The Orange County Board of Commissioners took the first steps toward closing the county’s landfill by passing a $5 tipping fee increase Tuesday night.
Revenue generated from the increase — which County Manager Frank Clifton said would be between $50,000 and $60,000 per year — will be used to fund remediation payments to the Rogers Road community that has housed the landfill for almost 40 years.
Commissioner Valerie Foushee emphasized the need for the board to move forward rather than revisit past options.
“(The Rogers Road residents) don’t have 30 more years to keep living through this,” she said. “Is it indeed that we’re waiting for them to all die off? I just can’t see continuing to stretch this out.”
Bonnie Hauser, a spokeswoman for Orange County Voice, spoke out in support of the neighborhoods surrounding the landfill with seven other residents representing the Rogers Road community at Tuesday’s meeting.
The residents, who asked the board to install connection to public water and sewer for the neighborhood, told the commissioners they would have a report on the expected costs of their requests ready in about a month.
“We are on a path to very quickly nail the specific details we need to make this right and to fund it,” Hauser said. “Let’s get it done now.”
The board encouraged the residents to also take their complaints to their town councils, but decided to take action without waiting for Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough to get on board.
“What the municipalities do is going to be what the municipalities do,” Foushee said. “The county needs to move forward with this.”