Environmental Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the Township of Sparta Environmental Commission meeting of Thursday, May 28th, 2026. The meeting is called to order at 704. We're live in the council chambers of the municipal building. You can watch the stream on YouTube on our Sparta channel, which is Sparta TWP slash streams. Please take notice that action will be taken on the following items at the Sparta Commission meeting on Thursday. Adequate notice of the meeting was provided to the public and the press on may 22 by delivering to the press and posting on the township website, a copy of the notice we have a 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. Courtney, can we have the roll call?

Chair Neal-Sauerwein?

Here.

Vice Chair Christine Rogers? Here. Christine Dunbar? Present. Barbara Kosalka? Robert Otto?

Here.

Alex Birdie?

Here.

Councilwoman Margie Murphy? Nicholas DiPrato?

Here.

Thank you.

Thanks, Courtney. First item is approval of our minutes from May 14th. Everyone a few minutes to look over.

all my corrections and uh prior to the meeting um anybody else um page four under data center large scale high intensity ordinance i would just uh strike was presented so that it would just read robert otto presented a definition of a data center for reference describing facilities and if we want to add that the definition that i provided was the one that was presented for andover then i had page six uh last paragraph robert otto explained that he rather than they had asked why the planning board does not use intensity or scale based review that's all i had

On page four, under speaker series, second sentence, Robert reported that he has contacted Paul. Let's put his last name, which is Sutphen, S-U-T-P-H-E-N. And then on page six, second paragraph, It should be metrics-driven thresholds instead of metrics-drive.

have anything all right i'll make a motion uh to approve these minutes with the minor changes um provided i'll second all in favor who are here hi hi hi meeting the minutes are approved okay we have no correspondence we have no applications No one from the public is here. Reports.

Oh, we have not had the planning board has not had a meeting for 3 weeks. Our next meeting is planned for next Wednesday. And at the previous meeting 3 weeks ago, we did it approve an application at houses corner. It was the nickel lock paving place business there, and so we heard that application and then we voted approval, there were no major. Changes particularly to the environment that I that I noted in that so.

For that one didn't they have smoke stacks that were different heights.

They had new conveyor belts that were put in, but they're, oh no, the smokestacks were a little higher, but that was a regulation that they had to comply to from the DEP because they're better filters.

Yeah, so I understand that that was a particular mitigation or whatever, but it sounded like there was two or three different heights and the supplier Maybe there was a miscommunication, but I guess my concern was just that. It seemed like it exceeded the height restrictions and then it also seemed like. The approval was based on. We're going to put filters on to add this height. And obviously you want filters to filter out the particulates for the emission or the emissions, right? So that was that to me just I didn't really love that, but obviously it was the right decision. So just. But it sounds like that was done with with coordination with the town.

I don't recall anything major in terms of height and I was glad to see that more filters for dust were put on. My concern was is that the stones rumbling down the chutes because they were placed in a different area and it seemed like it was close to the homes in the North Village. But they said that it was very, they have new technology that that mitigates the noise pollution. So it's it's improved.

So what the conveyor I think was previously inside the facility and it was moved outside for safety reasons.

Right?

Yeah.

So okay, didn't want people in with the conveyors inside. So that was that was pretty much it. And so we'll see what happens next Wednesday. Thank you.

Thanks, Chris. The master plan subcommittee. We had a meeting of a subgroup last week. We got together during the daytime and talked about goals, what our goals are for this master plan reexamination and Our next meeting is the next the second Monday of June. That's all I have. Okay, I guess we can move on to unfinished business. Number one data center large scale high intensity ordinance. care to speak about this, Rob?

Think I've said enough? Did you guys have a chance to review it? And do you guys? If so, are there any constructive or non constructive, constructive things you want to offer?

I on my behalf, I just like a little bit more time because I was out at the last meeting, although I did listen to the meeting and I really appreciated the comment of. That, and it is true, I believe that if it's not a permitted use, then it has to go through. The full application process and data centers from what I understood or not permitted use and any of our ordinances at this point in time, so um. So that I think that we don't need to restate that at all. But I do think that in the master plan or maybe in terms of an ordinance, we do need to state the metrics that our community has a concern about and that are scientifically based in terms of measurements and metrics with you know, noise, water and energy usage, etc, and safety so so yeah I think that we're on the right right path there, thank you very much yeah I would like to take this to the master plan subcommittee of.

Next, maybe next meeting if you think that's a good idea.

Beyond that, do you have any tweaks to it?

Not really, no. I think it's it's pretty comprehensive I have to I have to review it again before I do this. and pages.

Rob does it mention any concern with regional impact.

