Environmental Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. Uh, welcome to the Township of Sparta Environmental Commission meeting of Thursday, January 22nd, 2026. Uh, the meeting is called to order at 7:02 p.m. Um, we're live in the council chambers at the municipal building. Uh the live stream is on YouTube at Sparta TWWPs. Um please take notice that the that action will be taken on the following items of the Sparta Environmental Commission of Thursday, January 22nd. Adequate notice of this meeting was provided to the public and the press on January 16, 2026 by delivering to the press and posting on the township website a copy of the notice. Uh, can we have the salute to the flag? Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty, justice for all.

Okay. Uh, first thing we are doing is swearing in our new member, Alex John Birdie. So down Good. How are you? Welcome aboard. Yeah. Are you willing? Yeah, I swear I faith United Statesfully environment.

You couldn't remember them. I read mine, too.

Do I need to get swing? Actually, that's Did you expire it? Yeah, that's how they got me. Do I need to actually because both of us were on

Yeah, I was a temporary.

Does do Rob does Rob need to be reworn in because he was a I don't know. I wasn't told anything. Okay. I think Christine also is Well, wait. I have to be sworn in. That's what I'm saying because this is a new uh three-year term. Yeah. But I don't I don't remember being sworn in. I mean, we're pretty relaxed. Yeah. It's up to you. I I mean, then I should say I so swear. Oh, you should be if we're if being reappointed requires swearing. I'm not sure. I'm not sure either. I think so. I was like after I can make one year and then I will Oh, really?

Be a meeting short. All right. Remember, I mean, we could do it and then we'll just print new ones and next time. All right. I I so swear. Well, I just don't know what it's going to mean with our business going forward if we don't get sworn in. So, maybe It's better to swear in and not need to than to not swear in and not have our business taken care of. You turned up. I turned up. You turned up, too. Yes. If I get a new term down there, one of you.

Do you have to You don't have to go anywhere. We could just do it like right here. Right here. Yeah, right here. Because we did this at the planning board last night and the attorney just read it and we had our hand up and we said I will or I do. Oh the whole thing with your name and say yes. And then it has to be notorized I think also. Are is there one of you a notary? I am. Cool. Sorry for the confusion here. Now we have Alex this form. So we'll have

Okay. So, we can swear you in, but um we'll have to print out three forms, like one for each of you, and we'll just bring it to the next meeting. We'll just have a signed Well, electron I mean, we're environmental. We're trying to keep the Okay, I didn't know if you could do signatures electronically, so Who do we start with? Rob. Rob. Okay. Um, do I say I? I, Robert Otto.

Okay. Do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New Jersey, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the United States and in this state under the authority of the people, and that I will faithfully, impartially, and justly perform all the duties of the Sparta Township Environmental Commission according to the best of my ability. So help me God. I so swear. Neil, are you gonna read it again? Say, I Neil I, Neil Sarine, so swear. Well,

that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New Jersey. That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the United States and in this state under the authority of the people. and that I will faithfully, impartially, and justly perform all the duties of the Sparta Township Environmental Commission according to the best of my ability. So help me God. Yes, I so swear. Okay. I, Christine Dunar,

do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New Jersey, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to do to the same and to the governments established in the United States and in this state under the authority of the people, and that I will faithfully, impartially, and justly perform all the duties of the Sparta Township Environmental Commission according to the best of my ability. So help me, God. I will. Thank you. Okay. Applause for everybody. Thank you. Okay. Our next item of business is uh the uh roll call. Chairman Neil Sourine here.

Christine Dunar here. Christine Rogers. Barbara Casulka here. Robert Otto here. Alex Birdie here. Nicholas Drada here. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, next item is the approval of minutes for December 11th, 2025. I'll give everyone a chance to read them if they haven't. Is it Emily? Um, do we typically include the approval of minutes in the subsequent minutes? Like right after members, we have the approval of minutes. Is that just kind of superseded with the November 13th and May 9th minutes? Uh it's kind of redundant, I guess. If we if we accept them, do we want to report on them in the next minutes? Because then we're kind of like building on we approve the minutes that approve these minutes that approve these minutes. I don't

Well, I know what you mean. The approval of minutes we Right. Do we No, no, that was dur during last last meeting. That's why it's here. No, I understand that. I just um we're including detail on the changes that were made and those changes would presumably be made within there. So maybe we just shorten it and say that Oh, I know what you mean. Okay. That mean it's from whatever day that this was approved and this was approved rather than because if we miss something that's it's a minor thing, but Okay. Yeah. Do you agree with that? Yes, Mr. Chair. That makes sense.

