Orange County's elected leaders agreed to form a work group next month to figure out how to expand sewer service on Rogers Road, the historically black neighborhood next to the Orange County landfill on Eubanks Road.

Neighborhood leader The Rev. Robert Campbell spoke to the Assembly of Governments Thursday night. The assembly is a periodic gathering of elected officials from Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Orange County and Hillsborough.

"For 37 years we have borne the burden of your trash," Campbell said. He demanded the group develop a timeline for funding the entire cost of water and sewer connections to those homes without them as compensation for living with the noise, dust and smell of the nearby garbage dump.

In truth, elected leaders were already heading in that direction.The town of Chapel Hill's recently completed Rogers Road Task Force report recommended an intergovernmental group be formed to come up with a funding plan.

Still, Town Council member Mark Kleinschmidt, who served on the task force, said afterward that Campbell knows not to take anything for granted.    

"I think over 30 years he's learned you don't ever stop stoking the fire," Kleinschmidt said. "I respect him for doing that. I think they need to do that." 

Most of the Rogers Road area is served with water from the Orange Water and Sewer Authority. Extending sewer to the east side of the road (the west has been annexed by Carrboro) would cost an estimated $1.3 million to nearly $4.2 million.

That doesn't count individual connection costs, which the report says homeowners would have difficulty paying. 

Leaders in the Rogers Road neighborhood are giving the town of Chapel Hill 30 days to deliver a timeline for extending water and sewer to their community.

In a petition going to this Thursday's Assembly of Governments meeting, the Rev. Robert Campbell and Neloa Jones say Rogers-Eubanks residents have "endured the negative impact of nearby solid waste facilities on the community's air, land and water environment for more than 35 years."

In 2002, the Town Council agreed to create a small area plan for the neighborhood that was to look closely at providing water and sewer. But, Campbell and Jones write, the task force has met with no action by the town or coordination with other local governments.

"Is the task force to be yet another failed effort in the long history of promises made, expectations made and resolutions denied?" they ask. 

The petition does not say how the extensions would be paid for, only that Chapel Hill should work it out with Carrboro and Orange County. The petition includes a resolution from the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association and the Coalition to End Environmental Racism that the groups ask the Town Council to adopt immediately.

Thursday's meeting begins at 7 p.m. at Extraordinary Ventures, located at 200 S. Elliott Road across from Whole Foods. Read the entire petition here.  

It appears the federal government is investigating a housing discrimination complaint in Orange County.

The complaint was filed by Robert Campbell, a Rogers Road-area resident and outspoken opponent of the county's solid waste operations at the nearby landfill. The complaint was filed against the County and Town of Chapel Hill.

A letter about the complaint was in the publicly available correspondence of County Manager Laura Blackmon. It's dated June 17, and says only that the Department of Housing and Urban Development hasn't completed its investigation within 100 days of the filing of the complaint.

There are a series of checkboxes for various reasons, and there's an 'x' next to "conduct more investigation because the information gathered so far shows a need for more investigation and analysis."

The letter also says the investigation should be finished in December, but it doesn't spell out what HUD is investigating. 

Campbell and other area residents have also filed a complaint about the county's solid waste operations with the Environmental Protection Agency.  

There's a full agenda for tomorrow night's Orange County Commissioners meeting.

There's the budget, obviously.

But commissioners will also be discussing a possible sales tax increase referendum, criteria for the county's solid waste transfer station search, the hunt for a new county attorney and joint planning with Chatham County.

There's also a public hearing on a special use permit for the Montessori Farm School project near Hillsborough.

Here's more from Monday's BOCC trash transfer station work session, followed by an earlier print version.

Alice Gordon said several times that she felt consultants Olver Inc. were focusing too heavily on the site itself and its layout, and not on how it will fit into its surroundings. Other commissioners seemed to agree.

Initially commissioners Foushee, Gordon and Nelson asked that access to utilities be given a higher priority, saying they were concerned in particular about how dirty "washdown" water will be handled. (If there's no sewer access the county would have to haul it off in tankers.) But Carey and Jacobs pointed out that making sewer access more important would make the station more likely to go near populated and developed areas. The commissioners eventually settled on a system where a site with utility access will receive a few extra points at the end of the process.

One member of the public asked about site size requirements that are currently set at 25 acres (except under certain circumstances), and whether that would eliminate the Eubanks Road site from consideration. Consultant Bob Sallach said he and colleagues hadn't looked at the Eubanks site yet vis-a-vis the criteria. "We really haven't looked at that," Sallach said. "This is being developed independently of [Eubanks]."

The board was scheduled to approve both the technical and community criteria for sites, but hadn't made a decision by the time I had to leave to make print deadline.

CHAPEL HILL -- Orange County Commissioners met Monday to work on finding a location for a solid waste transfer station.
The facility will be a building where garbage trucks drop trash to be gathered and shipped out of the county.
The commissioners talked for hours about technical criteria and community factors for sites that will determine where the station goes.
The board made a few changes to consultant recommendations, asking that bicycle routes be considered earlier in the traffic analysis, and that greater consideration be given to utility access and protected watersheds.
Members of the public asked the board and consultants Olver Inc. about emissions, environmental studies and the size of the site.
Early last year the commissioners decided to put the trash transfer station at the the site of the current county landfill, which is filling up and will close in a few years. But that decision angered local residents who say they have lived near the county’s solid waste for decades and want it to go elsewhere.
Late last year the commissioners decided to reopen the search process, and are scheduled to choose a site later this year.