So I would I would take a look at it, and if you have any suggestions after fully reviewing it, then I think it would be appropriate to just email all of us at this point we've discussed it in public. But there's definitely there's there's a specific regional impact zone discussion because, as we know. Natural resources don't adhere to municipal boundaries so that should concern all of us.

Right, and then probably have things in there about wildlife corridors or connectivity with with ecosystems.

There's, um, there's ecosystems in regards to, uh, tree, uh, canopies and forested areas and donations. So if there's something specific you want to add, then I would recommend, um, that you add it there. I think, uh, I, yeah, I mean, like, I want to kind of let everyone weigh in if they had specific things. But at this point, I kind of took a break from it. And I looked at some of the other data centers stuff that's been continuing around us and nationally and globally. And I kind of stand by it, I got a few suggestions from Barbara that I want to incorporate but. What I what I am leaning towards but, again, I want to hear from everyone else's if if everyone could read it. send any updates, then I guess we can advance it through master plan subcommittee if you think that's the way or I didn't know if it should go to governing body for their consideration, because it sounded like. They were working on some resolution and it may be because I had. stood in front of planning board and asked them why, why do we have a specific use based. system versus an intensity based system, knowing the answer is that will classically most planning and zoning is done this way, but kind of suggesting that maybe we should take another look at it so. It sounds like Mr. Sylvester, Councilman Sylvester is working on that. And I just want to make sure that we're working together on this. So I guess the question is, would it make more sense to go to the governing body? They've just had a meeting. I just heard where they referenced something that sounds similar to kind of the direction that we're going, but I imagine it's not 10 pages. If we get it to them, and if they feel like it's worth it, we could kind of have an earmark on there say hey could you also copy this to match your plan subcommittee because, regardless if if it advances past them, it would go for consistency review with the planning board and. So that would all kind of work together. So I don't really know the best way to move it forward. But do you have anything?

Okay. Is this like insensitive or urgent in any way? Of course, we want to.

We want to move it along yeah sit on it, I would say that people seem to feel some urgency as you've pointed out from a planning perspective from what I think I know is that yeah any use. Not listed in any zone of which data Center is not in any zone in Sparta is therefore presumed prohibited, so it would take an applicant coming forward. And we've but we've seen it. Before and other municipalities, where it could it could simply come from a planning board or potentially from a governing body where a developer says, I have this great idea for something. How can we kind of work together to allow for this project to proceed and that project could be. data centers or it could be some large scale or high intensity use that we may or may not be considering. My suggestion is to move this along. I've spent a lot of time working on it. Barbara has reviewed it quite a bit. We're both pretty familiar, just professional expertise with like what could be done if we wanted to do it. And I think It's a it's as good a time as any there is, I think there is a clock there, because if any of this can be incorporated into the master plan, as we might have seen with and over. They rushed their master plan and then after the fact, they introduced a definition, a very general definition for data centers and so now that they've defined it, they kind of had to. try to backfill regulations, then they had to go and ban it. We don't have to do any of that, but with bottling, with things that we've seen in the last several years, I think I've had a wake-up call and hopefully a lot of you up here have as well and people potentially listening to this where I think, why not get more information? Why not have the questions be asked, why not do kind of what we talked about, which was if planning and zoning statutory boards are reviewing applications and we're an advisory commission, we could be providing a review to help them with their decision-making to stave off perhaps development that's not appropriate the best for this community and i i think setting those thresholds is very important so uh and and also again the regional controls is an important thing so uh i i would prefer not to sit on this uh we've we've talked about it and looked at it um a bit so there would still be opportunities to look at it if the governing body so chooses to look at it if the uh planning board looks at for consistency review, they could weigh in. And I think maybe even if Neil, if you think it would be appropriate, you present this to a master plan subcommittee, maybe we could have further discussions about this. It's a pretty important topic, I think. And I think it would also, it works up for the large scale. And high intensity uses but also works backwards for the smaller intensity there's a carve out for small businesses so every day for a small business when they're hung up and there's a use that's presumed prohibited because it's not listed because no one ever thought of it. it's it's killing small businesses and the fix for that currently the only fix that I know of. is to either have a small business go for planning or zoning hearings which are costly or for us or planning or zoning to suggest hey add this use to this zone then they have to they have to draft an ordinance for that specific definition and again i think we see definitions can be litigated and they can be very broad so i think

This this would be a good framework to adopt so i've heard that the Cheryl administration is coming out with some guidance about data Center so are we. going to push this forward and then tweak as necessary with because i'm sure it takes it it's a process to get it through the township and then. But anything working with the state is also a process. So are we just going to push it forward from a Sparta level? And then if any additional guidance comes out from the state, then we just incorporate it can be incorporated later.

