Charlestown Township
Environmental Advisory Committee (EAC)
Great Valley High School Library
Minutes of Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Minutes were recorded for the meeting on December 11th, 2019 at the Great Valley High School Library, 225 N. Phoenixville Pike, Malvern, PA 19355. Meeting was held from 6:05 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Attendees were Pete Goodman (Chair), Carol Armstrong (vice Chair), Veda Maany (secretary), Greg Nespoor, Richard Findlay, Daniel Walker and Meg Solomon. Supervisor Kevin Kuhn

The meeting was opened at 6:05 pm

Minutes as corrected on a motion by Nespoor and seconded by Findlay and were approved unanimously.

Reviewed of notices:

All 2020 meetings will be held in the Choral Room #154 at the GV Middle School except for January 8 which will be held in the Middle School Library

Due to the Schools closing on April 6th our monthly meeting will be held on the 15th of April.

Our Reorganizational meeting will be held during the January 8th 2020 meeting. – Solomon will commit to 3-year term, Findlay will remain until a replacement is found before he moves.

Fri December 13– residential stormwater management policy forum meeting.

Audubon Birdtown – on hold until Audubon re-commences program

Green Business Award: Armstrong has selected a few businesses to approach.

Turnpike Sound Walls: No updates.

Adelphia Gateway: No updates.

Riparian Buffer project – Pigeon Run on Brightside Farm Park: Due to last BoS meeting cancellation Armstrong and Goodman will present for BoS approval at next meeting. There is the issue of using cages verses tubes. Since we want to avoid using plastic materials, we choose to use cages. This will require weekly maintenance of cages for at least 2-3 years- Armstrong will commit to this maintenance with some assistance of other EAC members. Goodman is awaiting final response to our application to the PECO Green Region (bonus round) grant with maximum of $10,000 which will go towards the riparian buffer project.

Community Education events: Armstrong presentation “Impacts of Plastics on Our Environment and our Bodies” to be held on January 28th, 2020 in the Great Valley Middle School Choral room at 7 pm.

We need an outreach coordinator to advertise the talk– we have a list of different organizations to contact.

For future presentations: Trees (Findlay) or compost (Solomon) for spring talk and stormwater (Nespoor) for fall.

Other ideas on the list:

Charlestown riparian buffer ordinances and consistency with State Code – still working through the documents and proposed changes that will be presented to the planning commission. This may happen sometime after January 2020.

Volunteer List – Solomon and Findlay opened the discussion with two questions: what message will result in maximum engagement and what technology is best suited to accomplish this. The township website linking to our page needs to have content- there is nothing there. We can use this page to load our live presentations and other information. Solomon has met with our webmaster and reports we don’t have a database. We also don’t have a Facebook page. There are companies we can contract with to send blast texts. Chester County has an app- we can find out who owns it and discuss how we can get on there. Findlay will redo our signup sheet to track how residents get their notifications.

DCNR Pollinator Habitat program Project Wingspan for Brightside Farm – no updates – we are still awaiting their response to our application.

Assign township newsletter articles for January 15 deadline– Armstrong will write a small article about her upcoming talk. Findlay will refresh last year’s article on roadway salt– there is some new information to add.

Water Resources Authority in Chester County – The county is redoing their water plans which requires a comprehensive plan that will tie into Landscapes, the County’s comprehensive plan. It will address how the county uses water over the next 20 years. This ties in with upgrades of the Act 167 (stormwater management) plan. At this time the county is asking for community input. Goodman collected EAC members input and compiled it to submit to the questionnaire. Goodman will send out to EAC members to review with Walkers added comments before he submits by end of the year. Armstrong also suggests attending open seminars to give your input- last public meeting is Thursday 12/12.

Discussion of Joint Meeting and follow up — we are all happy with our joint meeting and sharing of our ideas. We are looking forward to future collaboration.

Meeting adjourned at 7:30 pm.