County and towns work together to solve area's solid waste issues

Cooperation between the county and towns is the key to solving the area’s solid waste issues for the short and long-term, the Board of Orange County Commissioners said at their Thursday night work session.

The session was dominated by discussion of the solid waste work group’s recommendations for modernizing the county’s solid waste convenience centers.

Commissioners discussed the need for a new agreement between local government agencies in preparation for a shift to the transfer station in Durham.

The Durham transfer facility is willing and able to temporarily handle all of Orange County’s waste and more, said Solid Waste Management Director Gayle Wilson.

But without commitment from the towns to collaborate with the county on the solid waste plan, the county cannot move forward to begin hauling waste to Durham.

“What we need to be concerned about is the longer term,” Wilson said. “The sooner these discussions begin, the sooner we engage our potential partners, presumably the sooner we’ll get to the endgame.”

With an estimated two years left until the current landfill fills up, commissioners said they were concerned that collaboration with the towns will take too long at the current rate.

“If the past is any guide, it’s going to take a long time to work this out,” Commissioner Alice Gordon said.

She called for a deadline for the towns to join in, and Chairwoman Valerie Foushee stressed the importance of collaboration.

“We’d like for staff to move forward with engaging the municipalities to ensure we have information about what’s going forward, and how we might become partners,” Foushee said.

Thursday’s discussion followed up on a December 2009 motion to divert solid waste to Durham for the next three to five years as the county landfill reaches capacity.

The plan would be an intermediate solution and exclude the Rogers, Millhouse and Eubanks roads communities from any future solid waste facilities.

Wilson also presented a plan for redesigning and modernizing the county’s five existing convenience centers, converting the Eubanks Road and Walnut Grove Church Road locations into district centers with more hours.

The Ferguson, Bradshaw Quarry and High Rock roads facilities would become neighborhood centers with limited hours and fewer materials accepted.

A future neighborhood center is being proposed for Mincey Road.

Planned improvements include paving the center sites, adding trash compactors and expanding recycling and waste reducing facilities to handle materials like residential food waste, fluorescent lamps, textiles and cooking oil.

The improvements and recycling expansions will help the county reach its goal of 61 percent waste reduction.

The improvements will cost $2.5 million in capital initially but will lead to $221,000 in operational savings, Wilson said.

“We’re trying to make the system more efficient,” he said in an interview.

The annual cost for operating these sites will be about $2.5 million, Wilson said.

He presented two options for a household fee to raise revenue for the convenience centers in addition to the current fee for recycling: one that relies on support from the general fund and one that funds the convenience centers solely from the new fee.

The commissioners were more interested in the option that would balance the funding burden between the general fund and the household fee, which would be either a flat rate or tiered based on location.

Another problem officials have encountered is rumors and miscommunication surrounding the towns’ plans for long-term waste disposal, Wilson said.

“I don’t know any one person that actually knows what’s going on,” Wilson said.

The commission agreed to send a letter to all of the mayors urging them to consider a new agreement.

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.