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 opts to truck trash to Durham

Posted on December 10, 2009December 10, 2009 by Staff

Millhouse Road removed from consideration for future waste facility

By Taylor Sisk, Staff Writer

“Sometimes the best strategy is to punt,” said Orange County Commissioner Barry Jacobs, and with those words he raised a motion at Monday night’s meeting that the county ship its garbage to Durham County’s transfer station for a three- to five-year period and to use that time to re-engage the county’s municipalities in developing a long-term solid waste strategy.

The commissioners were tasked to vote on whether to place a transfer station on county-owned property — called the Paydarfar site (the name of its previous owner) — on Millhouse Road 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.

Commissioner Mike Nelson asked that an amendment be added to the motion removing Millhouse Road from future consideration as a site for a transfer station, should the board later decide to construct one in Orange County. Jacobs agreed, and the motion passed 6-1, with Commissioner Steve Yuhasz in opposition. Yuhasz said he opposed the amendment because he wanted to leave all options on the table.

The Millhouse site has drawn opposition for a number of reasons, most prominently because it’s within a half mile of the county landfill. Supporters of the Rogers-Eubanks community, which is adjacent to the landfill, say that community has endured more than enough, having lived with the ill effects of the landfill for 37 years.

The N.C. 54 site also has met with strong opposition. Opponents have argued, among other things, that it’s too far from where the majority of waste is produced and too far from a major highway.

‘A long learning process’
New County Manager Frank Clifton spoke Monday night prior to the vote, listing the pros and mostly cons of each option.

“This has been a difficult process for the county,” Clifton said. “There is no easy solution.”

Clifton recommended the commissioners choose option “B,” reaching an agreement with Durham County to receive Orange County’s solid waste at the Durham transfer station off East Club Boulevard, from which it will then be sent to a landfill, for three to five years. Durham has given verbal assurance that the facility can be made available.

The public was then given the opportunity to speak. Several speakers thanked Clifton for what they deemed a fair and thorough assessment of the options. Orange County Voice president Bonnie Hauser, who has spoken on a number of occasions in favor of alternatives to a transfer station, said she felt confident moving forward with Clifton’s leadership.

Several speakers asked that Millhouse Road be removed from consideration. When Rogers-Eubanks community leader Robert Campbell spoke, a majority of those in attendance stood in support.
Commissioners chair Valerie Foushee then thanked all those who provided input throughout a search process that began two years ago.

Jacobs spoke next, saying, “We have all gone through a long learning process … we have all gone through a long listening process.”

Referring to a process that involved a private consultant and cost, at last count, $490,584, Jacobs said the commission should not be held to that process “when it yields results we can’t defend,” and that in cooperation with the county’s municipalities the commission should show “creative leadership” in developing a long-term solution.

The motion to truck Orange County’s waste to Durham, at least in the short term, then was put to a vote. The announcement that it had passed was received with a standing ovation.

Commissioner Bernadette Pelissier offered an amendment, seconded by Nelson, that consideration of a new Orange County landfill be kept on the table. Pelissier and Nelson voiced their concerns about shipping the county’s waste to another community.

“If we are concerned about trash in our own backyard,” Pelissier said, “we must be concerned about where we’re sending it.”

Nelson said it is “not consistent with our values” to ship our waste to another, likely poorer, community.
The amendment failed by a 4-3 vote.

‘A great victory’
“It feels great to know that for the past two years, with collaboration and partnering with other organizations and dialog with the Orange County commissioners, the Chapel Hill Town Council and the Carrboro aldermen, a reasonable decision was made,” Campbell said after the meeting.

“A great victory for the people,” said Mark Dorosin, senior managing attorney at the UNC Center for Civil Rights, which has been working with the Rogers-Eubanks community on this and other issues.

“This restores my faith that hard work can pay off,” said David Caldwell, a community activist and descendent of a family that’s lived in the Rogers-Eubanks neighborhood for generations. “That 6-1 sounded so good.”

Campbell said the decision to reach an agreement with Durham would give all parties involved time to mutually pursue a solution that would look into new technologies and that would be socially just and environmentally sound.

In other business at Monday night’s meeting, Foushee was re-elected commission chair and Pelissier was elected vice chair, both by a unanimous vote. 

1 thought on “County opts to truck trash to Durham”

  1. steve peck says:
    December 14, 2009 at 6:50 am

    As a community we should pause to consider how close we came to once again sending our trash to the Eubank Road area. For me that is the story here: That one of the most progressive counties in NC spent so much time and money on making a decision that in terms of justice and equity seemed so obvious. That the Rogers road community had to fight so hard and long is a testment to the racial and income inequalties that still plague our community and nation.

Comments are closed.

Web Archive

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