By Virginia Leslie
As Orange County continues to distort the facts around siting a waste transfer station on west Hwy 54, local newspapers are reporting it without question. An interview reported last week with Gayle Wilson, who leads the county’s Solid Waste Department, illustrates our point. Here’s what we read:
Mr. Wilson: “Hillsborough will send 3 trucks down Orange Grove Road.†Yet 75 percent of Hillsborough’s trash is handled by private haulers. So in fact 12 trucks will use Orange Grove Road. But the real question is not how many trucks, but how many times a garbage truck travels down Orange Grove Road each day. Will there be 24 trips? 48? More? Then add Carrboro and Chapel Hill trucks that will use Dairyland Road, past Maple View Farm, to Orange Grove Road – partly to bypass McDougle Middle School.
Mr. Wilson: “Rumors about large transfer trucks using Orange Grove Road to get to I-40 are not true.†He’s right, because the county has no idea where it will send its trash, so there has been no discussion of the transfer truck routes. If the trash goes to Virginia, certainly Orange Grove Road will be a likely route.
How much will the project cost? Even in these financially tough times, this question has not been asked. Due to intense and repeated pressure from community groups, the county has recently (after 16 months) asked their consultant, Olver Inc., to prepare a cost analysis. Olver’s report is expected this week, with more distortions expected – like inflating the travel distances (and costs) to vendor transfer stations (by using the wrong endpoints for truck routes). UNC already uses a nearby vendor-operated transfer station, and because it’s less than 15 miles to that transfer station the costs to UNC are no higher than hauling trash to the landfill at Eubanks Road.
What about waste-to-energy (WTE)? Orange County Voice, along with other community groups, has suggested that the county research options for future waste-to-energy. It is not a short-term solution and is irrelevant in a discussion of how we handle our trash after the landfill closes. But it certainly should be considered in the county’s long-term strategy for renewable energy and sustainable waste management.
For Orange County, waste-to-energy means being part of a regional solution and committing our waste stream (160 tons a day) to the project. There are even options to use WTE technology to convert biosolids to energy and get it off our farmland. These projects are too large for the county and are best handled by a professional WTE vendor or an energy company like Duke Energy who can mobilize the partnerships and deliver results.
The newest debacle is the omissions and misrepresentations that the county has made to state authorities about the environmental impacts of the transfer station. The state has no mechanism to question the county when information about wetlands or risks to endangered species and intermittent waterways are misrepresented or neglected in the county’s report. Unplanned cost overruns are expected as expensive mitigation is needed to protect the environment from a facility that it cannot, and should not, support.
Then there is the disruption, devaluation or complete devastation to businesses, farms and residences that surround the property, which isn’t included in any estimates. These “hidden costs†are in plain view, yet the county has not mentioned them and the press has not asked.
But the real question – which no one is discussing – is: Why not search for a better site in a commercial/industrial area and not in anyone’s backyard? Why not use vendors on an interim basis until we find a better solution?
The county has been misrepresenting the facts about the waste transfer station to the public for a long time. We rely on the press to help clear the smoke and get to the facts. What happened?
Virginia Leslie is a member of Orange County Voice from Bingham Township.
“How much will the project cost? Even in these financially tough times, this question has not been asked.”
“What about waste-to-energy (WTE)? Orange County Voice, along with other community groups, has suggested that the county research options for future waste-to-energy”
So, is it about the cost, or isn’t it?
This is a very confusing. I cannot believe WTE will be cheaper than a transfer station, correct?
What is your real agenda? Don’t build it in my neighborhood???
I am sorry, but that is the message I get.
Don’t build it in my neighborhood???
Is that your only real point?
Hillsborough threatens to annex or deny permits for the top sites selected by the BOCC study and the BOCC folds. Hillsborough did not want the WTS in their neighborhood!
Yet those sites were at least near the highway, near rail transportation, and nearer to at least some of the generation.
But no, you are content with shipping your trash all the way across the county to an area that does not even get trash pickup.
So who’s the one who doesn’t want the site in their neighborhood?
I live less than half a mile from the Howell property where the county wants to put the station. The problem in my view isn’t so much the station, for which they need five acres, but the fact they would purchase 143 acres (at an extortionate rate to boot) and all it would take is one flip of bureaucratic switch, and Bingo, instant landfill.
So this issue is as much about the camel’s nose in the tent as it is the NIMBY phenomenon.
Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Mebane have been literally dumping their trash on the County for decades, and now that these are large metropolitan areas that produce huge amounts of trash, that old arrangement has some serious problems. The towns have avoided dealing with the political hot potato of trash disposal for years now. However, now that the old solution is falling apart, it’s time for them to step up and deal with at least SOME of the problem themselves instead of dumping it all on the county and us folks who live out there.
Let’s face it, Orange County government is no longer representing the citizens who elected them. Some County commissioners have made a radical about face from the platforms they espoused before the last election.
For the last two years, they have been anti-democratic, and pro-developer on every issue that popped up. They’ve approved many questionable projectrs. They have been secretive and defensive about their decisions. As a group, they have made a sharp right turn, with little justification, but with loads of hypocrisy. The citizens of Orange will have to be much more assertive or we can expect nothing but toxic water, air, soil and roadways, runaway development and the loss of farms, forests and open space. CARY HERE WE COME!