Environmental Advisory Committee

Agenda for the Environmental Committee Meeting Date: Monday, September 28, 2020 1. Opening – Chair Jeanne Guderian (Vice Chair David Brizzolara) “This meeting, which conforms with the OPEN PUBLIC MEETINGS LAW, CHAPTER 231, PUBLIC LAWS OF 1975, is a regular Environmental Committee meeting. Notices have been filed with our local official newspapers and posted on the Municipal Bulletin Board.” 2. Roll Call – Chair Jeanne Guderian [X] Dritan Xhillari DX; [ ] Boniface Kiamue BK; [ ] Angel Nass AN; [X] Dave Brizzolara DB [X] Norel Blundo (secretary) NB; [X] Jeanne Guderian (chair) JG; [X] Chris Montana (council liaison) CM 3. Public Forum – Chair opens/closes depending upon attendees. – Community Garden Cathy Harrington Update and water tank solution? i. reached out to Emerson to discuss the water tank problem to see how they watered their plots. They have a water line with a spigot and a sprinkler system that runs 3 times per week. Comparable size garden. They do have a 55 gallon tank to supplement sprinklers. Water to garden is turned off in October. Generally, in Westwood, you can use the garden until early November, plots cleaned out by mid Nov. Depends on weather. ii. Chris sent a note to Rick. Rick was concerned with hose breaking, but can put a timer and line to sprinkler that covers the entire garden. Reasonable solution for next spring. Will put $1,000-$2,000 into the budget for next year to take care of this. iii. Issues arise when one or both tanks stops working; garbage cans were added and additional pick ups have helped 4. Passing of the Meeting Minutes – Chris Montana; Zoom meeting recordings? – Chris said meeting minutes is available upon request 5. Council Liaison’s Report (Chris Montana) – Nugent Park looking really nice from Zachary Kemp; needs to figure out how to get his plants watered - Really a good start to what the team is going to be doing down the road - Nugent’s sister wants to plant a tree in honor of her brother; 2-3 ft Norfolk Pine; need to check about the species; but likely just let them plant it. In future check on tree species; loop in shade tree commission. - Dave - Nugent park could be a bunch of scout projects that the EAC facilitates with phases - Chris – we should invite scout masters to future meetings - Jeanne - Should be more publicly acceptable as well - Norel - Put it out to girl scouts and other non-scout groups - Dave - Could advertise on borough website - Jeanne - Can Boswell do the engineering on this instead of Rutgers? Chris to check - Earth Day clean ups at Musquapsink Brook at end of Fourth Ave and also at Meadowbrook Park by ballparks 6. Old Business 1. TREX Reusable Bags Program: Jeanne update? o still no collections o Norel – Shoprite has started the collections again o Jeanne – one day goal should be to have a curbside pick up o Chris – this isn’t probably realistic 2. Recycling Initiatives: Single Stream vs Multi Stream; positives and negatives o Plastic bags have value o Cardboard is valuable o Plastic recycling isn’t great; o We should probably educate public better o Murphy signing law for plastic bags and paper bags, but not for Styrofoam and other things that people think can be recycled o If everything goes to landfills anyway, why are we asking them to recycle? o Dave can get HDR employee in to discuss this topic o What can WE do as a town? We can change the collection part, but not the processing part of plastics o Also comes down to education; let’s piggyback on the recycling calendar and use that as education and advertising o Need to look at current contract with recycling o We need to look at what we are doing today and shape the policy for the next few years; it would be a start, but it isn’t going to be perfect. Incremental change is something to strive for in phases o Chris to coordinate with Erin Collins and/or Erin Collins to attend an upcoming meeting to discuss the state of Westwood’s recycling program and share what they learned from the workshop with our current recycling contractor 3. Nugent Park: Zachary Kemp Scout Project; Future scout projects and initiatives to alleviate our potential budget issues and some of the logistical issues? 7. New Business - Update on the initiatives discussed at July meeting: Norel (pollinator gardens in front yards) or Dritan (rooftop solar/wind) o Dritan – there are local companies in NJ with vertical turbines that range for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars; wants to talk to a company to see if they want to sponsor something with us as a pilot project; could power an electronic message board; committee would like Dritan to pursue this; we want to pitch this to the company as we want to be pioneers in this; Dritan to report back to us in a month; Chris can talk to the town about spending money to get something in a high visible area. Solar – talk to Jodi Murphy’s brother; Chris really want to get panels on one of the town buildings o Norel – doable concept to take empty spaces and plant the right perennial plants; pick a good spot on public lands; identify some areas where plantings could be and offer seminars to educate private land owners. Example – right at the back of the library parking lot in front of the fence is a small plot of grass that could be vastly improved. Orphaned properties in town are another place where this could be an option. Doesn’t take a lot of space; Chris to get Norel a list of the orphaned lots; we could get guidance for what should be the best plants. 8. Anything Else?  Adjourn: Next meeting October 19, 2020