These are actually Courtney's first minutes, by the way. Oh, all right. Well, in that case, page five. Uh, uh, Margie Murphy. Um, I think it's JY, not I E. Oh, yeah. We oh went through this. I think I sent you something about that, right? Does that Yeah, it's J I J J Y I thought I thought that was But we also have uh members present Marjorie. So I'm not sure if you want to change that or

minor thing. Um page four when Christine is reporting sample uh recent sampling result of 242 parts per million chloride. Uh only because this is environmental, we could probably just do ppm. Um parts per million or milligrams per liter. Either either unit is acceptable.

Well, yeah. So if if you got it as parts per million, I would just kind of do like a find and replace whenever you have parts per mill, just ppm and uh not chlorides, just chloride, right? That's page four. Uh second paragraph down from salt watch snapshot. Third. Oh, yep. Third. Sorry. Fifth one down from the top. I can send you that if if you want. Okay.

Well, it uh it wouldn't be um parts per million chlorides. You wouldn't have a plural there. Well, yeah, I already mentioned that it's chloride, unless you're referring to sodium chloride, magnesium chloride, and calcium chloride, which we talk about later. But I would just do two 242 ppm chloride. Yeah, that's uh over the recommended um

seems high. It's it's yeah it's over the state standard for total uh dissolved chloride. And then page six, second from the bottom, Neil Sourine mentioned climate super fund act. Super fund is one word, right? I think so. Yes,

usually is. I'll sorry I I'll send these though to write these down from this. But does anyone else see anything? No, thank you. I think they're very well done. Agreed. I would make a motion to accept for those small changes. So move.

Thank you. Uh next on the agenda is correspondence. We have a notice from the D about uh ecigarette and vape pen management and disposal.

This is one of the worst ideas ever. I think disposable um lithium batteries like this. I see them on the street sometimes.

So, would it be appropriate to add this to a wish list to a larger thing? Because several years ago I had brought up within Lake Mohawk um one of one of the big waste products was cigarettes.

Also the little alcohol bottles but the cigarettes are point load uh nicotine toxic nic nicotine um point load sources. So now obviously the ecigarette having the nicotine extract as well as the lithium battery. Um, so maybe we could put this on our list to like write something up basically addressing this. What are you suggesting? How could we address it? Well, we have this memo. What do we

I'm wondering what we can do. Yeah. in terms of um an or an ordinance recommendation or I mean if we're I'm just we have to have a place we have to have a an action how we can encourage people to dispose of them properly. Okay. Well, here it says what under what to do. Um,

store individually in plastic bags. Post notices on or near trash receptacles to prevent limit improper disposal. So, I'm just if we're using this as guidance, I would all I'm the action item that I'm talking about is piggybacking on this to include traditional cigarettes, which when they contain nicotine, when they contain a plastic filter that's not biodegradable, that they pose a similar risk to um health of humans and wildlife. uh separate from the lithium battery. And so I would simply say if we're going to craft something that's going to have to do with signage that we make it slightly broader to include cigarettes if so it would be information.

Yeah, I agree. Um, we could put it on the township website, have some kind of a graphic or something like this. Um, your trails. Do you want to trails? Yeah. Do we have money for signs? Um, it's too early. I know we're starting right in January asking for money.

Uh, I just brought that up in our trails meeting. We have a a uh it's it's on the agenda, I believe, as uh the Um, no it's not the sustainable Jersey grants. We have a, you know, we have the 200 and510,000 and $20,000 grants available, but the uh application deadline is February 13th.

What about this? We really I know that trails are important, but don't we want people who are buying these products actually to see it? So, if we could I don't know what infringement this would involve, but um if we could require businesses that sell these items to post the sign, you know, just like uh years ago when I was growing up, they put the label the the surgeon general on the cigarette

packages, right? So, so we need them, the users and the purchasers to see this. And I'm sure that a lot of them aren't aware of this, you know, but it will bring about that awareness. Yeah. But can you require the business to do it? I don't know. Yeah. Maybe advise the business to do it, but required I don't Yeah, that would have to be confirmed. That would have to be an ordinance. Yeah, that's what I'm Yeah. Well, it's worth it to have an ordinance like that after looking at this advisement, you know.

So, you could bring that up on planning. Uh, make that make a suggestion to submit it to the governing body to consider as an ordinance, right? And we could do that as well. Yeah.

But in the meantime, we should they kind of have guidance. So, we would be following with their guidance um within our township to post notices on or near trash recepticles um to prevent or limit improper disposal. My my concern there is uh if you don't read in the fine print with the lithium batteries, especially if damaged in trash or recycling system. So, it almost seems like not only would we need signage, but we'd need some special secure lithium battery uh rated trash can, which I don't even know what that looks like, how much that costs. Yeah, we've um I think I seem to recall in the past that that was suggested that it was a problem because of the

fire risk of fire. Um I don't know. Do you remember that person? Yeah, I remember that conversation. People were concerned about having a box out in front here for people to bring in their lithium batteries, but we could remind people that they can do that over at Skimua.