This is use agnostic. So the nice thing about this approach is. it's it's not specific to data centers. So by remaining high level, yeah, I think it helps us certainly, you know, if we can backfill stuff, why not? But if I don't know what's gonna be the next development trend in five years, 10 years, 15 years, I tried to think of some stuff. So in there, you'll see stuff about like, delivery robots and aerial drones. Those could be something where if you imagine a very small facility, but with, you know, drones flying out of it, you know, hundreds per hour, that could be loud and obnoxious to a residence or a small business adjacent. It could have some of its own safety concerns, but it wouldn't. We have no mechanism to handle that right now. And I could see a way that an applicant could put forth an application, the other thing with some of this I don't know if if you guys have been looking at data centers. There are these sweeping ways where. Even a municipality can have the best intentions and put in a framework and say we we want to disallow this thing well. on what basis, or if the federal government says, we want you to have this, but if we can anchor the changes in our process, and I have specific concerns about our water, our clean air, but like the water that is important to supplying 70% of the water for the entire state, I think that we're it's a public trust and we should protect it so it's very specific the way that this is written to anchor our regulations. To that protection, as well as other protections so you would see that, so I would like to think that it would be harder to challenge it. Because it's not like a typical nimby namby. basic thing we don't want this we don't want cell towers we don't want you know it's we have real concerns we quantify them we apply the metrics and then it's not arbitrary and capricious and it's fair across the board if it exceeds the carrying capacity of the land if it outstrips the natural resources. Then it's probably not a viable. proposal or project or use, and we can show this is why it fails. But before we even get to that decision making it, but it also does is applies to any of these particular applications again, not limited to that particular use, and it steps through what you what we should do anyway, which is, is this proposal An applicant is allowed highest best use of their property but are the negative criteria for that use considered fully considered over 20 years is it is it going to require that taxpayers and have to. rebuild our roads at faster rates is it going to require that we have to create a fire substation because there might be an issue, so these are all things where, if you look at kind of a bigger picture. Something might sound good it, you know it's very easy for like a town council to say and and over did it, they said we're going to get this amount of money and our budgets can be sorted out and that's that's great. And maybe you can get like a free ball field or something, but in five years 10 years 15 years is it still such a good deal for the taxpayers that's what I want to know.

Right that sounds good just speaking a little bit to the four guardrails on data centers I did watch that video yesterday, and they were very broad. It seemed like they were focused on the hyper scale level and places like in down in Finland or vineland in the south, and they were like require. These centers to pay for their own energy. That they would be required to be completely transparent to the community And they'd have to give provide energy and water reports to the community every six months The third one what had to do with engaging the communities and giving back and making community agreements and to make them uh they did mention master plans there needed to be compliance with um involving um pollution in their community and with the community's master plan which video is this chris is this the this was yesterday's uh it was a On YouTube and NBC I think NBC New York and Philadelphia, but who was what is this in reference to like Oh, this is it, this is the governor Cheryl what he has just come out with the guardrails yeah this was a press conference, it was a 30 minute. Yesterday yeah and then the last one was there had to be jobs creation for unions and the wages had to be. Good wages prevailing wages that would support our New Jersey families that sort of thing, so this is basically all that was mentioned and then and Julie, the President of the New Jersey Sierra club mentioned that energy was a very big factor and that was her concern and that they should be required. actually to provide not gas generators, but renewable form of energy. She did mention that. I think one of the main disappointments that I read about was that she had suggested had indicated that she might just have a moratorium on warehouses for three to six months within the whole state. We're just going to stop. We're just going to look at this. But she didn't do that. So the Sierra Club was very upset about that also. But you had the head of the Senate the assembly come forward and say, we're working on bills to pass that are going to address each one of these four pillars. Who knows when that will happen down the road.

And those four pillars are very blue sky vague, as you said, so something like what what i'm proposing is something we could enact we can't. meet in a municipal fashion we couldn't enact it tomorrow, but we could if we had the way if we introduced it and we had the waiting period in a month or so, and we could get it in. incorporated for master plan consistency and it's not I don't want to say wishful thinking but some of that is like it's make polluters pay cradle cradle to grave concerns um the big picture long-term effects um considerations it uh they're there so I obviously feel strongly that when we see these applications, we also don't really have a guideline. How should we be looking at this? Well, it has some forested area. We'd like to preserve that. This opens up conversations about banking spots for pervious cover increasing, and so I think it it opens up the door to further dialogue. That we kind of started when. We heard from the master plan subcommittee. a while ago. So I think it would be good to have this conversation. And then so again, yeah, I do think there's a sense of urgency to it.

