By Taylor Sisk, Staff Writer
Though the Orange County Board of Commissioners isn’t scheduled to vote on the county’s future solid-waste disposal options until its Dec. 8 meeting, commissioners heard plenty about one of those options at Tuesday night’s meeting.
The majority of the approximately 125 people who filled the Southern Human Services Center meeting room were present to weigh in on a proposed transfer station, and the better part of the hour allotted for public comment on non-agenda items was filled with the voices of those opposed to locating the station on Millhouse Road.
The commission will vote on whether to place a transfer station on this county-owned property (called the Paydarfar site after its previous owner) or on a previously approved site off N.C. 54 near Orange Grove Road, or to pursue a deal with Durham County to use its transfer facility.
Most of the 10 speakers expressed dismay, some anger, that a site in such close proximity (a half mile) to the landfill would be considered, given that the Rogers-Eubanks roads community, adjacent to the landfill, has endured the ill effects of the greater community’s solid-waste burden for nearly 40 years.
“They are saying they have simply had enough,†said Michele Laws, president of the Chapel Hill/Carrboro branch of the NAACP.
Laws spoke of a “foul odor that smells of racism and classism†and asked the commission to consider the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s definition of environmental justice, which states that “no group of people … should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations.â€
Several speakers, including Millhouse Road resident Kathleen Schenley, said they were troubled that the site had been submitted for consideration many months into the search process.
“My neighbors and I have watched due process be torn to shreds in the last few months,†Schenley said. “This body has ignored their own site selection criteria.â€
Mark Dorosin, an attorney with the UNC Center for Civil Rights, which has been working with residents of the Rogers-Eubanks on this issue and others, read from a letter to the commissioners, stating that pursuing the Paydarfar site “violates the intent, spirit and letter of the detailed and deliberate selection process you designed; disregards the extensive public input establishing the criteria as well as the county’s purported commitment to such input; and ignores the overwhelming racial and socio-economic disparate impacts of this site.â€
Opponents of the Millhouse site say they intend to speak at each county commission meeting leading up to the vote.
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