Yes. you know, when you bring in your recycles. I mean, we're lucky here in Sparta that we don't need to go over to the Sussex County Municipal Utilities Authority to bring all of our recycles. We have pickup, right, once a week. But, um, but I think that there might be other things that will cause them to go to go over there and they could include these lithium batteries and safely dispose of them. Maybe. I mean, if if you

Sorry. If you if you were going to propose talking to the businesses and putting having them put up signage, I'd say typical cradle to grave, they're producing the problem and so the onus would be on them to resolve it. So if I'm buying these, presumably I'm using one until it's done and then I buy a new one. So you could encourage them, hey, would you consider giving X amount off when they return an old vape? And they bear the responsibility for collecting and destroying um the product.

Yeah. In a perfect world, that would be tough, I think. No. Yeah. But but is it is a just request and so it can be made and it's good for it to go on record also notices in the schools because at the top at the heading is assistance for schools institutions small business. Uh so there's a business meeting going on right now as we speak. Should I bring this over to them right now and say you guys an agenda item? Yeah, that's actually that's a good idea to bring it up to them.

Yeah. So, why don't we can we forward this to the business uh development committee? Right. Is that

be great? Good. and maybe the board of ed that be possible. Anything else on this topic? If not, next item is correspondence or applications rather uh zoning board application uh number 16-25 Sparta Main Street uh 29 Main Street, block 2001, lot 41. We have the

Yes. the the plans. I've uh looked at them online a little bit, but Yeah.

Yeah. Are you talking Are you talking about these trees right here? Yeah. Not majority of probably And then Yeah. And then going from 20 and they everything

I mean I think one of their main points too But you're still not getting the benefit of the trees remove also. It gets filled in just becomes like

asphalt as it has. Yeah.

Question.

That being said, I did mention I did the Thank you for all the work you did. Oh yeah. Davis. So I ran it and to their credit low priority, no priority, medium low priority overall. But yet this is a map that I got out saying that it actually kind of links up right and then it goes over to the forest. So this kind of contradicts and just to look at just to look at all of this club. engineer.

Yeah, but all this Little rock area. and out. This is the only minimum responsible size.

Yeah.

Okay. So, we just say identify many people. for their cars. And then we have little toddlers to come.

But do they really need that? It's one square. If I were parking to do a child care, you need parking. She was parking all based on I don't know varian needed to commit it compromised. So that's suggest

Yeah.

I know that that's what everyone do.

I mean, personally, I mean, I'd rather have my son playing wood chips or regular ground. I had one.

So, so we have the pass. Well, that's I don't know where the pipe is. Oh yeah, I would say the same thing. I would want to But still I don't like the ide Is there going to be a baby?

Their option is a huge building, 11,000. They could reduce the size of the building too.

Anything to shove this back. forest. Don't they know anything about my wife? She says these burn. So it's the loss of possible compromise.

What about

they're going to need that to all that? So then we can suggest aware again it's up to them right now. The application is removal of that university. water might not be greatest. So is there something smalluc Even consider how many spots here come up. Imagine the intensity.

Just imagine how great it is. So I mean I don't think What about the trees?

No, I didn't. No, I

Japanese She's saying we have the expense

what's actually bad of this list. Norway. I was sure those two recommend something

should be something possible. I mean, I did do some research. That's what I actually wrote down.

The Japanese maple service. Yeah, my my sister was out on Long Island and she's got popping up all over the place. They're not so much here though. I don't see

Yeah, that's what it is. It's the deer.

They're well controlled. We managed to get a big push back. We can do it. individuals. What is the reason why we don't care? What is the definition of small business? Each one of these zones.

That said, That's already right on top of our precious groundwater. All those warehouses back there.

So that that's So it would actually be To me, this is right here. We don't want to create base over there.

engineering going forward. Are you still here? provide

stand.

There you go. Enirbody. Very often these some companies

they're not that detailed. are very good.

Oh yeah. It was Even Yeah, I think next week actually.

Yeah. Uh zoning board. I mean zoning board. Yeah, zoning board. Listen, I will I will I will Yeah, we got most of it. Oh, you do? Yeah. Yeah, we got We have close to the river.

Yeah, that smells good. See what Next section is public comment. Since there's no one from the public, we'll move on to reports. Planning board. Oh, report. Um, we had a reorganization meeting and um we did hear any applications.

Right. Okay. Um Rob, you don't have a report this. That's right. Um the master plan subcommittee uh hasn't met yet this year. I think our first meeting is February 10th. So I have nothing to say about that either. Uh, the next is unfinished business. Did you want to do trails?

Oh, yeah. Well, you're the official trails. Yeah. Sorry. Um so the trails committee I would just like all of you to know that um we are having um starting to have um go out into the field and we are um looking at several trails that were recommended by our open space plan and one of them that we hiked together uh is the Iron Horse Trail, a portion of the Iron Horse Trail that um is by the Firehouse Bagels. If you know where the Firehouse Bagels is on um that's 94, right?

And we hiked from there uh into Franklin. Uh we hiked about two miles and then back and then we hiked from Firehouse Bagels towards Sparta to the Monroe Schoolhouse area. uh you know, and that is just like a it's like almost there's one section that's about a third of a mile. It's almost like a pathway like at Duke Farms or some place like that. It's just so easy to walk. Um and the reason, one of the reasons why we did this and the main reason is that there's a grant that we can apply for. So, let me just show you that. Um that is a grant, a county trails grant, and we would very much like to um work on the uh trail portion that goes in Sparta mainly, but a little portion of Lafayette um up to the Veterans Memorial. We would like to have that cleared. Um so I'll just pass this down so people can take a get it. And so what we're doing um to promote this, they've already walked it. I missed that hike, but they walked it from um Sunset in Road all the way to 94 where the Veterans Memorial is. And um now they're going to put together they meaning people who volunteered from the committee a very short presentation to show to the town council so that there can be a resolution of support in um that the town really wants this

section of the it's actually the um New York New York uh Susuana and Western um portion rail trail um to be um part of the community so the community can enjoy it for the future.

Would it be possible to get um like an overview of some of the proposed trails? Like I know you did it verbally, but just because of the recent issues I guess with the um trail trail committee. Um, I think it would be helpful for us to kind of like be able to support the efforts of getting more trails, right? Um, that's what the residents seem to want, more recreational trails, and I think that will help the business community. Also, people will want to come up here and have lunch and ride their bicycle.

So, we need if we need to be able to have the information about the proposed trails early in the process so that we can support it. Um, I think I mean, I don't want to speak for Christine Rogers, but it seemed like that was something with the, you know, that we felt was kind of lacking with some of the other proposed trails, right? So, I don't know if there's an easy way to do that. Um, is Mr. Dextra helping with So I guess I would ask is there a way to Yeah. like an AutoCAD map with the parcels on there for some of these proposed trails and then sort of

Well, what we're doing is is we're going to have something like that at the presentation. Okay. But we we have to uh take one trail at a time. Now with the other controversial trail, um it's at a stand. It's at a standstill right now because we have to um make other connections with land owners and everything else and that takes a whole lot of time. So, so that we're still working on but we see a path forward with this grant to help Sparta and literally Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Okay. Thank you, Chris. Now, unfinished business. Um, Earth Day 2026. Christine Rogers is not here, so I don't Christine emailed Courtney, so she's going to read that for an update. Oh, great. Wonderful. Thanks. So, we did receive approval from the township manager to host Earth Day event on Saturday, April 25th in front of town hall. I I'm sorry, I can't hear you. Yeah. Oh, can you hear me now? A little bit better.

Okay. I'll resate it. Um, so we did receive approval from the township manager to host Earth Day on Saturday, April 25th in front of town hall. Uh, the event will run from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. so that residents can also participate in the Lake Mohawk Preservation Foundation Earth Day litter cleanup that morning. The Sparta Township High School Ecology Club has been contacted already has students interested in helping out at the kids corner and she's already started contacting local environmental nonprofits to table the event and so far the New Jersey Highlands Coalition has committed to attending. That's what she Great great thank you Courtney.

Thank you Christine.

Next item is the Saltatch snapshot. Right. So, um just like um the fall uh snapshot, um there's a winter snapshot. And this is um sponsored by a research group, the Straoud U Water Research Center in Pennsylvania. And what they do is is they um they request that watershed associations, towns on one or two particular days on the same day that everybody goes out and they samples their surface water for salt contamination. And um so somehow uh after they gather all of this information and analyze it and you know take into consideration the road and the weather conditions and the geology of the area. uh usually a few weeks later they give a presentation of of the results for the community to try to understand and all this is leading towards the best um best salt application that townships can possibly do um because the salt as I keep mentioning doesn't go away right it gets into the soil it gets onto our plants and um it can accumulate in our wells and I have to say that um it's accumulating in my well. I've been taking measurements for my tap. And if you if you would like to um do that sometime, just give give me a little bottle of your tap water and we'll see what it is. Because mine is like 129 parts per million and for good

water, healthy water, low in sodium, it's under 50. Yeah. And this is town water. Yeah.

Yeah. Now, and there's three there's three different there's the three different water systems, right? There's the big one. There's the Lake Mohawk. There's the little sunset one. And then what's I always forget the other one. Anyway, the Lake Mohawk system is the big one. And that draws on the Germany flats wells for that. Okay. And I remember a few years ago when I sampled my tap water when I got involved in this program and it was 55 parts per million and I was upset about that. That was five parts per million greater than 50 and on my you know and now it's 129 parts per million.

