Skip to content
The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen
Menu
  • Home
  • News
  • Community
  • Schools
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Obituaries
  • Sports
  • Mill
  • Flora
  • Print Archive
  • About
Menu

County considers long-term waste alternatives

Posted on January 29, 2009 by Staff

By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

The Orange County Board of Commissioners voted last week to explore long-term alternatives for solid-waste disposal as a parallel tract to siting a solid-waste transfer station.

The board also voted to create a community advisory group composed of residents living in the vicinity of the transfer station that would directly connect the impacted community with the county and Solid Waste Management.

Commissioner Barry Jacobs said he would like to investigate possible alternatives for solid-waste disposal – such as a collaboration with Chatham County, outsourcing solid-waste management to vendors or using solid waste to help power UNC’s cogeneration facility – while continuing to proceed with siting the transfer station.

Alternatives could also provide an option for transitional solid-waste disposal, should the landfill reach capacity before the transfer station is completed, board members said.

The board voted in December to narrow the search for a solid-waste transfer station site to two sites on N.C. 54 West near Orange Grove Road: a 147-acre parcel located 0.7 miles west of Orange Grove Road and a 43-acre parcel located 0.3 miles west of Orange Grove Road.

The board is under a tight timeline to site the transfer station, as the Orange County Landfill is expected to reach capacity in spring 2011. The decision to narrow the search came more than a year after the board of commissioners opted not to follow through on a prior decision to build the station at the Eubanks Road landfill.
County Manager Laura Blackmon and the county solid-waste department staff have recommended that commissioners choose the 147-acre site. The site is located next to Piedmont Feed and Seed across from the intersection of N.C. 54 and Morrow Mill Road.

Residents of the area have come out against the transfer station, saying it unfairly burdens a small rural community with the trash of more populated areas of the county. The proposed sites are far from both the center of trash generation in the county and the Interstate highways transfers trucks would need to access, residents have said.

In addition, community members have argued that the roads surrounding the proposed sites are inadequate to handle the traffic the transfer station would generate and that transfer trucks would make roads unsafe for tractors and cyclists.
Bonnie Hauser, a member of Orange County Voice, said the group had investigated alternatives to the transfer station and provided a report of its findings to the county.

“The report suggests that the county can save literally millions of dollars if we use vendors rather than build and operate our own waste transfer station,” she said.
According to the report, waste transfer stations could handle Orange County’s waste for $40 to $50 per ton, about $10 to $20 less than it would cost Orange County to build and operate its own facility, Hauser said, providing annual savings of about $750,000 to $1 million.

“That would pay, we think, for many things, including the long-promised services and amenities for the Rogers Road community,” she added. “We all agree that resources are tight, money’s limited and there’s a lot to do. We can’t afford to be sidetracked in building an expensive interim waste transfer station that we don’t need. We have better options.”

Web Archive

© 2025 The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme