July 16, 2025, Planning Board Special Meeting Transcript - WEHI

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 31 one type of rock. They also didn't include a discontinuity that was created from the wastewater utility line. There's a utility line that runs at the toe of the downhill slope. I went back to some aerials, historic aerials, and you could see that the utility was installed either 1995 or before that. It's from, I think the photograph was '86, there was nothing there and then in '95 you could see the remnants of what was cleared to install the wastewater pipe. What that does is when you excavate that out they're actually creating more of a weak point on the toe of that slope because now it's an area that's not native, it's not in situ, it was backfilled. Likely because it's not in an area that is supposed to support structures. That trench was probably just simply backfilled. I mean, they might have had to put all the requirements for bedding materials and things like that, but when they started getting up to grade it wasn't like they were required to support a road or a building or anything like that. So the backfilling is probably backfilled less than the optimum potential compaction that it could receive if they were building a structural support on it. What that does though is it creates a weak point all the way across the toe of the slope. That could be a failure location where a slope failure

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 32 could actually initiate within the trench. They also talked in the report about decomposed rock being a maximum seven feet. When you look at the boring logs, it is significantly more than that. Especially those borings that go down 50 feet and could not collect a core, but were able to drill through with the drill bit. Doesn't mean there wasn't bedrock there it just means it was so highly weathered that, like I said before, they couldn't collect the split spoon because it was, the material was to course to be collected in the split spoon but it was so broken up they couldn't collect any rock samples. They also dismissed the risks associated with the landslide class B-3 that's localized in the area directly below the building and the slope. When you look at the mapping for the hazard classification landslide class B, when you look on Page 5, it's at the -- go down to Page 5, please. MR. AFRAN: Maybe while he's looking that, it is kind of hard to see. MR. FAGAN: Is this the page that you need? THE WITNESS: No, that's Page 1. There you go. It's little hard to see, but when you look at this, when you look at a Class III on this, it's

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 33 basically under B on the second line, on the second row down, you can kind of barely see it on the screen, but the top row is A, the middle row is B, and the bottom row is C and below that there's a higher groundwater, they also have different classifications of a hazard. This sites been identified as a Hazard Class III. Meaning it has a, basically a moderate potential for landslide activity. Now, according to the Langan report they went out and looked at the outcrops, they differentiated the slope stability from rock falls and said, since the rock was fractured and leaned into the slope that there was less of an ability for a failure to occur and therefore we should not consider this an issue. However, when you look at the boring logs and the deteriorated state of bedrock in this location, I would believe that this hazard classifications definitely warranted and they're putting a building right on top of it and they're going to be -- and the slopes going to be right there. So that's a big concern of mine. So I really feel that the stability analysis was inadequate to asses the condition of the subject soil for the proposed building. The parameters used only reflect the most competent locations above the top of the slope in the

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 34 investigation and not the grade of bedrock and these are conditions that were found in the middle of the slopes. And by also leaving out the impact of subsurface and utility line and the less competent Feltville Formation provides an unrealistic evaluation of the site provides a false sense of security subject for proposed Building D to be constructed. One of the things I also wanted to point out is when I heard the testimony on June 30 they were talking a lot about blasting and whose responsibility was it to control blasting. Now, I see there are two parts when you're dealing with blasting. There's the part of public safety and safety of the workers. So when you're blasting making sure nobody gets hurt, you know, materials don't fly. You know, there's not -- they're using the right kind of blasting blankets and that they're doing controlled blasts. It does not -- that is the state regulations that cover this and that's what I believe is discussed at the last Planning Board meeting. However, in accordance with the IBC code, the International Building Code, which New Jersey has adopted, you're actually -- it doesn't -- you're required to actually review and approve all the engineering before you go out. Which means, I think at the Planning Board level, I think you need to be