Do you have a water treatment system in your house? You you No, I don't have Okay. Yeah. I like the hard water. I wonder if the water softener takes out the salt, too. I would guess that it probably might. Yeah, that that was I thought it added. Well, that's what I was going to ask you. If you had high salt numbers, did you mention you had wellwater from the Lake Mohawk system? You know, if you look at your water report that you get in July, you'll see that you'll see that the sodium level, which is the same as the chlorine level, is high.

It's high and it's been going up. Okay. Now, what could happen to change this without us doing anything? It would have to rain and rain and rain for like 40 days and 40 nights to flush out all of that biblical water out back to the Atlantic Ocean. But that's not going to happen. It's not happening now. We're still in a drought, I believe.

I just want to clarify because there are some people that have well water. Uh some of them are drawing from the same aquifer, but they're private wells. I don't know if Alex was getting at this. If you had a water softener and you were noticing such a jump in um salt and you might check where the backwash from the softener is dumping because if it was dumping it to your yard and your casing on your well was going, then you would probably expect to have high salt which would not be reflective of the overall wershed. It would be reflective of you got to fix your well casing. But okay.

Yeah. And if you want to test your wellwater, you should do it, you know, before the the feed to the house, you know, to see how your wellwater is doing, of course, if you're using the the softener. So, anyway, I have this little project now. It's been going on for a few years and Sparta has graciously um they have um residents have volunteered their time and I think u one of the reasons um I'm going to pass this down is because Kim was taking I think three or four different uh locations. She was doing Sparta Lake. She was doing Senica Lake, Hayward Road, and South Hayward Road. Um, and um, so those three, SP10, SP22, and SP23. I hate to have to ask her to do that, you know. Oh, and she was also doing like Sagenov. So, she was doing the four.

That was the one that was. So, if anybody could sign up for that, I'll show you what to do. And then there's two kind of easy ones. Um, sort of easy ones. Uh, Christine will have to show you where SPO8 is. It's on Station Park Road. And then there's the Glenn U Sparta Glenn sample. So, um, so you think Kim is not going to be doing this? She I think she would but but I but I don't want to ask her to do it because she's busy now with her of course her board uh school board right

so um we are up to here SP23 we have 23 sites we've been taking care of and and if you would like to um I'll just pass it down if you'd like to take those if you'd like to add any sites also um

you know that's That's a possibility. I actually have the bottles. What you do is you go out and you collect the water um for this snapshot and you just bring it back to me and I have a conductivity meter and I have a a test strip or you can order your own like from the watershed institute. Um and you can have the strips on hand but the conductivity meters are like $79 or so and we've already got them so I can lend them to you. So, these are all the these are all the containers that we used last October and I just saved them to re to reuse them.

Oh, that's a good idea. I never thought of using bottles. So, I've been using like plastic. Yeah. Yeah. Well, these are plastic. Oh, okay. Because uh we're defunded my conservation group and uh you know these were only like a 125 a piece. So, so and they won't and off also it's a safety issue because if you're out collecting water you could break

break it too. So, yeah, but I have I brought all Christine. Christine does um everywhere there's a K there next to the the sides. Um she's doing all of a lot of the wall uh area and and she's done it for years and so I wanted her to to have her bottles. So they're here. How often do you have to test or conduct a test?

This is just this is a snapshot. So it's just anytime next Thursday or Friday. Anytime next Thursday or Friday, you could go out and what you do is you take your bottle and you rinse it three times. And then you just fill it up and bring it back to you. Bring it to me. Okay. Yeah. and then I'll uh I'll test it.

The winter salt program is um is a bit more involved because you get you mail away for the test strips and there's five and so you go out um before and after five three storms, two or three storms. Um so that's separate from the snapshot. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. the um the watershed institute in New Jersey does the winter salt watch and the Straoud Water Institute does the um does the snapshots the two snapshots the fall and the winter but they all share their data right with each other. Yeah.

Now Christine is giving a a presentation at the Lake Moa Country Club, isn't she? I think she is. Or it's Lena Olette. Okay. her the watershed ambassador and that's wonderful that she's doing this because the whole community in Lake Mohawk can can be more aware and we don't have anybody sampling uh the water flowing into the lake at all this year. Yours went yours went dry and then my other connection they travel a lot. So which one was that? The other connection or you can tell that's out um you can tell me offline but I can do that. It's way out uh at the other end towards Byum.

Yeah. Okay. All right. I could take that over. Um

the fire gave us Okay. I think she calls it the balanced rock stream and it's it's a house that um that's been there for years and years and she comes to this the meeting sometimes Christy White House Christy and Greg but that's but are you're trying to get that tributary versus the heads. Well, I I want to I want to people to understand um after you salt that ridge area there, what's coming down into your lake. Yeah. Yeah. So, what what do you call the headwaters? The button by the the head.

