Politics & Government

BH One Step Closer to More 'Green' Money

Sustainable Jersey makes Berkeley Heights ninth Garden State municipality to earn "silver certification" status, which makes it easier to find grants to promote environmental programs.

Improving the environment is at the top of the to-do list for residents in Berkeley Heights.

Their efforts are now paying off, with the township having just received the Silver-level certification from Sustainable Jersey, a state non-profit that supports community efforts to improve the environment. The certification could lead to additional grants for green efforts in the township.

Tahirih Smith, Program Resource Coordinator for Sustainable Jersey, presented the Silver plaque to the Township last Tuesday. The Berkeley Heights Environmental Commission, which spearheaded the effort, completed and documented 32 of a possible 118 tasks for 375 points (with a 350 point target), making Berkeley Heights the ninth out of 556 municipalities in the state to achieve Silver certification.

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“We’re very, very proud of Berkeley Heights. You are a model community for the rest of the cohorts in this round, having engaged your Environmental Commission, your Green Teams and your community in the making of a better future for us,” Smith said.

Mayor Joseph Bruno thanked members of the commission, who, he said, are always trying to do more on a “shoe string budget. To attain this level is really a milestone and shows our concern for the community and the environment.”

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Leonard Berkowitz, co-chairman of the Berkeley Heights Environmental Commission, said that the Silver-level designation was an honor, a milestone and recognition for a lot of volunteers in town.

Berkeley Heights originally received Bronze Certification in 2009 with 160 points, against a target of 100 points, Berkowitz said. This time around, it was a group effort from commission members, town residents, seven Green Teams, council members and the Board of Education that led to this higher certification.

“I was chairman last year and we discussed what it would take [to reach Silver Certification],” said Berkowitz, who has been involved with the commission for 11 years. “I laid out what I thought we’d have to accomplish and it looked like it was going to be very challenging but everybody said ‘let’s go for it.’ We also have two town council members who sit on the commission, Kevin Hall and Edward Delia.”

The program is voluntary, but achieving any type of certification with Sustainable Jersey is not easy. 

Each municipality that is certified, either at the Bronze-level or Silver-level, must submit documentation to show it has completed a balance between taking the program sustainability actions and meeting the points required.

Typically, a town will select 10 to 12 actions from a potential list of more than 117 actions that include areas such as a commitment to environmental stewardship, community gardens, supporting local businesses, conservation of energy and water, and waste reduction and recycling.

In addition to reaching the required points, each community has to create a Green Team and select at least two (for Bronze-level) or a minimum of three (for Silver-level) of the seven priority actions that include energy audits for municipal buildings, a municipal carbon footprint, a sustainable land use pledge, a natural resource inventory, a water conservation ordinance, a fleet inventory, and/or Energy Star Portfolio Manager.

The seven green teams in Berkeley Heights, which consist of 2 to 6 members each, are: Energy Conservation, Green Building Practices, Transportation, Water Usage, Solid Waste and Recycling, Tree Canopy and Open Space and Green Purchasing.

“We started organizing green teams back in 1959 before the Sustainable Jersey program started and then the program started and we got Bronze Certification early on,” Berkowitz explained. “We built on some of the things we did for Bronze and we must have done 30 different actions that we had to complete with the help of our Green Teams.”

The Board of Education pitched in and worked hard on the energy conservation in the schools and they reduced energy usage considerably, Berkowitz said, while the Municipal Government audited “all of the municipal buildings for energy conservation, gas and electric, and to start implementing energy conservation measures in all of the buildings, such as like high efficiency lighting and programmable motion sensors.”

Berkowitz said some of the documentation submitted was “harvested” from the positive efforts made by other organizations in town, including the YMCA, Summit Medical Group, League of Women Voters, and a Girl Scout Group.

The commission sent all documentation to Sustainable Jersey last December. But they didn’t receive the certification easily or right away.

“About a third of the things we submitted they rejected because we needed to document more carefully what we had done,” Berkowitz said. “We had done the things, but there are very specific requirements with how you document things. For instance, the council passed a resolution. We sent a copy of the resolution but they wanted a copy of the resolution officially signed by the township clerk. It’s just paperwork but… they wanted maps to show where we planted trees. We had photos of the trees we planted and a description, but they wanted a full project report and maps to show where the trees were located, things like that.”

After receiving a poor report card, the commission only had a couple more weeks to gather the necessary documentation and send it back to the expert reviewers at Sustainable Jersey. Luckily, everyone on the commission and a few other residents pitched in to get it all together on time, Berkowitz said.

“It was a real last minute team effort so I was very excited when they told us we made it,” he said.

While Sustainable Jersey hasn’t specified what would be required to obtain Gold-level Certification yet, Berkowitz is confident they eventually will and he imagines commission members would go after the Gold-level Certification in the future. For now, they are simply enjoying their recent accomplishment and continuing with tasks for the next re-certification.

“The certification lasts for three years and if you want to be Silver again, you have to continue to do some of the tasks. For example, one task is community outreach and education, and you have to do that pretty much every year and document what you’ve done. You don’t get credit for something you did four years ago,” he said. “I think we’d continue doing most of the things but we haven’t discussed it. We’re just enjoying getting awarded the Silver.”

With Silver, the commission is now eligible for grants to continue their efforts.

In the last few years, Berkowitz said the commission received $30,000 in grant monies for tree planting, evaluating the township’s tree situation and working on the Passaic River Park.

He said the town also received close to $100,000 in grants for Energy Conservation.

“This is the start of a journey, it’s not the end,” Berkowitz said. [We] hope to be doing more in the future.”


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