
{"id":5285,"date":"2009-03-26T09:32:19","date_gmt":"2009-03-26T17:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=5285"},"modified":"2009-03-26T09:32:19","modified_gmt":"2009-03-26T17:32:19","slug":"the-real-facts-on-the-waste-transfer-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2009\/03\/26\/the-real-facts-on-the-waste-transfer-station\/","title":{"rendered":"The real facts on the waste transfer station"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Virginia Leslie<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Solid Waste Department, illustrates our point. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what we read:<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Wilson: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hillsborough will send 3 trucks down Orange Grove Road.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Yet 75 percent of Hillsborough\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c partly to bypass McDougle Middle School.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Mr. Wilson: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Rumors about large transfer trucks using Orange Grove Road to get to I-40 are not true.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n<p>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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s report is expected this week, with more distortions expected \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s less than 15 miles to that transfer station the costs to UNC are no higher than hauling trash to the landfill at Eubanks Road.<\/p>\n<p>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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s long-term strategy for renewable energy and sustainable waste management.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n<p>Then there is the disruption, devaluation or complete devastation to businesses, farms and residences that surround the property, which isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t included in any estimates. These \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hidden costs\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are in plain view, yet the county has not mentioned them and the press has not asked.<\/p>\n<p>But the real question \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which no one is discussing \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is: Why not search for a better site in a commercial\/industrial area and not in anyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s backyard? Why not use vendors on an interim basis until we find a better solution?<\/p>\n<p>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?<\/p>\n<p><em>Virginia Leslie is a member of Orange County Voice from Bingham Township.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Solid Waste Department, illustrates our point. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what we read: Mr. Wilson: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hillsborough will send&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5286,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5285\/revisions\/5286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}