Township of Long Hill
Environmental Commission
Regular Meeting Minutes
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
1. CALL TO ORDER AND STATEMENT OF COMPLIANCE
The Environmental Commission (EC) of the Township of Long Hill, in the County of Morris and State of New Jersey convened in a regular meeting at the Municipal Building, 915 Valley Road, Gillette, New Jersey on Wednesday, February 15, 2006 at 7:00 p.m.
The Chairman, Mr. Len Hamilton, called the meeting to order at 7:12 p.m. He read the following statement:
Pursuant to the requirement of Chapter 231 of the Public Laws of 1975, adequate notice of the meeting including the time, date and location was posted on the Municipal bulletin board; the Echoes-Sentinel and Courier News were notified of the 2006 Meeting Schedule sent to them on January 1, 2006. This agenda was emailed to the Deputy Clerk on February 12, 2006 for posting.
2. MEETING CUT-OFF
Announcement is made that as a matter of procedure, it is the intention of the Environmental Commission (EC) not to continue any matter past 9:30 p.m. at any regular or special meeting of the commission unless the members, then present, pass a motion to extend the meeting to a later specified cut-off time.
3. ROLL CALL
The Chairman called the roll as follows:
Present: Len Hamilton, Chairman, Michael Bergen, Vice-Chairman, Bruce Meringolo, Member, John J. Walsh, Member, Scott Soldan, Member, Bill Hopcraft, Township Committee Rep., Joan McCloskey, 1st Alternate, Alexandra Hennessey, 2nd Alternate
Absent: Olga Neville, Member
4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
The Organizational and Regular Meeting Minutes of January 18, 2006 were read. The Organizational Minutes were approved by Joan McCloskey and Bruce Meringolo. The Regular Minutes were approved with corrections by Mike Bergen and Jack Walsh. The EC unanimously voted to approve minutes.
5. PUBLIC QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS
The meeting was opened to the public for questions or comments. Mr. Dennis Sandow entered the meeting at 8:08pm.
At 8:55 pm the floor was opened to Mr. Sandow who spoke about the stormwater plan (or the potential lack of) for the new Township Municipal building. He indicated that he had searched through many of the old records in the construction files and that one of the early sets of drawings appeared to have some underground detention facilities indicated. In the later drawings, all of these had been eliminated and the stormwater runoff was simply collected into a series of storm sewers and routed through underground pipes to two outfalls at the south end of the parking lot. Mr. Sandow listed several examples of parking lots in both Long Hill and neighboring communities that have obvious detention basins associated with them and questioned why the Township parking lot had none.
Mr. Sandow also noted that during the construction phase of both the Town Hall and the library that there seemed to be a negligence in terms of maintaining silt fences and other erosion control methods. In searching through construction records, he found only one document, which he described as an informal and undated note, from the Morris County Soil Conservation District indicating acceptance of the soil erosion control plan.
Mr. Sandow also spoke about the incident involving an unknown contractor who allegedly graded the soil behind the library and pushed a pile of dirt over the catch basin causing a problem with water drainage. This incident occurred over the Thanksgiving 2005 holiday weekend and has not yet been corrected. He urged the Environmental Commission to seek clarification of this matter because the soil now is blocking one of the outfalls and is also likely to be illegal fill within the flood plain of the Passaic River.
The Environmental Commission agreed to bring these matters to the attention of the Township Administrator and the Township Committee and will also study the plans to determine some possible retrofit solutions to stormwater problems.
6. SECRETARY’S REPORT
·Follow-up with Planning and Zoning for upcoming meeting hearing dates. All dates have been updated in this Agenda.
·Letter sent to the Board of Adjustment with EC comments on Monty.
6. SECRETARY’S REPORT cont’d
·Letter sent to the Board of Adjustment with EC comments on Anastario .
·Letter sent to the Board of Adjustment with EC comments on Wallace, Deatly & Priestman.
7. CORRESPONDENCE
·Letter of Referral- Application 05-14Z, Block No. 13107, Lot No.1, 85 Maple Avenue, Stirling; Applicant: Schaan; proposal: 2nd floor addition to single family home. Meeting Date: 2/21/06. A letter will be sent to the Board of Adjustment with EC comments prior to the hearing date of 2/21/06. Closed.
·ANJEC announcement for workshop on Training to Protect Natural Resources: EC has no comment at this time. Closed.
·Information packet from ANJEC on Smart Growth Assistance Grants: Discussion held, Alexandra will research, review and report findings back to EC. Open.
·Request for article for Spring Newsletter from Deputy Clerk: Alexandra and Len will work on an article and forward to Deputy Clerk by Tuesday am. Closed.
·Warren Township EC Minutes from 12/6/2005 & 12/20/05. EC has no comment at this time. Closed.
·Flyer for low cost trees from Morris County Soil Conservation District: Copies made and distributed to all EC Members. Closed.
·ANJEC seminar notice re: Tree Threats! Distributed to all commissioners. EC has no comment at this time. Closed.
·Renewal of Freshwater Wetlands Statewide General Permit numbers 1, 13, 14, 16, & 17, from Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge: Distributed to all EC Members. EC has no comment at this time. Closed.
·Board of Adjustment Agenda for 2/21/06; EC has no comment at this time. Closed.
·Discuss reintroduction of stormwater elements of Ordinance 183-06 with revisions. Each member will review and comment on current Ordinance. Open.
·Stormwater discussion with Dennis Sandow. See item #5 above. Closed.
8. STATUS REPORTS
·Environmental Assessment Form: Discussion held. Mike Bergen showed examples of progress made to date and requested feedback. Open.
9. NEXT MEETING
The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Environmental Commission will be Monday, March 20, 2006 at 7:00pm.
10. ADJOURNMENT
A motion was made to adjourn the meeting by Bruce Meringolo and second by Michael Bergen. Upon proper Parliamentary procedures, the regular meeting of the Long Hill Township Environmental Commission did duly adjourn at 9:30 P.M. by unanimous vote.
Respectfully Submitted,
Karen Shear, Secretary Environmental Commission
