By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer
Members of the Orange County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday postponed a decision on extending the life of the Orange County Landfill, saying they could not in good conscience consider an extension until a plan to mitigate the landfill’s impacts on nearby residents is proposed.
A group of residents of the Rogers Road neighborhood, UNC students and other community members blasted the board for even considering the extension, pointing to decades of false promises to and suffering by nearby residents.
Commissioner Valerie Foushee said she felt ashamed that the board had done nothing to mitigate the impacts of the landfill on the Rogers Road neighborhood during her six years on the board.
“I am so appalled that we are at this same point that we were when we established a task force … to determine what we needed to do to make it right,†she said. “I take the blame, as this unit should take the blame.
“I will not vote to extend the life of the landfill until we talk about enhancing the quality of life for the people that live in the Rogers Road community.â€
The landfill opened on Eubanks Road in 1972, with promises to the nearby historically black neighborhood that it would close in 10 years and be made into a park. Nearly 40 years later, the landfill remains open.
The board in late 2009 voted to ship the county’s garbage to Durham County’s transfer station for a three- to five-year period starting when the landfill closed in 2012, but additional capacity was found that extended the landfill’s life until 2013.
County solid waste management director Gayle Wilson told commissioners that by reconfiguring the grades on the sides of the landfill, the life could be extended until as late as March 2018. Revenues from the extension could reach as much as $11.7 million, according to county projections.
Allison Norman, president of the UNC Campus Y, led a group of UNC students urging the board to close the landfill.
“It’s just continuing racism in our county. It’s negatively impacting the quality of life of the Rogers Road residents and it will continue injustice in our community,†she said. “For 38 years, cries for justice for Rogers Road have fallen on deaf ears.
“For too long the putrid smell of racism has billowed into the Rogers Road community,†Norman said. “It’s wrong. We have a better option. We can do better.â€
Stan Cheren, a representative of the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association (RENA), presented a resolution to the board calling for the county to dedicate a percentage of landfill tipping fees to remediation for the Rogers Road community, as well as alternative methods of waste disposal that would allow the closure of the landfill.
“Long-term obligations to 37 families remain unfilled,†he said. “As the county benefits from these additional monies, it is at the cost of the quality of life of the citizens living in the Rogers Road community.â€
Board members said they would refer the resolution to their agenda review committee, which meets next week.
“This issue of closing the landfill … isn’t just about money,†said Robert Campbell, a longtime leader in the Rogers Road community and a representative of RENA. “It’s about the polluted air that makes it impossible to come out of your homes. … It’s about trash dumped at the most convenient sites when the landfill is closed.
“It’s about time that it stops. It’s about time that the landfill closed,†he said.
Sarah Hatcher, a master’s program student at the UNC School of Public Health, presented the results of a recent study by the UNC chapter of Engineers Without Borders and RENA that found 48 illegal dump sites in the Rogers-Eubanks neighborhood. Residents have said the illegal dumpsites, along with intense odors, speeding garbage trucks and polluted water, are some of the landfill’s impacts on the neighborhood that should be mitigated.
County Manager Frank Clifton urged the board not to wait on the governments of Carrboro and Chapel Hill to take action regarding the landfill and an impact-mitigation plant. Board members directed staff to develop a mitigation plan and to look at how revenues from a landfill-gas project from UNC might be used to fund mitigation.