Yeah. I was just looking at our list of things to do unfinished business here. And I was just wondering if some of those are all of those metrics or factors could be included in your in the Environmental Commission checklist of concerns for all applicants.

I mean yeah, but I think I think that it would be worthwhile to do this, and then we could take that and strip it down and simplify or a checklist yes, but if if we can get this in and get those protections backfields. Sooner rather than later than yes, then we could take that and we could. And that would also help us to because we wouldn't be just saying here's this random checklist we'd say this checklist blows from what we use for high intensity large scale applications and there's also a section in there that. the statutory bodies as well as the environmental commission have an opportunity to exercise the lever for the review that's kind of the the land carrying capacity with all those metrics if in our opinion again any of those statutory boards and as well as a governing body can pull the lever on with the majority vote On on a review of that nature, so I think it's kind of already baked into this where. We can do the checklist but I don't you kind of don't need to do the checklist if you have this because you can say i'm a little bit concerned that. One of the more terms that we saw when we have this conversation bit about data centers is. A moratorium on a conversion of a warehouse to a data Center because it seems like either if there's no appetite for development to proceed to a built warehouse or if. Building a warehouse is a lower cost way to kind of grab land develop it get it to a certain point and then fill it with servers instead of goods. That. this is like a pathway that, you know, so in there, there's a triggering mechanism that just says, you know, if, if something is being built, and it starts to look like it's going to trigger any of these threshold triggers, then it is subject to this review. So again, I think that review supersedes a checklist.

Yeah, the checklist has to be based on something. And that's why this would come before the checklist, I think.

And then the master plan would support that. All three of them would work together. We don't want an applicant to come in and see pages and pages of things, but it would be supported by the ordinance and the master plan. We want to make the checklist as simple legible and as as clear and simple and short as possible to move their project forward right and so again, a small business would have a carve out in this.

And a larger business, I mean I talked to Barbara about this too, we were looking at kind of the environmental checklist and kind of referring to our past experiences and her her current experiences. This seems to satisfy that. It steps us through specific metrics and it also satisfies my frustrations with my brief time on planning board where There's you got to do this, then you got to do this, then you got to check here, then you guys did you check here to get this sheet, did you get the checklist do you feel the checklist it shouldn't be that complicated and and I think also even from a large scale. deep pocketed development project. um having that awareness from day one or pre-planning and i talked about this a little bit that's going to be invaluable because a developer is going to say oh i'm not even going to bother or oh okay this is reasonable so it kind of gets them to the table having the conversations that we should be having um early on and they're not conversations that are just like, oh, you can make it look good. I can have lots of I'm not trying to diminish anything that we do, but there's there's a scientific way to step them through the best practices and this would be it. And so if you're running the numbers on a large scale project, you need to know what how you conform to that. And it seems like right now The way that it's conformed to is I want to build what I want to build and then they're going to come back and then we're going to say after they've already spent probably $100,000 on engineering, oh, they want this, they want this, they want this. And it becomes a lot more costly and it delays construction to revise it after the fact. If they go in and they have this from day one, they can engineer it To resolve a lot of the potential negative criteria and if it works if it balances if it's Community and balance I think that's probably a closer win than we get when we instead then it's litigation and settling and it's not as bad as it was gonna be but we're not totally happy with it so.

Okay, so then uh. All right, we have one of two options. We could give this to Margie to present to the governing body. And I can also take it to the subcommittee. When's your next? The second Monday of June, which.

Can we do both?

Yeah, let's do them both. So if you could, well, you said the second Monday?

yes so that would be uh the 11th oh no wrong one the eighth all right so let's say it doesn't sound like anyone has much to add if anything to this and again i think there's there's going to be opportunities if there's appetite to to look at this um So we'd still get an opportunity. But if anyone has any thoughts, if you could just try to get them to me by early next week, I'm going to pull together. I'm not going to change much with what I have. I'm going to pull together some of Barbara's few changes and just take another look at it at a different a few different definitions for things.

But yeah. I don't have any problem with moving forward. I'll look it over, you know, right away. I wanted to also mention if we have any metric for cumulative impacts of, you know, different uses also, I was concerned about that. That would probably be good. Yes, we have a way in for the small data centers and the small businesses, but the cumulative impacts could draw a lot of energy and water and damage also. So I think that's something that there needs to be a criteria maybe for that also. Yeah. Yeah.