The head Yeah. The headwaters come from um marine the marine pool. Uh basically, if you you park at the old gate house, you can walk down there's a valley and it's the headarters. Then they come into there. By the time they get to Balance Rock, that's by beach six, that is a large tributary that comes down from the Spartan Mountains. Um, but that's not the headers. That's just one of the old tributaries for Brock and Meadow. I would get both of those. Okay.

But I know I do know a neighbor there. You're on that side. Yeah, I'm not. This is only going to take place next Thursday and Friday. This particular snatch. I can take Glenn Brook if you want. Pardon me. I can take Glenn Brooke. Anyone take that yet? All right. Thank you. Um and um I guess Pequest Pond is taken. Is that over where you live? Yeah, I live right over there. Um, looks like Gail's Gail's signed up for that. Do you know Gail?

No, I don't know Gail. Um, well, another one that I don't have on here, but our our former um student representative, John, he used to always uh sample the upper lake. Oh, I can do that. I mean, that's right. So, if you wanted to do the upper lake, we'd have an SP24. And then if you wanted to do Glenn Brook, you know those two. Sure.

Then I could um you know, I have extra bottles at home. I can get you or you can just get a jar a bottle and put some water in it. The only thing with the upper lake, do you have to be a Lake Mohawk resident to get into that area? Well, he was just open up the gate and he would just go in and he would just rinse his bottle and be Yes. He would do it after he did his cross country practice at Pope John. He was a Pope John student. Yeah. Okay. And he'd just swoop down and get it get the sample. So, it's entirely up to you. Just

don't get any troubles. Someone say, "Hey, what are you doing in there?" You know, just grabbing some water samples. They'll be like, "Thank you." You need an environmental commission business card. Which we have. I was going to say, "What happened to those?" Yeah. The Environmental, you know, we're very concerned about this salt issue. I I have I have mine. I could give you mine. It's one of mine. You could get You could also go the other side of the street. Um, get it there. That would be interesting. Where would that be? Like, but go to like Fox Hollow underground.

I've got Fox Hollow. I I cover Fox Hollow. Do you compare those two numbers? How do they look? Upper Lake and Fox Hollow. Upper Lake is a lot cleaner. Fox Hollow has been going up. Well, yeah, because it's all right. It's all coming down. Yeah.

But um so there would be if anybody lives out by I'm just going to mention this by Sparta Lake. Sparta Lake is actually the headwaters of the Payic River watershed. It goes into the Rockway and then the Rockway goes into the Bayic the Great American River. We've all seen that right on TV. Um so um that's another one of our watersheds. And then there's also the Senica Lake that is is that the one that she was getting the really high readings from that was in back of the Chinese food restaurant. That was Lake Sagal.

Oh that's Sagen. Oh okay. Oh Senica Lake. What am I Sen Lake is out on off of Sparta Stanh that's Musky. That's the Musky connection. That's the headarters of the musky along with the lake opacong and everything. So Senakica Lake and Sparta Lake. Um we don't have any takers for that yet. It's fun. Yeah, think about it. Okay, you're out there in the snow. I want to double check with Kim though just to make sure that she's not planning on doing it uh this year.

Absolutely. She may have already gotten her strips. Yeah, I I would, you know, just knowing her, I would imagine that she's still I assume she's still doing it. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Thank you, Chris. Uh the 2026 meeting schedule, uh didn't we nail this down last You just think it wasn't taken off this agenda.

Oh, yeah. You know, that's I was going to I was going to mention that, but I forgot. That's all right. So, thanks. We're uh we can skip over that. Um I brought up a new business item that is in the news a lot lately. Uh data center

proliferation. And we know the impacts of data data centers, especially AI data centers. They use huge amounts of energy and water to cool those their the the chips that they use. So, I found this model ordinance. I forget where it was from. Um,

and I thought it would be good a good thing to review and possibly hand it off uh to our council representative So we can wait till next meeting when Margie is back and do that. So basically this is would not permit data centers in the town of Sparta,

right? Not a permitted UCS. And I'll also bring it up to the master plan subcommittee

next next week next week. Uh the next thing is the nomination of vice chair. Do we have any volunteers? Barbara, would anybody like to step up? Doesn't it doesn't entail much. Uh you just have to run the meetings basically when if I'm not available.

I would like to nominate uh Bassia as the deputy chair of the environmental commission. That was second. Well, I guess it doesn't need a second. Oh, no. No. I I don't know if I can commit to that only because of like my daughter's schedule with uh her sports and all of that. That's the only reason. So, okay. I know it'll be tough for you because know you have that. Yeah, because she has a lot of sports and sometimes I unfortunately I have to miss the meetings. So, that's That's the reason. But if no one else is volunteering,

do you think we should wait until Christine Rogers is back? It's probably a good idea. Yes, we could nominate her. That wouldn't be fair. Let's go with the vote on that now. The new vice chair. Well, I mean, okay. So, you you don't like that idea. So, how about if I nominate Rob Otto to be the deputy chair? No, I don't I don't think I should based on uh how as a well I I was an alternate and uh by virtue of that I was uh subject some Yeah. I I don't think it would be I No, thank you.

