Environmental Commission Minutes

March 12, 2008

Attendance: Kevin Edwards (Chair), Oliver Turner, Cathy Harvey, Corey Nachshen, Todd Terhune, Phil Notestine, Tom Carr, Richard Urankar (Council liaison), Khizar Sheikh, Murray Robertson Total = 10

Non-Attendees: None

Call to order – 7.35 pm

Welcome Richard Urankar

Approval of minutes

Kevin moved for approval of February minutes; seconded by Cathy

Goal Updates

1. Riparian Buffer Ordinance

General discussion and update on Riparian Buffer ordinance, with particular review of section 5. EC advised to send the draft ordinance to council for review.

Kevin - Motion to finalize with corrections – seconded by Tom

Action Item:

1. Kevin – to submit current document to council

2. Environmental Resource Inventory (ERI) and Deer Survey

Review of ERIs, grant application, next steps, maps and alternatives, and firms solicited.

Discussion on how this is to be funded. No feedback from the council on the 2008 budget – there may be no budget, therefore no ANJEC matching grant. How do we best use our funds – if we have any?

Kevin – Corey works for an Environmental Consulting firm called Dewberry based in Parsippany. They presented an ERI update proposal for approximately $12,000.

Discussion of the questions; why are we doing this? who are the end users? why don’t we do it right? and can we get or do we have council backing?

Tom The files from the last ML ERI (1979) were OCR’d by Ellen Emr’s son. We don’t know were these are now. Tom also shared hard copies of the 1994 report – by Richard P. Radis. Tom has a copy of some of the historic ML EC ERI data and related docs on CD. Oliver copied the CD to his laptop.

Other points of discussion included whether we can put together a subcommittee to complete the ERI? and does it need to be done this year? We discussed the possibility of selling advertising space from local vendors, printing the ERI and selling it, (so that it ends up on people’s coffee tables?) to fund the project in absence of public funds.

Additional thoughts: Will high school students be able to work for us as community service hours? We need someone to look into this.

Kevin - Motion to accept that we can’t do the ERI this year and use $2500 earmarked for other uses (e.g. ‘potential’ EC funds for geese control) to generate GIS maps plus OCR scanning of previous document – 1979.

In favor – 9/10

Against – 1/10 not convinced that a GIS map will be worth while.

Phil - No budget for deer survey

Discussed that we in fact only need to do a survey every 5 years – data from Dave Helmer - Executive Director. Morris Co. Parks Commission

Action Items:

1. Phil – Approach Sandy Batty to get her thoughts on ERI

2. Kevin – Fauna for the ERI to be discussed at the next meeting

3. Richard – Check what the ‘potential’ $2500 for the EC is to be used for - ERI or not?

3. Well Head Protection (WHP)

Corey – Very close to setting up a meeting with Denville EC to understand how Denville WHP affects ML.

General comments

Nominations for EC liaison:

· Lakes committee – Will welcome an EC member to their meetings

· Planning board – Kevin proposed Brian Marshall – Brian, would like to help, but has not the time. Planning board needs a member who liaises with EC. Look at zoning issues as they relate to Mountain Lakes. Need to go to classes - to study the laws. One meeting a month.

Black bear seminars

Kevin - Free seminars for public education. No volunteers to take this on. Phil will discuss with Woodlands commission whether they will take this on.

Highlands’s committee meetings

Cathy – Report of recent meetings. Mountain Lakes will be designated as a Lake community. No need to adopt the plan but probably will.

Public Comments

None

The meeting was adjourned at 9.28pm

Next meeting April 9th at 7.30pm