So there is a section in there with data loggers to be furnished at the applicant's expense with data to be provided for the municipality to have access to. So we would have data logging capability. And that's a pretty important thing because What we've seen sometimes is that an application will come in and then it will move materially change in some way. And this kind of keeps a little closer eye on it, because it says Oh, you just went over an intensity or there's a specific traffic change that the grade at this intersection changed so that that would actually trigger something so. It's all in there if you just read it. But that's not to say it's all figured out. But also, this would have to go through planning board consistency review. So if you could maybe because I don't, I've gone through so many iterations of this, and I think it would be unfair to change a lot of big things at this point if we're going to proceed with it there will be opportunities for all of us to add things as we think of them you'll have an opportunity on planning board during review to I think put together a list of suggestions so I think that would be the best way to do it especially with one master plan is due to be finalized what June July just more like august okay so that's which wouldn't i don't think would that wouldn't be such a bad thing to make sure we get it right um but okay so gee should i present this to the are we going to send it Well, I think it comes from the governing board.

It seems like it should go through the planning board.

It would come from the governing body. And if they choose to forward it on, it would go for consistency review. Okay. So at that point, then it's going to be, is this consistent with the master plan? So I think that's why it makes sense to have Neil. you're going to have Lindsay Knight, the planner, she can look at this. I will say that a lot of the there's some setback metrics in there and I couldn't figure it all out. And so a lot of those numbers are just placeholders. But it's kind of like it's it's at least a starting point so that's where like we could talk about how to best use the planner if you guys decide to give this some attention I I think that's the best the best way before we can present it to the governing body oh so you want to just do it to master plan subcommittee first and not in concert because they're already working on something

Oh, the the council. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't watch the meeting last.

So so they're working on something. So I want to make sure if they're working on something that they have that they have other things to consider. Yeah, all right. So I was thinking we Yeah, we provide both. So that's why if you if you guys get anything to me before early next week, but I would just ask that it be small changes. And then Then you take it to master plan subcommittee and we'll ask margie to present it to the governing body great all right sounds good.

sounds like a plan. Okay, so. And over data Center that's included in this, I think they withdrew they passed they passed an ordinance. That yeah there's something.

Some sort of meeting tonight after they were just doing an overall ban. And so same thing, right? People aren't familiar with this, but they. They tried to allow data centers in the specific lot and block in Andover. Then they realized that they hadn't thought it through. So they tried to backfill regulations. Then the people of Andover and surrounding areas did not like that. So they said, we'll do a full ban. for every block and lot in Andover Township. And it had to go to consistency review for the land use board, the planning board. It went through there. I believe they had kind of what we had, which was here some details that you might think about before you ban data centers. And what I heard from those, I didn't hear all of it. was a lot of people that were there wanted to just do a complete band. So it didn't matter the scale or the intensity or anything like that. Right. And there, there is an argument to about the primary use. So the argument of, if it's telecommunications, if it's a school, if it's medical, then medical and school, like that's their primary use. So they're not data centers, but I still do see how definitions are can be sloppy and can be litigated, so that's why.

According to their definition in the ordinance?

According to the definition that I read at the last meeting, which was basically a room with networking equipment and computers. I mean, like I'm running a data center and servers. So, so I'm not, but it's, it's very shotgun approach and it needs to be, I think a little bit more surgical if you're going to do that. But I gave up because, because we looked at this all started because we were trying to lessons learned from four or five years ago and warehouses and we had the same thing where there were guidelines that were rough draft and the governing body need to adopt them and. Other things happen, but now we're here again and now it's data centers and we hear that there's four columns they seem pretty vague. I don't think that we should wait. If the state provides something great that can be incorporated later, but but we can do what we want and try, and I think that that is better. I think it's more financially sensible and I think it's. Better long term for the community to have thought about this and defined it so. But Andover just. They just had such a broad definition. And so now they are just banning it all because they're stuck on the definition. So that's the other reason for trying to do this, because if we can do this, then it potentially could be a template. for other communities. So I had shared this with some other regional communities for any feedback. Some environmental groups, I don't wanna put them on the record, but they said, you know, basically get this reviewed, see if you're, attorneys in your town your planning board attorneys have them all look at it have the planners look at it and yeah this would be something that they would support as this could be a template for other areas in New Jersey so. that's the other reason to try to push it along because there are a lot of people that are catching up on this issue they're very concerned about this issue. and We're warehouses, we also have a concern about bottling plants, we have other unknown concern so i'd rather just look at. What are we really concerned about clean air clean water safe safe streets and a viable ecosystem So how about we just focus on that and that's kind of what I heard. just because Christine wasn't here, but I listened to a webinar from data center. Alley in Loudoun County and they're dealing with the after effects and these data center corporations have very deep pockets. So just like what I'm saying with development, if we ask for what we want. And we we define kind of our concerns, then. I think that's the better way to do it because we're having that conversation from the beginning they have the resources to do it and it wasn't done in the past, quite honestly, because. The data centers were inefficient the technology was inefficient and. Maybe they didn't they didn't really consider the long term effects they didn't know the long term effects of the first, especially the first generation data centers.

agreed absolutely okay let's go down the list of the ecology education grants for bat boxes i think we can take this uh off of unfinished business because we were denied the grant so yeah same yeah unfortunately We didn't get any grants. There's a lot of competition for money right now. We can keep plugging away and looking for other grants.

Thank you, Barbara, for trying.

Yes, thank you, Barbara. Winter Salt Week.

Anything? I'm just going to be honest. I'm going to really put this off until the end of summer, early fall.

when the colder season starts or at least to early fall okay um where it's i think it resonates a little bit better okay urgency yeah okay uh you see checklist of concerns for applications yeah we can take that off too uh courtney um sparta day One person, Alex, is going to be manning the table by himself. Yeah. Doesn't everybody feel sorry for him and want to pitch in and help?

I know most of us set up for me or I was like, don't work.

We're going to have to work on coordinating this.

Margie's not here, so I'd like to recommend her. But she's going to be there, potentially.

Yes, I think she said she'd be jumping back and forth. I think so, right? Yeah, and she has tables, right? The LMPF or food sheds?

I have future tables if we need them for that date. But I, Alex, could you pick them up? I also have a canopy, which is nice to have. You could borrow, we could lend the canopy, I'm sure. And no problem. And chairs, a couple of chairs. Those are easy. And a couple of tables also.

So we can do this tomorrow? Are you available tomorrow? Or Saturday morning?

um no not saturday morning it would have to be tomorrow afternoon um i probably will be available after uh two o'clock okay um alex what's your availability tomorrow yeah i should be around in the afternoon like after let's make around like four o'clock let's make it later yeah because i just remembered that um i need to gather these things um

Let me know the time. I'm available tomorrow night, tomorrow evening.

So you would need two tables and the canopy?

Probably or maybe even one table if it's just me, right? Do I need two tables? Yeah, just one table and a canopy and a couple of chairs.

One table and one warm body.

A couple of chairs. Nick, are you around on Saturday? No. me double check real quick but i don't think i will be yeah i know this is it's a busy time for you yeah i don't want to force anything on you um so we have to get materials together uh i can we can do that tomorrow courtney i guess i can pick them up where would where would you guys be meeting You and Alex for tables.

You would be driving over to my townhouse. And I would help you load up. And then I was also going to say that on Saturday, I would try to be what time does it end at four o'clock.

Actually, I think it's five, but you don't have to buy people pack up.

Do they let you pack up.

Oh, yeah.

Early? Yeah. Okay. I could be there, like, at about 3 o'clock, just to help you with the table a little bit, you know, manning that, and then we could put the things, items back in my car. You mean on? That would save.

On Saturday?

On Saturday. Oh, good. At the very end, last two hours, I'm thinking of the event. Okay.

Okay, then where do I get the stuff from you, Neil, or from Courtney, B?

I could pick it up and bring it over so you don't have to come here. So you'll bring it to the spa today? No, I won't. I have to go to South Jersey. I won't be around. So I can get it tomorrow and bring it to you when you meet up with Chris. I'll take it to Chris's. Or I can drop it off with you.

I'm leaving early tomorrow morning, but I should be back by 2 o'clock. But you could put it on my front porch if you wanted to.

All right. Yeah, we'll need the banner, whatever materials we could. Okay.

There's probably like there were a bunch of boxes, but one was just a duplicate like with more coloring books, so you won't need that so it's probably just like the one that has all the different handouts and then like some of the coloring books and I need like all of them. Yes, and then what about the you were saying last time about the game was that ever returned to you know no we're still here, so I can pick i'll pick that up tomorrow to.

so the the game the banners and all the materials and um you need something to weigh down the the canopy in case it flies away yes yes so what what uh kim has done yeah well that here the jugs yeah filling up gallon jugs with water, have a bunch of them available, but I don't know.

I have jugs.

Oh, you do?

Yeah, I have jugs, but the problem is a lot of them still have water that I haven't used in them, but that's kind of good as long as I get the jugs back.

Are they sealed?

Yeah, a couple of them are with distilled water.

Let me just look at the weather. It may not even need the canopy. It's the highest 65 degrees on Saturday. Yeah, it may not even be necessary.

