Orange County land?ll to close, Rogers Road residents to ask county for restitution

After much waiting, Rogers Road residents expect to see Orange County Landfill close in June 2013 — and tonight, they will ask county commissioners to give them more to make up for the years their community has hosted county waste.

The Orange County Board of Commissioners will meet tonight to discuss the impending closure of the county landfill on Eubanks Road. After it closes, all waste will be transported to a Durham waste transfer station by truck.

The Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association has made several requests from the county in addition to closing the landfill, which has operated in the community since 1972.

According to agenda items, commissioners received recommendations in May from association asking the county to consider measures to minimize the long-term health effects of the landfill on the neighborhood.

Among other requests, the organization has asked the county to build a community center and to connect remaining homes to public water and sewer lines.

Mitigating impacts

Many houses in the Rogers Road community rely on backyard wells, and residents worry that seepage from the landfill could contaminate their water.

A survey by the Orange County Health Department last year found nine of 11 wells in the Rogers Road community are contaminated and don’t meet Environmental Protection Agency standards.

The county has been working to correct what has been labelled an injustice by residents and other community members. In October, commissioners confirmed they would extend water services to 67 properties in the Rogers Road community, though Commissioner Earl McKee said some non-historic homes weren’t connected.

Since the county took control of the landfill about 10 years ago, they have also built sidewalks through the historically minority and low-income Rogers Road community, extended bus lines to the area and planted trees, County Manager Frank Clifton said.

Despite the county’s past efforts to fix the problem, not all of the requests on tonight’s agenda have been well-received by county staff in their recommendations to commissioners.

“The problem the county has with some of the requests is that they are not necessarily affiliated with the landfill,” Clifton said.

The agenda states that it would not be appropriate to use money generated by a tipping fee applied to the landfill’s use to build a community center.

The staff recommendation does support funding water hook ups with landfill money. It also notes that the county and towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro could address funding and building a community center in other ways.

Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton said he hopes many of the requests pass.

“I think we owe them the sewers in the neighborhood for putting up with our garbage for the last 40 years,” Chilton said.

He said he is worried, though, that if the county funds the new sewage lines, it will inspire new development in the area that might cause gentrification.

“I hope we will find a way to preserve the affordable housing on Rogers Road,” Chilton said. “We don’t want members of the black community to feel like they are being pushed out.”

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