Okay. All right. We'll we'll table that until our next meeting. And oh, the other thing I wanted to bring up um was the sustainable Jersey PSEG grant that that we uh we still have the the grant from 2023 open. That's why I wanted to get in touch with u what was that woman's name? Uh oh, Sharon.

Sharon. Yes. Sharon. Uh so because we need to close that before we can even apply for uh a grant which for which the application deadline is 2000 or 2000 is um February 13th I believe. And that being said, does anybody have any ideas for something we could get up um create a uh a detailed proposal for even a $2,000 grant? Maybe.

What is it? What does it have to be? What can it be used for? Yeah. Um anything that uh we can actually I believe we can use it for expenses that we that we might incur during Earth Day or some other projects or we could something to think about. But is it but what else could be used for? I mean that would be good.

I think I I'm not sure whether it's restricted to all of the sustainable Jersey goals or whether it goes outside. I I'll have to double check, but um uh if you know, think about that and if anybody has any ideas for way we can use that. No, I wish we I wish we had more time because, you know, if we could put it into the trails, one of the trails, that would be great. or the business committee that's meeting or any of our committees, the recreation, maybe they need need something.

Science for the trails. No, don't use cigarette batteries. Actually, that's an idea. You know, you could roll that up pretty quickly. An identifier and then rules of the trail. That's a good idea. All right. We have uh we don't have any time for this but uh we do have another meeting before the due date. So if somebody felt passionately about a project that would help our environment here in in Sparta um you know we could put our heads together and come up with something

that's $2,000 2,000 or 10,000 or 20,000. 2,000 are obviously much easier to get. I had always thought that it would be a maybe a good idea to try to put a a pollinator garden or a monarch way station in somewhere station park. I have an idea. What do you do? You know what? We're on sewer here, right? Yeah.

Okay. I want to bring up something since we always talk about salt watch, but I had some subsurface concerns that I think will flow nicely with uh with that that I don't know there might be something there if um phosphate what do you think about phosphorus phosphates orthophos

sampling? So, do you guys know uh that our water supply is dosed with ortho or orthoo phosphate to stabilize um lead that might be in our household pipes um fixtures um and we still have high lead numbers. Um, but ortho phosphate when it's dosed in there and it makes its way to our waterways, it is a fantastic fertilizer for algae. Um, and we're dealing with harmful algo blooms. So, uh, I had a nice conversation about an hour a half hour before I headed over here, um, regarding a system that someone, um, invented. They have a patent on, and it's a, uh, residential dosing, alum dosing system. And so the way it works is you connect your um water source to this. It measures basically water usage. So it has its own meter and based on that it it use a paras paristolic pump to dose alum into um your waste water that you generate in your house um which binds to the phosphorus I believe and takes it out of the equation. Um and the benefit of that is if you have if you're on septic um you can send phosphorus out into your yard with the form and everything the bacteria are going to act on the caulifform to break it down the fecal cifform um but the phosphorus um I don't

know if it's cation annion exchange the the life expectancy of whatever the substrate is soils um it's finite so unlike like bacteria which is replenished to break down the waste products you have maybe 10, 20 years of injecting phosphorus through your waters, which is additive from, you know, the point that we collect the water from whatever the wellhead is and we treat it, filter it, send it to our homes. Um we add this orthophosphate and then we add you know shampoos, conditioners, soap, washing machine activities and then we take that high concentrated phosphorus, we send it subsurface and it goes underground and makes its way to the lakes and then we have these harmful algol blooms and then at least in Lake Mohawk all the members are paying to treat uh the water column with alum. Um, so but it's gone through that whole system. So it occurred to me if and when we get to this point that if we have someone who's over in like Culver Lake, I think has a patent on this that's um starting to be used in a lot of lakes to improve clarity and to kind of treat it right at the source. It might be an interesting presentation to add and uh probably not appropriate for this 10 $20,000 grant. But I was kind of thinking like, oh, maybe we could get a system and take the before and after uh analysis and see how does this work because I I believe some

of the data um is showing an 80 to 90% removal of phosphorus and up to a 95% caulifform reduction before it even hits um your your septic, which you know, I don't know. I I would go to that. I would like to learn about that. So, but uh so yeah. Anyway, that's an interesting idea. Yeah. Culver's been working on that. Yeah. So, I talked to the inventor uh of that, a retired engineer, and he said he would be willing to come and speak on Oh, great. He has a patent on it and um I don't know, pretty passionate. Great. Um

so, sorry. So the grant that you're talking about, we can we just have to come up with the proposal and before the February whatever what's the maximum 20,000 those are hard to get a lot but it's you think it's specific to sustainable New Jersey goals because I know that like one of the one of the action actions is the uh environmental resource inventory. Yes. which I think that could be very helpful for you know for the township and

right all of this data is available it's available online you can go on the geo web you can go on the dump resources and all of that but even like having it for the boards just to look into where everything is or for the committees right maybe we could come up with something like that I I think what was done in the past was was that We used the the Highlands Council, okay, environmental resource inventory. And I know we don't have that action completed, but that was something I was I remember trying to trying to work on that, but we never got there. So, that's a good idea, too.