It's going to be what temperature?

A high of 65 degrees.

That's true, unless the sun, well, we want the sun, right, if it's 65 degrees.

We don't want to sit in the sun all day.

Just make it look more professional, and then we can put our banners across the back.

Right, all right. all right sounds like a plan i'll figure it out yeah the canopy is a little tricky to set up um but the people there are very helpful okay and they'll be able to help you grab an end all right and we need the location too did they did they give you uh when you registered did they tell you what where we were i

they didn't say specifically they said they had set spaces left in section b and c right yeah yeah that was they didn't really give a specific location i can email them again tomorrow if you want okay and uh what is setup time do you remember oh i can look all this up tomorrow i can't remember

So I think they want you in in there by a certain time okay. Anything else, we have to think about for a smarter day.

Maybe we've just done like a, just have a sheet of paper. If anyone wants to join our green team or fill any of the open spots on the environmental commission, you could always promote that.

Yes, we had the one we started on Earth Day, and Courtney was able to find the old list of people who signed up in the past. So I sent an email out to everybody who had signed up to ask if they'd be able to volunteer for Saturday and help, and only one person responded and said he couldn't do it. So we'll see maybe somebody will respond by in between the time. Before Saturday. Um, the environmental resource inventory, uh, the other grant that we were denied. Um, we have, uh, I asked Courtney to schedule, try to schedule the debriefing for next week sometime. Um. So whoever's available, whatever time you can, Courtney can get. And you said you're better in the morning, Chris?

Generally, yeah. Or late, you know, late in the afternoon.

They only go till three o'clock, I think so.

Okay.

and we can figure out where to go from there as far as uh maybe applying for another highlands council grant or figure out how we could we might be able to develop it on our own using yeah i don't know there are so many resources available to do it but it might be possible to See. Anything else under unfinished business or just.

want to bring it back to data centers, but the environmental resource inventory would fit nicely with kind of that conversation so that's that's kind of another reason that.

And then say we need to backfill us absolutely and it's also yeah right and also part of the master plan examination to it would be very, very helpful for that, yes, I think, with the highlands Council, though, that grant funding, it was kind of a rolling.

So I don't think we're going to have to wait a long time to find out whether we would get it or not. And I think it's pretty much you just go through the process and you have a good likelihood that you get it.

Okay.

So that's probably something we should look into.

Yeah.

Who would be in charge of doing that and filling out that request information?

Courtney, do we have a grant writer now? I know we did, and they're no longer, that person is no longer here.

Yeah, no, that person's no longer here, so I don't know who it will be.

Yeah.

That's something I'll have to, me and Michelle will have to figure out, because she was the one doing all the Sustainable New Jersey grant stuff. And I know I'll probably start taking over any of the grants that we want to get, so I don't know who's going to be our grant writer at the moment.

Yeah.

But I wonder, it already was written, right, for a sustainable Jersey, so I wonder if we can recycle good chunks of it, right, and just put it into a new application.

Yeah. Good thinking, yeah. That's a good idea.

What about the tree ordinance?

I haven't looked at that yet. I wanted to go back to that because we did talk about that at our master plan subcommittee mini meeting. I have to dig that out again.

You remember because we may not be compliant if we don't have that.

It's part of the MS4 requirements. I don't think we're compliant with MS4 yet. There's nothing on our township website and there should there would be, I think, what is the tree ordinance like what what is it.

was applied to.

tree removal and replacement.

So else was in it so well yeah I I don't know what the latest version was I think Barbara had worked on something. But. So I don't have a copy of that handy. Many towns, municipalities have kind of regulations where you couldn't just take 90% of the trees down in a property. And if you do, if they're a certain diameter, then you have to replace them with more of a smaller diameter, but many more. So that's also kind of part of that. that other ordinance and where if a proposed project would remove established trees that there's like a three to one replacement and then there's like there's some numbers that quantify if it's established by acreage and by and or by diameter of main trunk. But we would typically like and then there's some over. crossover with native plants to so we've talked about that too it's like if. With our landscaping stuff. You know, we want to do natives but then natives are known to our native. deer populations, so what are you know some. Non natives that don't spread non invasives non native non invasive so. But the tree stuff, maybe we could put that back on unfinished business. And then if Barbara's here next time, she would probably be very good to speak about that. Yes. And were you going to try to get a copy of where it was left with the township engineer? Maybe we could get a copy of... The last version of the ordinance that Barbara put together or see if it's been changed by the engineer i'll see if I can find it and i'll i'll try to find someone to apply to like we apply to homeowners like want to cut down a tree or just just project focused.

