in phone number. The last four digits are 1631. Do you wish to speak? Okay. And this is a last call for anyone who did not get a chance to speak. Is there anyone else here who wishes to speak? Okay. If there are no further comments, uh we will close the hearing. Again, a reminder, there will be a response to comments document that will be posted on the public notices section of the county website. Thank you all for attending.