Minutes - 20091207 - Laserfiche WebLink

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,~ Thank you for considering our view. Again, Orange County Voice will have no other speakers tonight but if you look around the room and in the overflow areas, residents are wearing stickers to show their support for our statement. Good luck in your deliberations and if you choose Durham, we are committed to work with you, SWAB and other community groups to get this right. Thank you. Nancy Tennison was from Orange Justice United, formerly known as Orange County Organizing Committee, said that they are composed of and supported by 38 member faith communities and non-profit organizations, and they work to improve the lives of ordinary people in Orange County. She said that Orange Justice United supports the County Manager in choosing Option B and entering into negotiations with the City of Durham to send Orange County's waste to the Durham waste transfer station. She said that this seems to be a viable short-term solution and possibly along-term solution. Richard Eckberg said that he was presenting a statement from Douglas Guile, who is an Environmental Engineer and President of Prescott Environmental Services of Chapel Hill. Douglas Guile is also a member of the Orange County Solid Waste Advisory Board. Mr. Guile could not be present and he asked that everyone attending this meeting understand that his comments do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the SWAB or of himself as a member of SWAB, but strictly are his own professional observations. He said that Douglas Guile has recently been in contact with a company called INENTECH, which stands for Integrated Environmental Technologies. The company now manufactures Plasma Arc Melter Units for the disposal of waste. Plasma arc is new, clean, non-combustion technology and converts complex organic and inorganic waste. The byproduct is sin gas, which is a mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane, and nitrogen, which is an efficient fuel for generation of steam, which can power turbines to produce electricity. In other words, these units are capable of converting trash into something useful such as power. He said that Mr. Guile has seen this in operation in the Hanford site in the State of Washington. INENTECH is now in partnership with Waste Management. The partnership is known as SR2. There will be a demo unit of this in Texas in the spring of 2010. He said that the waste in Orange County could easily be handled by two of the SR2 units. He said that Mr. Guile plans to bring in experts on this technology to speak with the SWAB. Frank Tozzolina said that he appreciated the Manager's comments about not putting money into a transfer station now because someone more efficient might be on the horizon. He agreed with looking into the plasma arc technology. He said that if all communities work together, then they can avoid the duplication of things. Laura Streitfield was from Preserve Rural Orange. She said that both of the proposed transfer station sites came from a flawed process. She said that a year ago criteria stipulated sites with a minimum of 25 acres and led the County to larger rural properties. She said that the Howell Property is 15 times larger than needed for a transfer station. By contrast, the Greensboro transfer station located on a highway sits on just 9.4 acres and can handle 1,200 tons per day of waste. She said that more recently smaller properties were added to the options without applying criteria and outside of the systematic search. She said that all communities here have concerns about environmental and community impacts and the failure to identify sustainable and equitable options. She asked the County Commissioners not to choose unsuitable sites simply to be done with this process. She urged the County Commissioners to choose the Durham transfer station and allow time to find better options,