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 35 comfortable that this building is not going to cause a destabilizing effect. Not only for the residents of that proposed building but also for the residents downhill in those neighborhoods that are potentially subject to if a landslide were to occur. And so the approval of this blasting and saying that the state regulations cover that does not absolve the applicant or the Planning Board from really looking into this and making sure you're comfortable with what is being proposed here. It has to be realistic. Right. So that's where you need to really look at that. MR. PLOCKER: And I'm going to object to that. The applicant does not dispute that it must follow the rules, regulations and work with this town. But that issue is not an issue for this Planning Board to consider pre-approval. MR. AFRAN: The witness -- CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Mr. Afran is speaking. Let him speak. MR. AFRAN: The witness very clearly has spoke to the inadequacy, in his opinion as a professional engineer in his field, to the, of the testing that relies on falsely competent rock figures as opposed to the actual unstable figures.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 36 MR. PLOCKER: No, that goes further than my objection. MR. AFRAN: Let me finish. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Let Mr. Afran finish then you can reply. MR. AFRAN: Therefore it's quite clear from his testimony that by undervaluing the decomposed rock structure -- CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Let me make -- MR. AFRAN: My point is only this. It is relevant for him to raise in that context the question of blasting and how it will impact the site. That's my point. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Let him finish, Mr. Plocker. MR. AFRAN: Mr. Goll, you could address that. I'm sorry. MR. PLOCKER: He made certain collusions, we may disagree with them, we may bring a witness back to contest that. My objection dealt solely with the regulations of blasting. And I will repeat, there are regulations, we will work with the town, the state whoever we have to work with to comply with those regulations and do rock removal safely. That's always been our position and it's our position here tonight.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 37 However, I believe the witness did not say he was a land use lawyer or an expert to what is within and not within the purview of a Planning Board. And my objection rests solely to the comment made by the witness that the planning -- this is something a Planning Board must consider in connection with an approval. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Fair enough. We will review all the information with our legal advisors and our experts and I understand what you're objection is and I understand your comment. Go right ahead. A. I'm sorry and let me clarify. Counsel is correct, it is regard specifically to the state rules regarding safety of blasting. What I was stating was that's separate and apart from reviewing an application following the engineering requirements for the immediate and long term stability of such an operation. So if you're blasting, is it designed in a way and control, is there a control or a operational plan that's going to be clearly overseen. I can tell you from my experience going from blaster to blaster it depends on the company, on their approach. For example, there's a bridge we did down in, down in Hunterdon County in West Amwell, there was a bridge crossing and they were supposed to blast -- well, the contractor was supposed to blast to get down

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 38 to competent rock so that they could then lay a foundation on it. Well, the blaster thought he was doing our client a favor by over blasting so that the excavator could then go in and dig deeper and it was just easier to take it out. Except what happened is they over blasted. Meaning they completely eliminated the structural strength of that material underneath and they had to go in and retrofit. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: Do you belive that blaster -- THE WITNESS: What I'm saying -- CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: No, we're not going to hear any more about that. Let's focus on this application here. THE WITNESS: I am -- CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: That's opinion. That is not pertinent here. That's somebody else's application. MR. AFRAN: Well, he's explaining why, if I may, why -- CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: This is opinion about another site. Focus on this site and information relative to this. But could it be done in the future by somebody else who is or is not doing something in relation to what they think is extra, not here, right now.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 39 MR. AFRAN: Well, if I may just reserve a point that in his opinion as an expert is not limited only to looking at this particular case. His concerns that instability obviously drawn on his experience overall. That's why we bring experts here. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: If somebody doesn't follow appropriate standards, apparently what he's saying. Here we are not there yet. We don't know who's going to be doing it and we don't have the plan in front of us. We're going to surmise that they're going to be done within the right way to do it. MR. AFRAN: Mr. Bagoff, with respect, I don't think you have a legal right to make that statement. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: The statement is, let's focus on this area and this application and not what somebody else did. There maybe -- and there are many people and I will ask you as an expert, do other people do it correctly? Do other people do blasting correctly. THE WITNESS: Yes, if they're overseen, it's not an outside agency, but they're overseen -- CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: That's fine. So both sides heard correctly, in his opinion and people are blasting incorrectly, in his opinion. MR. AFRAN: My concern actually goes back to

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 40 what happened at the last meeting with Mr. Seel. And that is the Chair repeatedly gave assurances to the public that you can rest assured that the officials will be making sure the rules are adhered to and therefore there's no problem. And with respect Mr. Bagoff, you made repeated statements that there won't be a problem because we have rules. It's not for the chair to address an opinion of that nature. And you did it again just now when you said, well, we don't have to worry about what happened there because we know the rules will be adhered to and if they're adhered to there won't be a problem. It is not for you as Chair to say that. You're not an expert in the field and at the last meeting you said it repeatedly. CHAIRMAN BAGOFF: I did not say anything about rules. I said there's two sides to that. One is he testified that in another site something was done awry. And I asked him as an expert are there sites where everything's done perfectly, absolutely reasonable. I didn't say who did what, I said somebody that did something in his opinion blasting at sites are not done correctly and there are sites where blasting is done correctly. That's all I wanted to bring out. So both opinions are his as an expert so it could be done well. Or maybe not. That's the future not right now.