Fifty people attended last night's solid waste transfer station meeting in White Cross. Five times as many crammed the Recreation Center for airport meetings. But it was cold and rainy, and there was basketball.
Several residents asked why the county was choosing to haul its future trash, a less sustainable practice than building a new landfill. They also asked why, if a transfer station is being pursued, the county is looking far from where the trash is generated, again less sustainable (in terms of energy costs).
The answer in both cases, solid waste director Gayle Wilson said, is politics. The county was unable to find a landfill site in the 1990s and decided not to put a transfer station on Eubanks Road -- land it owns close to where most of the trash is generated -- because it would have saddled the Rogers Road community with decades of more garbage.
"Been there, done that," Wilson said. "You can definitely make the argument it's not sustainable to haul your waste to another county and another state. But we tried the sustainable approach, and here we are."
So we asked some of the commissioners today whether, in light of the economy especially, they wanted to reconsider Eubanks Road.
COMMISSIONER MIKE NELSON: "I believe the Board's intent was clear, not to reconsider the Eubanks Road site."
COMMISSIONER BERNADETTE PELISSIER: "I know that folks do keep bringing up Eubanks Road as a waste transfer site. But recall that two of us three new commissioners did vote for the sites on Hwy 54. We are waiting for a report on other options in response to questions raised by community members and commissioners. I can't say what we will do until we review additional information."
COMMISSIONER PAM HEMMINGER: "I am fairly confident that the Eubanks site will not be reconsidered. The BOCC has already been down that road."
You can read more about Sunday night's meeting in Wednesday's Chapel Hill News. In the meantime, what do you think the county should do with its trash? If we get enough responses (with your full name and town or township), we'll print some of them in Sunday's paper. Thanks.
Comments
some history
Tue, 03/17/2009 - 08:34 — marcoplosIn 1992 the county commissioners & staff were looking at mega-landfill sites of 800-1400 acres in size. Not surprisingly, these huge sites impacted a lot of people. There were about sixteen targeted communities and nobody wanted a mega-landfill in their neighborhood. The public meetings were quite rowdy.
Some of us, who saw the pitfalls of having so many communities pitted against one another, organized the Orange Citizens Landfill Council which had representatives from each affected community. Our goal was to find common ground. We eventually proposed that the commissioners suspend the landfill search for a year or so while the county simultaneously devised an aggressive waste-reduction plan. We felt that this proposed process would lead to an understanding of a correctly sized landfill that would meet our needs. We believed that, with an aggressive waste reduction plan, we could site a much smaller landfill.
In fact, we proposed two small landfills. One in the north & one in the south - two small landfills that were well-designed to minimize impact on the communities in which they were sited. We also envisioned a process that worked with the communities to identify mitigation measures that would facilitate the process.
The commissioners had two key responses. First, they said that the landfill search should move forward without being linked to waste reduction. Second, they said that the Eubanks Rd. landfill would be full by 1996 and thus we had no spare time to pause the search process. Our response was 1) it's ridiculous to de-link waste reduction from the criteria for a landfill & 2) we publicized our own study that concluded that the Eubanks Rd. landfill would last until about 2003 or 2004. History proved us wrong on the 2nd contention.
So the mega-landfill search that was doomed to failure did fail. It wasn't politics: it was poor leadership. If our suggestions had been heeded, we would not be in the fix we are in today. The issue has been consistently swept under the rug until today when we are faced with no good choices.
Mark Marcoplos
Bingham Township
Someone should ask
Mon, 03/16/2009 - 16:42 — TBlake....Steve Yuhasz to publicly clarify his statement on the WTF (question 10) especally in light of his "District 2" representation. http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A252828
Seems a bit inconsistent with his vote.
Liberal idiots at an
Mon, 03/16/2009 - 15:24 — SweetsieLiberal idiots at an impasse. Good. They are lying in the bed that they have made.