Okay. Let me see if I can come up with something. Yeah. I mean, because Yeah. Yeah. There are other grants available too and it's it's a shame to waste them and let them go not be able to utilize them.

I'm just going to throw one thing out and it maybe be too expensive. What about a floating island? I know that Christine's group, the Walill River watershed management group, they put in floating islands. I think one of them or two of them were at Kima Lake and another or two might have been at Culver's Lake, but I'm not I'm not sure. But I don't know I don't know how much that would cost for us to do that. I mean, I I could participate in it. I I have a kayak. I could go out there and put plants, you know, there and everything. We'd have to buy the plants and have I don't know what they're set on.

Where would you put them? But they Well, we'd put them in Lake Mohawk. Yeah. So, we did a a pilot project. Um the the engineer for Lake Mohawk, I believe, did maybe two years ago, three maybe three years ago at this point. Um did kind of a a DIY, but is there any would there be a restriction if it was within a HOA?

I mean, I like that idea. I think there's an obvious use case because there's Snake Island there, which at this point uh is just a point for uh you know bird defecation. So, if we could replace it with a floating island, um, and maybe even match funds, um, yeah, that might be an option, too, but it's not a lot of time. No, but I could see because there were there there were some preliminary um proposals put together. So,

yeah. And then another one because you mentioned the pollinator garden. Um, and that is is that I noticed that some of our storm water basins are not so beautiful and don't have a lot of plants in them to intercept the uh, you know, the gray water and everything. We could beautify, if you know of an area, we could beautify some of those um, storm water basins. So create another rain garden like we did at Pope John. Yeah. Yeah. That's Do you want them to be beautiful or functional? I want a little bit of both.

But remember, we went through the different sites and and ended up doing John because the other ones weren't feasible or what was what was the reason that I don't know. They may have wanted the pollen skill wershed and the others were in the wall kill. I can't remember what it was. Yeah, maybe not. So, So yeah, rain gardens are another possibility. Yeah, I'm taking that. Well, water conservation championship. Oh, you're going to be a green champion like me. I'm also taking the environmental stewardship course at Ruckers. I'm jealous.

Do you have I was going to ask if you would take that. We use funds for that. Some of Yeah, my funds. No. No. Could we use Could we use funds for that? It's like 300 something dollars for that. Yeah. Wow. Share your materials with us. Oh, well.

Just had our first class on Mon Tuesday. Okay. Anything else for the good of the township? Uh well, I was looking at this environmental commission earlier. uh we kind of talked about a little bit if if we were to seriously put together a proposal where we would ask that our own um local EIS was assembled. I mean, do do you think we could carry that forward, talk to the um our council liaison and and see would you would you be willing because I mean looking at it like we're we're we're advisory, but yet our duties are conducting research in the use and possible use of open land areas, making recommendations for open space preservation, water resources management, air pollution control, solid waste management, always control soil and landscape protection, environmental appearance, marine resources, and protection of flora and fauna. Why would we do all of this if we're not after the goal of getting ordinances done, right? And and especially now, um we just like we talked about our our storm water standards were updated by the state. some of this stuff, you know, the state's not going to take lead on. Climate change is, you know, we're wrestling with some changes. So, it just seems like we should be the standard barrier standard carrier for, you know, bring

some of this forward. Um and I think we're it could help uh other committees if you know for instance like when we're talking about EIS but like having an index of open areas public and private owned having details on all that recommending to the planning board plans and programs for development um of areas for inclusion. I'd like to strengthen our wellhead protection areas um and you know do yeah do do any such acts and things that are reasonably related to and designed to carry the purposes and objectives of the commission. So I would like to if we're doing this let's actually get something done. I think last year I was like, "Oh, let's build out chapter 25 environmental regulations." And it remains at Lake Mohawk. Don't put fertilizer close to the water. Um, so anyway,

yeah. Oh, that's a good great idea. Why don't you send me that? Tree ordinances, native plant ordinances, or at least guidance. We need a tree commission. I mean that's just the you can read through that. Thanks. Y

Thank you. That's a great idea. Yes. I'll make a motion to May I have a motion to adjurnn? I'll make the motion. I'll second. Okay. All in favor? All in favor? I I the meeting is adjourned. Thank you everyone. Thanks. Thank you.