Montgomery teen develops taste for solving community problems.
By: Steve Rauscher
MONTGOMERY The township Environmental Commission has added another member to its ranks of esteemed local academics and engineers, 17-year-old Montgomery High School student Dan Weber.
"It’s pretty interesting the stuff that they have to worry about there," he said over a steaming cup of tea at the Red Oak Diner. "Like detention basins, planting the right kind of trees. I didn’t think that stuff mattered, but it really does."
Told by his environmental science teacher, Jan Narayan, that he could earn extra credit by attending local government meetings, Dan ventured out on a Tuesday night in March to a commission meeting, and found it quite an eye-opener. He joined the commission in April, as part of an effort to bolster communication and cooperation between the high school and the township government.
"He fit in right away," commission member and Township Committeewoman Karen Wintress said. "He was delighted when we asked him to join and he’s been delighted ever since."
A lifetime Montgomery resident who has seen the township transformed from a quiet, rural community to a bustling suburb, Dan said he was amazed to discover the host of issues that concern the commission and the township, issues he had been totally unaware of, such as the 3M quarry’s wastewater management woes and the planned CVS-Commerce Bank shopping center on Princeton Avenue.
"It’s interesting that something like that would be going in right down the street, and you wouldn’t even know about it," he said.
When he returns to school in the fall, he hopes to share it all with his classmates, possibly with a column in the school paper.
"I’d like to see more people made aware of this kind of thing," he said. "Because it seems like it’s only us around that table that knows what’s going on."
That kind of interest is exactly what commission members are hoping to promote by involving local students, Ms. Wintress said.
"It’s critical to engage students in the community," she said. "Soon, they’ll be finishing up high school, and they’ll be voters. … This gives them a chance to see the procedure firsthand, and to learn early on how to participate in your community."
But the benefits of student involvement work both ways, she said. Since teachers began sending kids to various committee, commission and board meetings, many members have been surprised by their fresh perspective.
"They often have very good ideas," she said. "They sit down and they look at things very hard, but they’re not tied down by a sense of, ‘Well, we’ve never done things that way before.’"
Dan recalled one of his first meetings, when the commission was discussing what could be done about the massive pile of mineral fines rock dust created by the mining and rock-crushing operations at the 3M quarry that had been collecting on the company grounds and draining into local streams for years.
"And I said, ‘Well, what do they do with them at Trap Rock?’" he said. Trap Rock’s quarry in Franklin Township conducts similar operations. "And nobody knew. It was something that we hadn’t thought about before."
His recent involvement with the Environmental Commission has led Dan to consider a career in environmental law, though he has yet to make up his mind even where he will go to college next September. For now, he will concentrate on spreading the word about what’s going on in Montgomery Township to his fellow students.
"There are a lot of things going on that need to be fixed that are just no-brainers," he said. "And if people knew about them, there would be a lot more people fighting to make things better."