Don't recall the ordinances. But I think it does.

I've seen it or where I grew up, we had a tree warden. So, I mean, it can sound overly regulatory. So I would want to see what it is.

But a lot of townships have shade tree committees, commissions. But I think if you're

starting to get worried about like, Oh, I got these trees are 8090 years old, and they're about to fall down. I don't necessarily want to. It's not necessarily if they're like a risk, then you would obviously so yeah, and then the ashtray removal too.

Yeah.

But then, you know, when those when those canopies cut come down, then what do we replace them with? So this would be good to have guidance.

Yeah, it would be really good to have guidance. We don't want people cutting down their backyard. So they have a view. And they have done that people have done that, you know, yeah.

Clear cut their backyard and put it in the ground pool, which I saw recently.

okay i think uh unless anybody else has anything under unfinished business we can move on to a new business item which is actually old business but um in was it 2021 or 2022 we worked with the rutgers cooperative extension and they installed rain gardens of pope john um The three there are three or four. And I happen to take a spin by their last week and notice that they haven't been maintained they're just mugwort in the all over the first one there's some some things that are growing, but most of them look pretty barren so they haven't. been been maintained. I don't remember. Do you remember the environmental science teacher? I'll text her. Yeah, maybe we can start a dialogue on this because they spent money on this.

And they're finished with their AP exams now. So they will have some time. She can take them out. In fact, I'll do that right now.

Not much time. When is school out?

It's probably... I think Pope John gets out before Sparta does.

I think it's June 5th. At least that's when graduation is. I saw on the sign out there. June 5th or 6th, maybe.

That sounds right, because Sparta's out like 17th, I think, after all the finals. Sounds right, yeah. 17th, did you say?

Sparta?

Sparta, not Pope John, yeah. Yeah, so, well, if anything, you know, they can take it up in the fall.

Yeah.

We could start that dialogue.

I'll try to reconnect with her. Good idea.

I wonder if this time they work on it, they could protect it from the deer somehow, because I'm sure the deer had something to say about there not being much left there.

Well, I imagine that they put mostly deer-resistant plants.

It was a tricky spot. because this was before I was on the Environmental Commission, but I was involved in connecting the Environmental Commission with this grant opportunity for Pope John, and this site is really rocky, and we had to go down quite deep to even get the plants.

Yeah, it's the same type of stone that you'll see in the Beyondy building, just a few doors down.

It's basically a rock basin that we had to clear the rocks out to get the plants established. Wow.

yeah that i remember taking the trowel and making a little hole and trying to stuff in this this plant and just saying grow grow but um yeah there wasn't much soil development there at all i think it was all backfill to create that parking lot area yeah how prevalent is the mugwort already in there it was mostly around the edges but there was you know it was significant and and in one of them the other ones had uh

had some too, some other weeds that probably weren't meant to be there. What was that? What was her name, Chris?

Judy Loff.

L-O-F-F?

Mm-hmm.

And she's still there?

I'm pretty sure she is, yeah.

Okay. Good. Anything else under new business. I have one thing I did participate in that invasive species or native plant restoration. That was in Byram last last Friday. So I helped. Turned out to be the environment. The Byram Environmental Commission chair had organized when pulled out a bunch of barberry. It's nasty stuff. Even through my my hiking pants, my legs got awful holes. It was. It's nasty that they were had another one scheduled for this past Sunday that was rained out, but there's another one on Saturday, which is spider day so nobody can probably do that here. But i'm sure there'll be other ones and actually something that's an idea, maybe we could do some something like that and. Some of our trails.

that's an idea for very hard work.

Anybody have anything else?

I do just have to say on with our with our trails, I know like talking about Sparta Glen earlier. That is very few invasive species on it. If you walk through here, it's basically all native plants. It's really, really nice. Yeah, just one of those rare places where you don't have invasives. Just observation I've made when I've been up there. Oh, that's good. I mean, obviously there's some, but, like, you see, like... You go there in the fall, you see asters, you see goldenrod, you see, you know, I saw, when I was there last time, I saw a bunch of serviceberry bushes and trees. Obviously, large deciduous trees that are all native. Kind of a gem, honestly.

yeah I when I when we did the ribbon cutting I hiked up to the top there, and it was still the there wasn't much blooming so I didn't notice anything at that time, but I know where I mountain bike on sparta mountain some of those trails they're all overgrown with burning bush and then there's barbarian over to you.

Okay.

Unless anybody has anything else, can I have a motion for adjournment?

I'll make that motion.

Thank you, Rob. Can I have a second?

I'll second.

Christine, all in favor? Aye. Thank you.