Waste transfer site deadline center of talks

The Orange County Board of Commissioners met late Tuesday afternoon to discuss deadlines for the waste-transfer center site search process.

Olver Inc., an engineering consulting firm hired to aid the search, presented a flow chart outlining various steps for the search process, which was re-opened in mid-November after resident complaints about the previously selected site grew.

On the flow chart, the final board vote to approve the site is set for Dec. 11. That's the date a new board will take office.

"I don't think it would be fair to ask someone to make that decision on their first night," Commissioner Mike Nelson said.

Commissioner Moses Carey said the board previously agreed that sitting members should approve the final site.

The commissioners asked the two Olver consultants to push forward the final deadline.

The board also told consultants to only consider placing the site on land that is up for sale.

The board voted to close Orange County Landfill and use the space for a waste transfer site in March.

Members of the Rogers and Eubanks roads community, which borders the landfill, labeled the board's action as environmental racism, claiming they have already endured a landfill in their backyard longer than originally promised.

When the landfill was first opened in 1972, then-Chapel Hill Mayor Howard Lee verbally promised nearby residents that no other landfills would be constructed in the area.

But as the county's population grew, the landfill was expanded and, as no official promise was made to the surrounding community, nothing could legally stop the expansion.

Resident complaints escalated in the fall until commissioners voted to re-open the search in November.

On Jan. 16 the commissioners received notification from the Environmental Protection Agency that they had been accused of violating civil rights. Other Orange County and N.C. government groups also were listed as under investigation.

But the co-chairwoman of the Coalition to End Environmental Racism, Neloa Jones, speaking on behalf of the Rogers-Eubanks community, expressed the residents' appreciation for the board's efforts in the new search.

She asked the board to consider including community, business and environmental justice organization members, among others, in its advisory board for the search.

"I am so hoping that we will sit back, take a minute, take some deep breaths and realize that these components need to be taken very seriously," Jones said.

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